How has the past year been for your team?

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2005-05-07 07:38pm

Well, the football season is coming to a close over here in England, so how has the pastyear been for your favoured sports team?

Here's mine.

Newcastle United's seson can be summed up in four words:

Oh for fuck's sake.

Start of the seaon, everything looks good. We'd finished 5th last year, we'd got brought a big name (Kluivert) and brought in some promising youngsters (Milner).

Then what's the first thing i hear on the first Match of the Day of the season? Dyer refused to play.

Oh for fuck's sake.

We didn't have the best of starts but then we never do.
And then we went and sacked our manager, who is a legend and had got us 5th, 4th and 5th place in the Premiership in the past 3 seasons.

Oh for fuck's sake.

We're Newcastle! We never start well! The only thing off the top of my head i can fault Bobby Robson on after 4 seasons was for selling Solano, so why the feck did we sack him?!?

Thing's picked up a bit, and we even had a cheeky go at signing Rooney. Souness was appointed manager and i thought it wasn't as bad a choice as people were making out. He's passionate and he's also big on discipline, which is what we needed with some problem players. Souness had a shaky start and the problem players started moaning, but at least some (Dyer) started knuckling down and playing well.
We sold Woodgate about this time. We got a decent price for him, especially given his injury problems, but defence has always been our problem and selling our top defender is not a good way to solve that
Even though we weren't having the best of form in the League we were doing well in Europe.
Then Bellamy, one of our best strikers, goes and shoots his mouth off at the manager.

Oh for fuck's sake!

Souness handled it as best he could and shipped him off to Celtic on loan as soon as he could. Unfortunately by now it was clear Kluivert was not living up to his potential, so that effectively left us with 1 brilliant living legend of a striker (Shearer) and one youngester with a bit of promise (Ameobi). Boumsong got brought in to replace Woodgate, but it would be a while till he first played due to injury.

We were making the best of bad situation. A good place in the league was out of our reach, but we'd got into the semi finals of the FA cup and the UEFA cup. We'd had a good winning run, we'd won the first leg against Lisbon and things were looking up.

And then Bowyer and Dyer got into a fight against each other at against Aston Villa.

Oh for fuck's sake!!

Having two players from opposing teams have a tiff is nothing new, having two of your own players get into a raging brawl is something unexpected. They made up practically right away but the damage was done, they'd both miss the FA cup semi final. But the bans were just domestic so they could still make the second leg of the UEFA cup semi against Lisbon. We were taking a 1-0 lead into the game but we had almost a full strentgh team.
Then Robert went and shot his mouth off before the game.

Oh for fuck's sake!!!

Robert had been a whiny french brat ever since we'd signed him. Playing him is always a gamble as he's either on form, in which case he's better than anyone, or he's not on form, in which case he's total shite. He'd moaned several times throughout the season and finally he moaned too much, saying the team had been better off under Robson than Souness. Souness had had enough and with the backing of everyone but Robert dropped him from the team. So we went into a vital game with moral rock bottom and an inexperienced youngster(N'zogbia) on the left wing. We lost 4-1 and were dumped out of the UEFA cup.
We went in to the FA cup semi final in even worse position. We were up against a better team (Manchester united) and we didn't have Bowyer or Dyer, though we did have Boumsong back, and he had been good. However N'zogbia had picked up an injury in Lisbon, which left Souness with a problem. The only left sided players he had left were Ambrose (who had just come back from injury and hadn't played in a while) or Robert.
The team sheet came out, it was Robert.

Oh FOR fuck's SAKE!!!!

The Robert gamble didn't pay off, he played crap, and despite Boumsong being impassable in defence for most of the match we still lost. To amke it worse Ambrose came into the team and gave some good perormances over the enxt few matches. All that was left for the season was to consolidate and try and get the best position we could. But then we lost against relegation strugglers Norwich, and tonite we gave a trade mark self destructive performance and lost against Everton.

OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE!!!!!

We were dominatng the match and then we go and throw it away in an all too familiar bout of bad defending and a stupid sending off.
So no matter the result next week this season has been a bad one for Newcastle United.
People will no doubt point at Souness and say he didn't do a good job at managing, but given the performance of the players on AND off the pitch i say he can only take a minimal amount of the blame.

So we have to rebuild for next season.
Robert and Bellamy will definately be going, Kluivert looks like he's going, and either one or both of Bowyer and Dyer are going to be going due to their fight (my money's on Bowyer as he started it and Dyer was the only decent player in the UEFA semi second leg.).
And still we have the need for more quality defenders. Boumsong has excelled, but he is only one player.

Next season isn't looking too good, though with a bit of luck, some good signings and a stay of execution on Souness in August, we might just get a Euorpean place.[/b]

Straha · Post by **Straha** » 2005-05-07 07:48pm

The good: We fired Hackett

The bad: He blew the Steelers game

The good: We were in the PLAYOFFS!

The bad: Hackett and Herm blew it.

The good: We have a Tight End!

The bad: He wasn't worth a first round pick.

The good: We have a rookie corner back.

The bad: We drafted a kicker.... A FRIEKEN KICKER! WHEN WE ALREADY HAD A GOOD ONE!

The good: We have Coles back!

The bad: We had to trade Moss for him.

The good: The Dolphins suck, and it looks like we could beat Buffalo.

The bad: The Patriots (who are bound to start losing sometime soon!)

The good: We have a new offensive co-ordinator.

The bad: We still have Edwards....

Ugh... one word: Jets.

muse · Post by **muse** » 2005-05-07 11:32pm

Due to the NHL lockout, there was no past season for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Team Canada did win the world hockey championship last year. Yay?

Civil War Man · Post by **Civil War Man** » 2005-05-07 11:41pm

Go Sox.
Go Pats.
The Bruins are undefeated this year

The Celtics made it to the playoffs (though they recently lost. Good thing, too. Can you imagine how insufferable us New Englanders would be if they won the NBA Championship so soon after the Sox and Pats do likewise?)

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2005-05-07 11:50pm

CivilWarMan wrote:The Bruins are undefeated this year

So are the Leafs. Of course they haven't played a single game but that's besides the point.

Well let's see, Team Canada's managed to win every hockey tournament so far, and hopefully we'll win the one that's going on right now. I'm pretty happy.

Montcalm · Post by **Montcalm** » 2005-05-08 01:06am

The Montreal Canadien were not defeated this year

and we cleared the baseball team.....now can we do the same with the hockey team?

Flakin · Post by **Flakin** » 2005-05-08 09:44am

I support Norwich City Football Club.

Oh dear.

We have to win on saturday or we get flushed down to the bloody championship.

Fook.

Hopes were high at the beginning of the season - I think everyone kind of expected us to be in the bottom third of the table but not staring relegation in the face, with the worst goal difference in the league....

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2005-05-08 10:36am

Let me put it this way; we're in the final for the Champions League ... and we might not qualify for it next year due to ... dramatic pause ... Everton of all clubs!

Post by **Gandalf** » 2005-05-08 10:43am

The Newcastle Knights are coming last.

Bummer.

The Guid · Post by **The Guid** » 2005-05-08 11:29am

Swindon Town Football Club.

This season & last season when we needed to do it. Get promotion and be cool. Now we're going to lose our best striker, our centre back, our best midfield player and possibly others and we're as poverty stricken as we ever were.

To echo the above.

For Fuck's sake.

Chmee · Post by **Chmee** » 2005-05-08 11:41am

Seattle SuperSonics ....

At the start of the year, nobody expected us to make the playoffs.

Now we're starting a 2nd-round matchup with San Antonio after a *very* entertaining year. Good unselfish offense, good team defense, just a fun team to watch, especially since they seem to get along so well together. Just one of those years where suddenly they found the 'chemistry' that makes for winning teams.

Ray Allen ... deadliest long-range shooter in the world, and he can create his own shot. Too bad he turned down the invite to the last Olympics team, but his wife was having a baby ... can't argue with the guy's priorities.

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2005-05-08 11:43am

Crown wrote:Let me put it this way; we're in the final for the Champions League ... and we might not qualify for it next year due to ... dramatic pause ... Everton of all clubs!

ooooooo that's gotta sting.