Due to the ever demanding needs of stupid TV companies wishing to witness the demise of our football club, I and many other Mags got up at 4am on Saturday morning to get the 5am train from Durham on the first leg of our trek to Bournemouth. I was pleased I wasn’t on a bus like. As I left the house, even the birds were still asleep! Myself and father Ted boarded the rattler and away we went. I was determined to avoid early drinking but fell apart before York and my first can of Stella was popped around quarter to 6 – this is when you realise it’s going to be a long day! There were a lot of Mags on the train who didn’t seem to have the same dilemma as myself, especially the lads sitting on the table next to us with a bottle of 30% proof home-made wine. I’m pretty sure it won’t be included in the Sunday Times wine list for Christmas.
The connection across to Waterloo went smoothly and we jumped on the final train for another 2 hours down to our final 
destination and were joined by more Mags at Southampton Airport who had taken a more considerate mode of transport which didn’t leave Newcastle International till 8.30. We’d also picked up a ticket for Father Ted’s cousin who decided to drive down from Luton way to join us for the match. He met us off the train and we parked up around the ground at 11.30ish. The usual ‘wander’ to find a drink was topped off when we found a little Portuguese bar playing jolly music being served by a portly barmaid who spoke very little English. Father Ted found a way to communicate (I think he used interpretive dance) and mini bottles of Sagres appeared without any further delay. It was raining mind you, the kind of fine rain that sweeps through your clothes and soaks you quickly. I couldn’t help but think that was gonna be uncomfortable when you aren’t due home till midnight but in truth, I’d be so snotted by then that I wouldn’t care.
Anyway, we made our way into the small stadium which is definitely a throwback to the Championship season, and proceeded to gift possession for the entire first half. We sat deep and allowed wave after wave of attack to bear down on our back four with the midfield of Anita and Tiote neither offering anything going forward or any protection to the centre halves. The one bit of football we played in the entire game resulted in Wijnaldum and Mitrovic combining to set up Perez (gets the ball, scores a goal) who finished off Federici in the Bournemouth goal. We managed to get to half time one up but we had to be better in the second half. The second half started exactly as the first had ended with us on the back foot and the Cherries pouring forward at will. Our midfield continued to be as weak as piss with Anita and Sissoko standing out as being completely ineffective and we continued to rely on Rob Elliot and Chancel Mbemba to keep the opposition an bay.
McClaren replaced Mitrovic with Cisse on 63 minutes (don’t know why and it changed absolutely nothing) and then 
Thauvin replaced Perez (who’d gone down holding his face on a couple of occasions which just looked a bit embarrassing to me) in the 77th minute. Thauvin looked more up for it than he did at the stadium of shite but is still as weak as piss when someone looks remotely like tackling him. A bewildering 6 minutes of injury time was played out with us threatening to break a couple of times and finish the game off but terrible distribution / poor final balls meant that we never got a chance to finish the game off. At the final whistle, the sense of relief was easy to recognise with fans and players enjoying the result way more than the performance.
As I left the stad du plop a fortnight back, I couldn’t help but think ‘how the hell did we lose that?’ but today I couldn’t help but think ‘how the hell did we win that?’. Mind you, we have no time for sentiment and the three points were priceless in the grand scheme of things. Bournemouth were a decent footballing side but like most sides that struggle in the Premier League, they lacked a real cutting edge finisher. This might be the bit that sends them down at the end of the season. We robbed a result but I couldn’t care less.
We boarded a happy train back to Waterloo and then took in the delights of Camden Town before smiling our way onto the 9 o’clock east coast back to Durham. A couple of texts from mates said that we’d ‘deserved’ that result for the stupid long trek to the South Coast but I couldn’t help but think that the team had deserved the result because of the unrewarded performances against the mackems and Stoke. We can’t rely on that though and we need to take this as a springboard to getting results in the bag for the rest of the season. In other words, we need to get out of the shit at the bottom of the table.
Newcastle United: Elliot 8, Janmaat 6, Mbemba 8, Coloccini 7, Dummett 7, Sissoko 4, Tiote 5, Anita 4 (Mbabu 90+3), 
Wijnaldum 5, Mitrovic 6 (Cisse 63), Perez 7 (Thauvin 77).
Unused Subs: De Jong, Gouffran, Lascelles, Woodman
Attendance: 11,155 including 1,300 mental Mags
Our Fans: 7 – moments of good crack and an interesting new ditty for Mbemba
Their Fans: 5 – really nice set of people
Ref: Lee Mason 7 – I think he had a decent game
TED EDWARDS.
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Elliot aside you can take one, or in some cases, two points off the players match scores. I was sitting over the isle from you on the train from the airport and assume the cans of Esso Blue you were drinking en route mellowed your assessments somewhat. Apart from being overly generous for player performance I completely agree with your report. Nice one. It was sad to see goal scoring hero Perez turn into Quintin Crisp (twice) and hold his face like a Mackem had kissed him much to everyone’s embarrassment. They never even messed his hair up. Tart !
Away from the game I thought the Bourmouth crew were a canny bunch and took their unbelievable result graciously . They might have been shell shocked mind ! We stayed overnight, got into some shite bars and were chucked out of many more really nice ones. (For no other reason than being in groups of more than two when one of the party isn’t your professional carer) . This afforded us a Sunday morning stroll down to the pier and beach next day and we were all amazed at how many tramps and vagrants occupied the sea front given that they played there way back on September 19th !!! Keep the faith. Mick
Having made the long drive down on Friday, driving home after the game on Saturday was made that bit easier for winning. What an awful awful performance bar Rob Elliott but maybe we did as a group of fans deserve that win following the derby game and numerous other away trips we have lost after playing well. Hearing how poor the mackems were on the radio on the way home helped the drive pass even quicker. They are welcome to him!! Delighted for the fans, and also was delighted to hearts range of Southern accents in our away end, it’s great to see we have fans up and down the country. Let’s build on this luck.
Also Mitro had a shocker and no way deserves the mark given in the report.
Michael, well done to you and everyone else making the trek. You deserve much better than this shower. Unlike you, and based on this performance, I don’t see us getting more than 3-5 points between now and early January (but happy to be proven wrong).
Any further thoughts on the midfield’s “performance”? Any transfer rumours (however tenuous)? Would receiving a Man City-level spanking from someone like Leicester actually be a useful wake-up call for the club?
I’m looking forward to your podcast!
What are the positives in a match where we have been comprehensively outplayed by a team who will in all likelihood be in the championship next season. Positive 1 we got three points, Positive 2 we have finally seen a goalkeeping performance where we can reasonably say he made a difference. Prior to this his performances have been average to poor. I don’t believe the team as a group with take any confidence from the performance both as a group and individually with the obvious exception of Elliot.
The so called expert pundits say that the sign of a good team is one that can play poorly but still win. So, therefore, we must be a good team. We played very poorly so we must be a very good team. Whatever, it was an excellent 3 points.