chris_mackin's Recent Posts

Why I am backing Kevin Keegan's call

chris_mackin — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 14:06:21 +0100

Football FanCast columnist Chris Mackin cannot understand the reaction to the Joey Barton saga and is backing Kevin Keegan's call.

Despite the level of debate rarely rising above the level of taxi driver ramblings, the sheer amount of coverage awarded Joey Barton's release from prison in itself tells a fascinating story. The papers have went positively ga-ga over this one; only the addition of a disappearing canoe or a premium rate phone line scandal could have secured it more reportage. Even the Mirror's very own Cruella De Ville, Sue Carrol, took time out of stern faced moralising and hoarding puppies for their fur (allegedly) to sermonize on the issue in today's column; under the heading ‘Keegan out of Toon with fans' (presumably a stab at a pun despite its dogged refusal to work as a clever piece of word play in any capacity whatsoever) Sue brazenly invited us to consider the ‘groundswell of anger on Tyneside over his return'.

The unofficial Euro Championship awards 2008

chris_mackin — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:21:18 +0100

Football FanCast columnist Chris Mackin looks back at the Euro Championships and conducts his own personal awards ceremony.

Why England have much to learn from their Russian comrades!

chris_mackin — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:50:43 +0100

Football FanCast columnist Chris Mackin lauds the Russians and feels Arshavin and his fellow comrades can teach England a thing or two.

By now you know: Euro 2008 has been ace and everything they said it would be. Or at least ‘everything they said it would be' within the acceptable margin of error we are forced to assign to whatever ‘they' say about football in the modern spinney computerised graphics and hyperbole leaden times we inhabit nowadays. So Euro 2008 hasn't cured cancer or displaced Robert Mugabe but it's been tremendously entertaining stuff with only a few duff games and there's been a general sense of agreeable good will about the whole thing; the exact type of football tournament you'd be happy to take him at the weekend and introduce to your mother.

Is football management really on the agenda for Newcastle legend?

chris_mackin — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:56:33 +0100

Football FanCast columnist Chris Mackin wonders if football management is really that high on the agenda for Newcastle United legend Alan Shearer.

Late on in the 2000-01 season, Newcastle United travelled to Sunderland's smashing little Stadium of Light for the second time in the ground's history. As befitting the occasion, the game was dreadful and quality deprived fare, all rough challenges and misplaced passes, raw intensity and nerves merging to create a blur out of the ball itself; at one point Warren Barton clattered into Sunderland's left winger, picked himself up and took a long and gazing look at his surroundings, as if reminding himself exactly what sport it was he was supposed to be competing in again.

Can we expect anything different from our beloved Newcastle?

chris_mackin — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 12:53:31 +0100

Football FanCast columnist Chris Mackin reacts to the arrival of next season's fixture lists in the way he knows best.

Always the sporting highlight of any international free summer, next season's fixture list nevertheless feels like an uninvited intruder when it arrives during a major tournament football watching binge, propping itself up on the stool by the fridge and hoarding all the decent larger. "What? But, no, it's Austria Germany tonight, what are you doing here?" we ask, unapologetic with our curt tone and checking our watches pointedly. "Come back later, yeah?"