SEEN IT ALL BEFORE...

There was a time - not too long ago - when I might have welcomed Newcastle United`s relegation from the Premier League. After all, they probably deserve to go down, given their recent history, which seems to have included a bizarre owner, a series of duff managers, the signing of a string of overpaid, underperforming players, tactical ineptness and a misguided belief that `we`re too big to go down.`

Now, where have I seen that recipe for disaster before? Why, yes of course - my own club suffered the same fate five seasons ago, when we had a bizarre `owner` in the now thankfully departed Rupert Lowe. We had had a series of duff managers following the departure of Gordon Strachan - Steve Wigley, Paul Sturrock, Harry Redknapp to name but a few. It was `Arry who, in a desperate attempt to avoid relegation and boost his bank balance, signed such memorable players as Olivier Bernard, Nigel Quashie and Dennis Wise with the inevitable result that, after 27 years in the top flight of English football (11 more than Newcastle) we fell through the trap door and have kept on falling until extinction is now a frightening prospect.

So I have some sympathy for the Newcastle fans, who have deserved much better than they have had; and I feel some sympathy for Alan Shearer, who started his career at Southampton, but who faced an impossible task to keep the Magpies up given the tools at his disposal. For their sake, I hope the decline and fall can be reversed because I know from experience just how painful it can be.

I noticed yesterday just how many of Saints` former players are now scattered around the Premier League - players such as half the Stoke team (Delap, Higginbotham, Fuller, Beattie, Davies,) Crouch at Portsmouth, Walcott at Arsenal, Bale at Tottenham, Kenwyne Jones at Sunderland, Bridge at Manchester City - the list goes on and forms a sad litany of past heroes. Newcastle may go the same way, but they may be contractually stuck with at least some of the culprits of their demise. Joey Barton, anyone?