Planet Jupitus

What exactly is there to do when your football club start to implode in front of your eyes? Now, Leeds supporters, I’m being rhetorical, so step away from those computers. Newcastle fans’ coping strategy seems to involve shouting at regional television sports reporters outside St James’ Park.

Unquestionably cathartic, but it does look a tad chilly. Yet who can blame them? I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the Newcastle faithful approach the European Court of Human Rights. The various happenings at the club over the past two years have bordered on the sadomasochistic. If a girlfriend was treated like that by a bloke, you would say it was an unhealthy, self-destructive relationship. Sadly, you can’t buy a copy of “Fans Are From Mars, Chairmen Are From Uranus”. Because it doesn’t exist. A gaping hole in the self-help book market.

So last week there I was, laying on the sofa scratching myself and reading Gabriele Marcotti’s new biography of Fabio Capello and the radio was chuntering away in the background. While quietly giggling at how unintentionally prescient Capello was about Glenn Hoddle, I heard the words “as manager of West Ham United”. I lunged for the volume button but accidentally pressed the off switch. When it came back on the weather was on, so I darted for the internet and there was the stunning news. Alan Curbishley had resigned. I cast my mind back to last week’s column. Surely I hadn’t said anything too bad.

The limbo that such a bombshell sends you into is very difficult to depict. It involves a lot of texting, mouse clicking and prodding of remotes. The sports news channels ran interviews with Curbishley, who declared himself “gutted”. Kevin Keen was announced as caretaker, which only cheered me up only a bit as I imagined him screaming like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone when he got the call. Back on telly Tony Gale described his feelings. Oddly, he was also “gutted”. The anchor said they were going across to Upton Park for the fans’ reaction. I naturally assumed that they’d be “gutted”, too, venting their justifiable rage like the Newcastle fans. Apparently not. 

Well, now he’s gone I suppose we might need to save some anger for the next bloke. Whoever that is . . .