Bunch of Arse -nal

They say football is all about the highs and lows - now let me tell you *waving fist in your general direction* - 2004 has been a complete waste of a year in terms of Newcastle United (maybe with the exception of reaching the semis of the uefa cup. Anyhoo, the last couple of games have been dross - please - someone - tell me - how can you play a central defender on the right and a right back in central defence AND the same in midfield - just chaos all over again. We are now playing like the dalglesh era - aka - getting up to their box - bricking our pants and punting it back to the keeper - and starting all over again. Like I say, if you're a geordie and support the toon, then you'll know its been a bad time lately. When Sky billed the Newcastle v Arsenal game as last game of 2004 three things sprung to mind;

• whitewash
• shambles
• Where's my Carling Rich ?

Anyhoo, it turned out to be a good game, entertaining and more importantly - passionate and Newcastle playing for a little bit of pride for a change. Yea yea, we have Shearer injured, Kluivert out, blah blah, its still not excuse for people raking in 20/30K a week for being scared of a ball. Turns out that a) we should have a pen due to some dodgy refereeing and b) arsenal's only goal was spawny if not a little brilliant.

After refusing a lockin (Rich is off swanning around Europe over New Year and had a flight at 8am) we ended up in the Kebabital and bumped into JT (Dirty Mackem scum - but very nice bloke - even after the "Dont tell Mrs T - but Newcastle are a massive team compared to Sunderland" convo at his 30th) who decided to rip into my new funky jumper I purchased from GAP that day - THANKS!