Here we go again...

It just seems like yesterday I was posting a finale post to the sad, poor, disappointing 07-08 season, putting up pathetic little photos of the Titanic, thinking I was funny (okay, KNOWING, confidently, that I was funny - I mean, like, dead funny) and now guess what - THE NEW SEASON HAS BEGUN!!!

Earlier today, my beloved Newcastle United Football Club played their first preseason game of the, well, erm, preseason, against Hartlepool United at Victoria Park. Hartlepool opened the scoring early with a fairly easy and well played goal and I thought, well, here we go again. The feeling of pain, hurt, disgust, regret, anger, and familiarity all came running back again. "Come on - this is a LEAUGE 1 SIDE" I thought to myself. Just before the half, Damien Duff put in a pretty nice goal to tie it up. The second half saw young Dannie Guthrie come out for his first time in a Newcastle shirt (today's being the sporty new Purple Away kits, as you can see above. I quite like them - wha'dyou guys think?) and make a FANTASTIC impression by quickly setting up Damien's second goal of the game with a brilliant forward pass, and then took his own goal some minutes later. Maybe it was a bit of a well-placed mis-hit, but I'm sure the kid'll take it. Then Duff finished the game off with another nice goal which was, get this, set up by ADAM SMITH and SHOLA AMEOBI. And let me tell you - it was a nice setup.

So the big stories of the match were Duff's hat trick and Guthrie's first start. The smaller stories were the following

Jonas Spiderman Gutierrez sat out the match because some paperwork hasn't been taken care of yet. He'll get in there soon I hope.

Owen and Beye were both kept out because they weren't feeling 100% before the match. It was wise of King Kev to leave them out and I hope to see them both soon as well.

James Milner, the target of Liverpool and Aston Villa this summer, moved from his usual winger role to a central midfielder and looked REALLY comfortable in there. He's always been a scrappy lad who loves to run but he never really had the best cross for a winger. Well, hey - why don't we see how he can do in the center? Seems about obvious enough and he showed some good stuff today. We'll see if KK wants to continue with it.

N'Zogbia started on the left wing and moved to Left Back later in the game, and I, for one, didn't hear a single whinge out of him...maybe I was standing too far away. HA!

So after the match, I got the not-quite-as familiar feeling of a job well done after a 4-1 victory. I know it was only against Hartlepool but come on - it's been a while since we've had this big a victory. (Not counting our last 4-1 win at Spurs of course - they don't really count as, well, they're Spurs. They're just easy.)

Anyway, if any of you would like to hear the eloquent King Kev wax about the match, here it is.