On the cusp

Well, this weekend signals the end of the 2008/9 Premier League campaign and could also signal the end of Newcastle United's thrill-a-minute 16 year tenure in the top flight of English football. Now, I'm a Geordie through and through - if you cut me I'll bleed black and white (I should really see a doctor about that...) - so naturally it would devastate me if the Mags were to be relegated this Sunday. However... It could also be a blessing in disguise. I no longer dread the ultimate day, I look forward to it. Either the club stay up another year and make big money changes or we drop down to a league where we have an excellent chance of bouncing straight back up and the opportunity to get rid of some of the dead wood clogging up resources.

Now, all three of the North East clubs are facing relegation. With Middlesbrough all but gone, it is up to Newcastle and Sunderland to scrap it out for local bragging rights. It is strange to see a club that 10 years ago was finishing consistently in the top 5 each year and putting on spectacular European shows in the UEFA Cup and Champions League now on the brink of relegation.

The last few seasons since the departure of Sir Bobby Robson have been miserable. Nobody has come in and motivated the players quite like he did until just recently with the appointment of Alan Shearer. There have also been far too many managerial shake-ups and off the field distractions - it would be an understatement to say that Newcastle have become a bit of a joke club to many outside observers. But for those of us who follow the club, who live and breathe every minute of it, it is far from a joke. If things stay as they currently are, with Shearer in charge, the much maligned continental management system sidelined, and the players playing with a bit of self-belief, I've got every reason to believe that the future of NUFC isn't looking too bad at all, regardless of whether we go down this Sunday or not. No matter what the result, fans will always pack the stadium, fans will always cheer their team, and the sea of black and white shirts will be flowing as hard as ever before.

I'll leave you now with an exert my favourite poem - Rudyard Kipling's seminal 'If' - which I feel sums up the situation quite nicely:

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

Jambo out.