February 2013
1 post
He's Magic.. You know.
I’ve not done a tumblr in ages, but after one of the most enjoyable games, most memorable debuts, and most lovely goals I can remember in a while, I fired up SketchUp again to commemorate Moussa Sissoko’s second, and winning, goal yesterday.
Red = Shot.
Blue = Pass
Grey = Player Movement (note Santon)
Yellow = Moussa Sissoko.
...
October 2012
1 post
“We want Mike Ashley in!
Mike Ashley out!
In, Out, In, Out,
and we’ve...”
September 2012
1 post
July 2012
2 posts
Drawing Alan Smith.
As they say in Leeds, “alright, duck…?”
Thanks to @seriousyoungman for the prompt..
Drawing Shola Ameobi.
Back in February I did a post graphically illustrating Alan Shearer’s 206 goals for Newcastle aided by a YouTube video someone had produced, consolidating all the goals into a single stream of footballing genius. A week or so ago, twitter user @sewellyy uploaded a similar video for Shola Ameobi. Here is the video. Watch it a few times - there’s so many amazing moments, and illustrates...
May 2012
3 posts
200 tweets. 240 seconds.
Below is a simple diagrammatic representation of the content of 200 tweets sent to Joey Barton during the course of the last half hour. I did no filtering at all apart from excluding retweets, which at a guess account for 20% of traffic being sent to Joey at the minute. What is displayed is the words in direct tweets to ‘@Joey7Barton’ from any single twitter account. Size of word...
1-0 head start.
I) Unprecedented.
Across town on Leazes Terrace, RD recently looked at Papiss Cissé’s place in NUFC scoring history. It’s a fascinating read, and can be found here: http://www.leazesterrace.com/papiss-demba-cisse-the-best-goalscoring-start-in-newcastles-history/. There’s plenty of numbers and characters from NUFC history that, for my shame I hadn’t even heard of, that...
1.08333333333333.
prolific [prəˈlɪfɪk]
adj
1. producing fruit, offspring, etc., in abundance
2. producing constant or successful results
3. (often foll by in or of)rich or fruitful
[from Medieval Latin prōlificus, from Latin prōlēs offspring]
prolifically adv
prolificness , prolificacy n
#1. [1/1 = 1.00000]
#2. [2/3 = 0.66666]
#3. [3/5 = 0.60000]
#4. [4/6 = 0.66666]
#5. [5/6 = 0.83333]
#6....
April 2012
1 post
9/11
Tim Krul’s distribution has been a sore point of mine all season; over-optimistic lumping of the ball to one of Cissé or Ba in a fairly rigid 442 system. The game at the weekend, especially the second half saw an adoption of what I would call a 5a side distributive method within a much more flexible 433 formation. It’s the way that I’ve always played with when playing...
March 2012
1 post
February 2012
1 post
Drawing Alan Shearer.
It’s easy to forget just how incredible a player Alan Shearer was. The dire and dour style in which he presents Match Of The Day totally betrays the enthusiasm and passion for the game he showed when he played. I consider myself lucky to have grown up watching him at Newcastle United, I was 12 when he signed and 22 when he retired. Those two points themselves serving as bookends either side...
January 2012
3 posts
I Just Can't Get Enough.
I absolutely hate the January window. I’d rather it didn’t exist; pick your squad for the season, and live with it for the 38 games you play, if you get caught short then tough, you should have planned better. I dislike the way it allows a club, realising they are in a poor position, to simply ‘buy’ their way out of trouble. I expect QPR to be this season’s...
NUFC transfer policy through the ages.
The graph below illustrates the ages of players Newcastle United have signed from Ronny Jonsen in 2004 to Rob Elliot in 2011 in chronological order. Age is plotted on the Y-axis and sequentially each player along the X-axis. For the purposes of examining buying trends, I have included all permanent transfers and omitted any trial, loan and released players.
We can see that moving from Souness...
December 2011
2 posts
The numbers [don't] lie.
The graph below shows an extrapolation of data taken from The Guardian’s “Chalkboard” system. In greyscale you have a graphical plot of the cumulative passes both attempted (grey) and completed (black) under the management of Chris Hughton as permanent manager. The same is also presented for our time with Alan Pardew in charge with the dark and light blue plots relating to passes...
Transfers & Me.
The last time I wrote about transfers and Newcastle United I used an elaborate and self-indulgent Merlin sticker album metaphor to make what turned out to be some ludicrously wayward predictions. Half a season on, we are again. The fear for the fan is always losing the ‘key’ player, the icon, the talisman. But breeeeaaaaathe. As with most things, not just in football but in life too,...
November 2011
2 posts
“We went to Stoke, tried to piss off Tony Pulis, Demba scored three, and we beat...”
– …to the Macarena.
September 2011
4 posts
“shoes OFF!.. if you love the toon.. shoes OFF!.. if you love the toon.. shoes...”
Chronicle Q6: sub-questions 1-20.
1. At what point of last season was the idea of scrapping L7 first discussed?
2. Was this before or after the idea of the family/young persons area extension?
3. Why could L7 not simply be moved?
4. Why, when you were aware of the desire of L7 members to move en mass to L4, yet did not assist with this?
5. In fact, why did you seemingly interfere in seat move requests to ensure L7 members were...
August 2011
6 posts
"..one Level 7, there's only one Level 7..."
I saw another couple of notable characters from Level7 in my/their new area of St James’ today. It’s a bit odd seeing someone who you think you know, or at least have a vague familiarity with, somewhere you’re not expecting to. Outside of their usual context these people are not the people you remember at all, they seem ill at ease and unfamiliar. As we move through the season...
So let me get this straight..
The player that “doesn’t want to leave”,
Whose manager “doesn’t want him to leave”,
Who’s fans “don’t want him to leave”,
That the board will get no money for selling,
That is contracted for another year,
That was offered a new contract for millions,
But not enough millions,
That is adored by the fans,
That adores the fans,
That...
"..he's French! he's [xxxx]..."
”..he’s French! he’s [xxxx]…”
As my Cabaye chants are going down an absolute STORM on twitter, I’ve decided to put them all up in one place for all my fans. It all started on July 18th with the pretty basic: ”..he’s French, he’ll shoot, he looks good in a suit, Yohan Cabaye,. Yohan Cabaaaaaye.. he’s French, he’ll shoot…” and since then it’s been onwards and upwards...
June 2011
5 posts
“The people who will be hurting in the situation are the same people who will...”
– Joey Barton 16/6/2011
premier league shiny (pt3/3)
With most of the deals done, and the album now nearly complete again, NUFC have almost got everything they wanted but with far less stickers outgoing - the swap pile remains strong. However, what if afternoon break provided one final twist..
Remember those players supposedly thrown away were settled nicely in their positions, how did it happen they were removed? Well, what if they weren’t?...
needless merlin masochism (pt2/3)
It occurred to me this morning that perhaps Newcastle United are doing something so radical, so seemingly self-destructive, so entirely inexplicable - that they may just get what they want, without sacrificing their entire swap pile. It’s a risky strategy, hugely so, and one that my ten year old self would never have thought of.
During the window’s ‘first break’, NUFC are...
5 tags
got. got. NEED. got... (pt1/3)
When I was ten years old I traded a three inch pile of Merlin stickers for a single one of Dave Watson from Everton. It had been ‘leaked’ to the market that I needed him to complete the book and thus for anyone privy to this information, my considerable swap pile was there for the taking.
I needed Dave Watson. His value in the playground had gone through the roof. I can’t be...
