Buzzing with the win

An incredible 51,885 (including a very impressive 3000 from Brentford) turned up at St James’ Park yesterday to watch Newcastle United beat Brentford 3-1 in the EFL Championship. It moved Newcastle United up one place to second in the league, although they are likely to move back down to third later today if, as expected, Huddersfield win at home.

Dwight Gayle scored another 2 home goals, making it 5 in his last 2 home games, and those goals move him to the top of the scoring charts with 9. A very impressive return in only 12 league games.

Whilst it is yet another win I do want to pick up on something that has irked me a little this week and that is a little division in amongst the Newcastle fans. I have read a lot this week (mainly due to the lack of games and being laid up with a bad back!) on Newcastle United from both the national and local press as well as expert and fan opinions on social media. Without a shadow of a doubt there is a 100% fan backing of our manager, Rafa Benitez but the split seems to relate to fans who feel the need to question him and those that don’t. Whilst the split might not be to the extent of the Pardew In/Out, Ashley In/Out stuff from recent years, it has caused a little bit of tension.

In my lifetime I have never seen a manager get so much support and have so much trust from the fans. Yes, you could point at the likes of Kevin Keegan and the late, great Sir Bobby Robson, they certainly had the backing and respect too but there is something different with Rafa, something very special. I suspect it might be down to the fall from grace we have witnessed since the Keegan and Robson days and we finally have a manager and indeed a team, we can believe in and support. It is a massive relief to have Rafa at the club but at the same time it is a huge privilege and if anything a bit of a surprise! A nice one though!

As a fan of a Newcastle United and as someone who writes about them a lot, and has done so for a few years now, I feel I give a fairly balanced view - it is my view of course, I am not a paid journalist who has an agenda, I just write what I want to and over the last few years it has been a fairly miserable experience let me tell you!

When the club win I write positive things, when we lose I may criticise individual players and I also might question the manager, I might question his starting 11 or his system, but that is my prerogative, I am a football fan so there might be times when I have a differing opinion to the manager, it might not even be right but it is still just my opinion. Just because my opinions on the team might differ from the manager’s, that is not to say I don’t support him, but I certainly have the right to question him.

What has annoyed me this week is there is a set of Newcastle United fans that feel Rafa should never be questioned, we should just completely agree with whatever he does. This is Rafa Benitez after all. In one sense they could be right, who are we to question him? Rafa spends his time with the team, he is a world class manager - he knows more about football and in particular, the Newcastle United team, that I will ever know - but does that mean I can no longer express a slightly negative opinion? Can I not write about what I would do, even though I might be wrong? Does that mean I am hounding Benitez out of the club?

By questioning some of the line-ups, by perhaps even questioning some of the signings, that does not equate to abusing the manager. Some comments I read likened the criticism of Rafa Benitez’s rotations and line-ups to the abuse that Matz Sels recently received from Newcastle United fans, forcing him to close down his Twitter account. Absolutely ridiculous. One, the abuse that Sels got was unjustified but it was born from frustration. He had been playing poorly and was perhaps made the scapegoat for a couple of the goals we conceded. Of course no personal abuse is justified but that’s football for you and possibly more to the point, that’s social media for you - in one sense you have a direct line to a player through Twitter. You may be angry at him for the performance he put in at 3pm that you spent £50 to watch and you vent - he has spoiled your weekend! I’m not justifying that in anyway but it happens and not just at our club. Click on a tweet from the likes of Wayne Rooney or any of the big name players at the big clubs and you see a raft of unrelated abuse. Have you seen the comments Moussa Sissoko gets from Newcastle United fans when he posts anything? Half of them are from me but that’s beside the point…

The online world of football fans is all about opinions. What matters to me is how those opinions are put across - if someone wants to criticise a Newcastle United player or manager then that is fine with me as long as there is some thought and justification that goes in to it and it is not personal. For years and years we have supported an absolute mess of a club and if anything it has become second nature to slate the players, hoy abuse at the manager and owner and generally just be angry with football.

These days we may be playing in the second tier of English football but the club is in a better shape than it has been for perhaps more than a decade. We have a world class manager and a team that I feel proud to support. We are winning on the pitch and the off-field stuff in the press, the PR, everything, has never been as good. If ever there was a time to throw our support behind the time it is now and in fairness, that is exactly what is happening - just look at the attendances this season - there is a real feel good factor in the city right now

I am 100% behind Rafa Benitez, I love the man, but howay Rafa, Dummett??