NEWCASTLE'S CHRIS OF LIFE

CHRIS HUGHTON stepped out of his car at Newcastle's training ground for his first day of work and a storm almost blew the door off.

That was 22 months ago. In Newcastle United years, a lifetime.

The culling has been dramatic.

Kevin Keegan, banished.

Alan Shearer, exiled.

Joe Kinnear, hospitalised.

Dennis Wise, sent to the Gallowgate gallows.

Now there is only Hughton left, the last chance for the billionaire owner Mike Ashley to rescue face, to emerge from two unfathomable years with an immediate return to the Premier League.

Only in the unassuming Hughton's hands is there the slightest possibility of absolution, if never redemption.

And, as he today tells Sport of the World, the former Spurs No 2 knows that promotion could offer Ashley the platform to leave.

"Of course, it must be a fact that if this club are doing well and if this club is back in the Premier League it is a more saleable asset," said Hughton.

"Does he have a passion for the club most people don't see? I don't think you can have the involvement that he has in this club and not be passionate about it, that is an impossibility.

"He could not have foreseen what the last two years would bring. Mike has made mistakes and he has been the first one to hold his hands up.

"My relationship with him is good. I either speak or get some communication from Mike after the game. It is generally by phone call.

"Occasionally he comes down to the training ground. He likes to come and see the players.

"The situation we have here is what happens at any club. I identify the players I would like to bring in and I present that to Derek Llambias and Mike. What I have been told is they are prepared to back me but there are financial constraints.

"I have been told they will back me and I don't see any reason why they won't. What will happen at any stage, you don't know. At this club you get used to working around what could happen at any particular time. It has taken so many twists and turns.

"The issues outside the team, although there are some I have to get involved in, are easier to separate. Those issues are the responsibility of the administration side of the club and the owner. They need to get on with that. My objective is the playing side. You have to distance yourself from it.

"My objective is to get promotion. Where that will lead to with the ownership of the club I do not know."

There is a quiet resilience to Hughton, a drive hidden to the supporters and the cameras.

He admits he will never be one for the soundbite, never one to tug the heartstrings of the country's most emotional set of supporters.

Yet Hughton took on Joey Barton in August after a training ground bust-up with team-mates Jonas Gutierrez and Fabricio Coloccini and dropped him.

He has played the political game with Ashley, survived and recently flourished. And there were few predicting anything other than more misery when the Magpies, crestfallen, asset-stripped and humiliated, began their first season outside the top tier of English football for the first time in 17 seasons.

"We knew everyone wanted us to get beat in the first game at West Brom," he added. "We knew it would determine how the season went. The players gave everything. The spirit was excellent. I thought then we would be okay."

There remain suggestions his dressing room is too powerful, that it is committee management.

But Hughton counters: "Everybody has their way of working, I prefer to be low key.

"There are some overpowering personalities in the game. The best way to work is within the personality I have got. Discipline is done inside the club and I deal with it.

"If somebody comes away from that you have to deal with it. It doesn't matter who the player is. You have to do the role. You have to manage the right way and be yourself. If you come outside of what you are, people very quickly see through you.

"If the Joey one is highlighted, I have to make decisions every day, some are bigger than others."

He has rolled with Keegan's departure.

He said: "Kevin was everything I expected, charismatic, enthusiastic and humble. When he called me, the answer was yes straight away."

And struggled with the demotion that followed Alan Shearer's appointment.

"It was hard when Alan was here. You are used to doing a certain amount and then you are not. It was difficult. Alan came in for the right reasons. They felt the club needed the spark and the lift."

He believes that Shearer will return to manage the club one day.

But for now, it is Hughton's time. Top of the table, crowds in excess of 40,000, a growing belief that Newcastle can return to the Premier League at the first attempt.

"The first day I came here we had to train indoors the wind was that severe. It was apt there was a storm brewing when I arrived.

"There have been very difficult periods. Sometimes you have to be the calmest when that happens.

"Even if I knew everything that was about to happen, I would have come. You want the challenges in life."

He has one.

• MIKE ASHLEY READY TO SELL TOON
• SHEARER IN FRAME FOR BLADES ROLE

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