Many papers and news outlets will be picking over the remains of Newcastle United's end to a 16 year tenure in the top flight today. Whilst relegation has looked like an increasing possibility in recent weeks, there is still a lot of shock and glee over the demise of the black and white Geordies. They say that all good things must come to an end, but really Newcastle United have been a miserable team for a few seasons now. As silly as it may sound, a season or more in the Championship might actually help to revitalise this ongoing 'sleeping giant'.
As is the norm when any team, particularly an established one gets relegated, there are masses of recriminations and questions. With Newcastle Utd it really isn't that difficult to see what has gone wrong, the club has increasingly become a walking soap opera- almost a self -parody. The mistakes of Mike Ashley have been frequent, ranging from bad PR to strange managerial choices, and he will naturally be the major scapegoat.
It's obvious and true that Ashley should never have brought Dennis Wise to the club, should never have appointed Joe Kinnear, and should never have left Chris Hughton and Colin Calderwood in charge for any extended period. The man has somehow invested near to £250 million in a club and ultimately made it worse off. His one major scoop was tempting Kevin Keegan back to the place that he will always be intrinsically linked with. Even so that effort was half-hearted and a cynical move to appease the fans, Ashley may of risen 'the messiah' from the grave but along with Wise he swiftly drove a steak through his heart.
The mistakes at St James Park do precede the ownership under Mike Ashley however. If we're honest, the beginning of Newcastle United's downfall can be traced back to the unsavoury way that previous Chairman Freddy Shepherd ousted Sir Bobby Robson. The former England manager spent almost five years at Newcastle and he swiftly re-established the club amongst the top five. Two consecutive seasons they played in the Champions League after finishing fourth and third in 2001/02 and 2002/03 respectively.
When Robson was pushed out soon after the start of the 2004/05 season, it was widely seen as a result of the team having only finished fifth the previous term. How ridiculous this seems now, but since the end of Robson’s tenure Newcastle have increasingly lived up to their reputation as an underachieving team. When you look at the roll-call of managers since: Graeme Souness and Glen Roeder being the most questionable appointed to the post, they were never really good enough to replace the quality that they had in Robson.
Sam Allardyce was heralded as the right man for the job, and given time he may well have been. Instead he was hastily shown the door in yet another example of blind panic from the Newcastle United board. When you hear that both Robson and Souness were concerned over the under investment in and quality of the club's youth team and training ground, getting rid of Allardyce seems like an even bigger wasted opportunity. 'Big Sam' may not be known for his teams playing the prettiest football, but the man certainly knows how to run a club from bottom to top.
It has also been suggested that the fans of Newcastle are somewhat to blame, the pedestals that Keegan and now Shearer have been placed on are almost farcical in their coverage. That faith is partly down to the fans and partly exacerbated by the media, who love the silly notions that it all conjures up.
I alluded to earlier the glee that a lot of neutral fans will have over Newcastle's relegation, it is true and a lot of that comes down to the tiredness of always hearing about how the club is 'massive' and should be challenging for honours. The truth is Newcastle have a large fan-base and stadium but little else, (although it will be curious to see how large it is in the Championship). A lot of Newcastle fans don't really tap into the hype over their club, but then quite a few still do. They should realise that they had it good in the past with Keegan's first reign and Sir Bobby Robson, why things have failed since must come partly down to those in charge at the club failing to realise the importance of stability.
As for the future, it is hard to judge for now. There is the inevitable clamour for Shearer to stay on and try to guide them straight back to promotion, that will be easier said than done and may not be the answer. Shearer seems to have the intelligence to manage, but without experience the Championship will be a rough and tumble place to be. This is especially so when considering the major clear-out that will happen over the summer. The club is unlikely to recoup much transfer money from the motley crew of a squad it has, all they will save is their huge wage bill.
Only this season we have seen three recent former Premiership clubs slip into League 1 (Charlton, Southampton and Norwich). In fact League 1 is looking more and more like an old Premiership boys club, with the likes of Leeds, Swindon, Oldham and the MK Dons already there. There will be no guarantee that Newcastle’s Premiership return will be quick, so what is decided in the next few weeks will be crucial.
What is sure is that Newcastle will need to get a grip whoever ends up in charge, and they will do well to invest in the areas of the club that will help to reinvigorate them in the future. For now some time in the Championship will give the club and it's fans a much needed reality check, which hopefully they will learn from and maybe improve from. Newcastle United have not won a major honour for exactly forty tears, if they focus on the Robson years it may not need to be another forty years until they start to behave like a 'massive' club...