NOLAN NICKS STARRING ROLE IN TOON SOAP OPERA
Newcastle 2, Doncaster 1
UNFATHOMABLE. The owner. The football club. The constant, draining soap opera that threw up another dramatic injury-time twist.
When Newcastle, reduced to 10-men because of an attempt at strangulation by Zurab Khizanishvili, found life in the 92nd minute to fashion a stunning winner.
When Kevin Nolan rattled a 20-yard drive past Neil Sullivan - the ball apparently sucked in by the Gallowgate End where Toon fans refuse to stop believing their football club can be saved from the abyss.
And then the reaction, a spectrum of emotions outpoured to match the rainbow that washed down on St James' Park. Who first?
Nolan? The goalscorer? A forgotten man, binned by Bolton last season and reinvented in the Championship? Crashing home his eighth goal in his 15th start, wheeling towards his family in the main stand.
Or Chris Hughton? Racing around the Newcastle dugout like a dervish, arms and fists clenched, wild-eyed, smelling the intoxicating lure of permanency?
Mike Ashley perhaps? Reviled, taunted throughout by another 40,000 plus crowd, smiling?
Or how about Barry Moat, who exhaled sharply, bracing himself for another, and perhaps final, round of negotiations with an owner whose unpredictability and failure to understand has reduced a basket case of a football club to rubble.
It is hard not to find some sympathy for Newcastle's confused supporters. Celebrating victory, hailing their heroes, taunting the man who has tortured them for 28 months. All in the same breath.
Sweet and sour. The Yin and the Yang. Black and white.
Tyneside waits for some sense to emerge from a blurred picture.
Ashley was rounded on by Newcastle's supporters at Scunthorpe, saved then by stewards.
Vitriol was his again yesterday from the moment he appeared, in the third minute, to take his seat alongside Derek Llambias. Tyneside's own chuckle brothers, immune it appears to the raw hatred.
It is time to go. To stop spinning a football club and a city as wantonly as if it were a roulette wheel.
This particular gamble has failed. Probably to the tune of £190million - but you will not find any violins when Ashley and Llambias take flight from Newcastle International Airport for the final time.
Songs tumbled down from the St James' stands, urging Ashley to get out of this football club.
When Dean Shiels struck at the far post with just 18 minutes gone, volume was added.
Newcastle were woeful, outpassed by Doncaster, humbled by a side who existed on a different football stratosphere 12 years ago, when the Champions League was broadening Geordie horizons.
Only on the stroke of half-time did they go close, Andy Carroll heading wide. He missed a golden chance eight minutes after the re-start, screwing wide from six yards.
It did not deflate him. On 67 minutes, Danny Guthrie floated a right-wing cross and the angled, volleyed finish belied what had gone earlier. How they celebrated, Nolan falling to his knees.
Still, it looked like an archetypal afternoon in the North East when Ryan Taylor left a stray arm hanging long enough to catch a James O'Connor right-wing cross in his own penalty area less than 10 minutes later.
Skipper Martin Woods was tidy enough in the Doncaster engine room - but from 12 yards his effort was desperate, flying wide and offering the latest batch of hope to Tyneside.
Attitude
There was to be more drama, another twist in the plot. Billy Sharp and Tamas Kadar clashed, Khizanishvili joined in - and with both hands clasped tightly around the Rovers forward's neck, it was hard to see where the anger of the Newcastle players and the possibility of an appeal came from at his subsequent red card.
The on-loan Blackburn defender left the field waving his fists at the crowd, urging them on, then arguing with the fourth official.
He was saved any late apologies when Nolan picked up a Carroll pass in the second of five minutes of injury-time and struck from distance.
Amongst the myriad of outpourings stood Sean O'Driscoll, the chastened Doncaster manager, given a harsh lesson in life at St James' Park, that it is all about missed opportunities and regrets once you cross the Tyne Bridge. He said: "We are disappointed because of the manner. It was a last-minute goal and a missed penalty."
Team spirit has emerged from within the bowels of the home dressing room, enough to take them back to the Championship's summit.
Hughton said: "It says everything about the attitude here. To get the winner when we did speaks volume for the lads. At 1-1 when they had a penalty, I feared the worst - but we deserved the win."
However, the ultimate victory, control of the club, is the one that really matters.
This article has 3 comments
out classed for most of the game by doncaster ho how the mighty have fallen i really do hope mike ashley is proud of what he has done to this once great football club & when is chris houghton going to wake up & see the way forward is with andy corrol & nile ranger leading the front line as it was no suprise that the game turned with the introduction of the young ranger & the departure of the way past his best harewood.
By tom. Posted October 25 2009 at 11:21 AM.
Yes Newcastle won which is excellent cause we were terrible. What this article fails to tell people is harewood was booed of the pitch for his lack of effort and thats when Newcastle started to play and to me was down to one man and thats Nile Ranger. Houghton needs to send harewood back he is rubbish and the whole first team need to start showing some determination if we are to get out this league!
By brett. Posted October 25 2009 at 9:11 AM.
Well sitting top of the league is certainly not what the knockers had in mind at the start of the season was it??...N'cle dont look like they have gotten out of first gear yet, and with the immenent sale expected...reinforcements could arrive in jan, so its looking much better....much to the displeasure of the knockers!!
By jim. Posted October 25 2009 at 8:10 AM.