In most of these football stories you could substitute in other teams and players but not this one. This could only have been written about the Mags!



Toon boss Alan Pardew fears Newcastle United may be forced to start a season without a recognised idiot in the side for the first time in decades.
"Losing a Grade A fruitcake like Joey Barton so close to the big Premier League kick off is a massive blow," said Pardew, "and a first for the club in recent years.
"So much of our preparation has been around employing a moron like Barton to shaft our chances left, right and centre, now all that hard work has been undone."
The St James's Park outfit has relied on a steady stream of cretins in the team to derail any hopes of silverware since their last trophy win back in 1955.
And club historian Walter Greendale, 87, fears moves to abandon Newcastle's much-vaunted "sign-a-simpleton policy may have serious consequences for the Tyneside club.
"Newcastle fans turn up to watch their side implode not win trophies," he said.
"Goals and winning games are all very well for your Manchester Uniteds and Liverpools, but Toon fans prefer to see their players going off the rails in spectacular fashion.
"Lee Bowyer and Kieron Dyer fighting on the pitch, Barton getting banged up, Craig Bellamy ranting against Shearer ... that's what they've come to expect.
"To start playing football could be a disaster. The last time we did that, only the late intervention of a hysterical Kevin Keegan squealing 'I'd love it' on TV managed to save us from winning a league title."
Newcastle fans last night gathered outside St James's Park calling for club owner Mike Ashley to resign.
"He's making a mockery of this club," said Toon fan Tony Superkev Number 9 Smith, 27, of Birtley, "We want our loonies."
NUFC fan Alan Shearer Shearer Todd, 31, of Gateshead, said: "Ashley did us proud when he brought in barking mad Joe Kinnear as manager, but recently he's let us down big style.
"Getting rid of home-grown mentalist Andy Carroll has done us no favours. And no sooner does Nile Ranger show traditional brainless Toon prowess, getting pictured in the tabloids brandishing a handgun, than the club put him up for sale.
"This guy has no respect for Newcastle's decades of dimwittery."
As The News Grind went to press, Paul Gascoigne was reportedly heading to St James's Park in his dressing gown armed with a fishing rod and a roast chicken