The Italian job

You can’t help but love Newcastle, can you? However much of a mess your club is in, Newcastle are guaranteed to be more of a laughing stock (even if they didn't turn out for a match with a different-coloured patch of material laughably stuck over their defunct sponsor's logo).

Their fans worship an anachronism of a manager who hadn’t watched a match in the three years before joining them and whose tactics and approach to the job are stuck in the 1970s, as ‘the messiah’. They parade banners proclaiming ‘Cockney mafia out’, despite the subject of their contempt, Mike Ashley, having been born in Buckinghamshire. And when our new manager needs three points to win over the inevitable sceptics, they make us look like world beaters.

The only downsides to a fantastic performance were IBM (idiot behind me) and his chip-off-the-old-block son IBM Junior (idiot beside me). From the first minute, they were slating David di Michele’s every touch of the ball. Apparently, he was awful on his debut at West Brom, refusing to pass the ball. No matter that this was his first 71 minutes in English football, it was enough for them both to unleash a string of racist expletives every time he went near the action. They even refused to celebrate his goals. Luis Boa Morte’s two late howlers didn’t even invoke such invective. And he hasn’t put a foot right in 20 months, despite costing £5m and earning probably twice as much as di Michele.

Gianfranco Zola must have dreamed of such a start. There has been enough newsprint on Curbishley’s departure and the ensuing recruitment process. All I’m going to add is that I think the plan was to axe Curbishley from the minute Gianluca Nani was brought in as director of football in the spring. I wasn’t particularly a fan of our ex-manager, but neither was I desperate for him to leave. But I admire his principles for walking out in what had clearly become an untenable situation. If he had stayed, he would have walked into training the following morning and had to introduce himself to two of our three new signings of September 1 (Herita Llunga had apparently been on trial at the club, but the decision had been made not to keep him). Surely directors of football should be working in tandem with the manager, rather than buying and selling players behind his back?

It was interesting that the club insisted that George McCartney had handed in a transfer request, while the player himself and Curbishley were adamant that he had not. I know who I believe. After the previous regime, I had hoped that our new owners were going to return us to the days of respectability and integrity. But it appears that duplicity is still prevalent, particularly with one senior member of Terry Brown’s entourage still on the payroll.

My only other comment on Zola’s appointment was that if we had to opt for an inexperienced Italian, could we have not chosen Paolo di Canio, the only West Ham legend of the past decade, rather than a man voted Chelsea’s best-ever player?

Talking of di Canio, his two goals in the Soccer Aid match at Wembley were sublime. As much improved as Carlton Cole undoubtedly is, it certainly put his finishing into perspective. Yet Cole gets a standing ovation every week from IBM and IBM junior. Now imagine if he was Italian…