Last Thursday's post about whether to boycott Newcastle United's rumored summer trip to Dallas prompted spirited discussion on the blog and in other social media. We need to call it a rumored trip because the club has yet to confirm its participation in the Dallas tournament this July, or for that matter, the Premier League next season. Whoever is promoting the Dallas event couldn't be blamed for looking elsewhere after NUFC's mortifying performance at Leicester City on Saturday, the finger-pointing afterward and today's utterly absurd official statement that the club is "focused on our current situation." As opposed to...not being focused on it? Ignoring it, maybe? That they feel obligated to say they care is all you need to know.
The much-photographed banner in the away stand at Leicester - "We don't demand a team that wins, we demand a club that tries" - encapsulates last week's boycott debate here and the entire dilemma of being a Newcastle United fan at this low point in the club's long history. No one likes a glory hunter. Many of us in the United States who support Newcastle by choice rather than birth are making exactly that statement. Anyone can throw on a Man U shirt and brag. The fan who picks Newcastle wants to hope and dream and suffer and celebrate in a way that trophies alone can never embody. OK, maybe we didn't anticipate this much suffering. But true fans are willing to endure anything for at least the prospect of something greater.
Which of course is what's absent at Newcastle under Mike Ashley and his minions. If the aim isn't to triumph in the end, what's the suffering for? If the aim is profit over victory, isn't a fan played for a fool to contribute, regardless of whether Ashley feels the impact? To say a boycott wouldn't have any effect misses the point. The point is whether we can live with ourselves when we give money to this cause, to the slow undoing of the club itself.
That said, it's more disturbing and saddening to see American fans tweeting about finding another club than ignoring the current situation just because Newcastle United is coming to America. If you can go to Dallas and enjoy yourself in the face of all that's going on, better to do that than give up. Maybe we should all go to Big D as a form of defiance. Maybe we should do it as a giant middle digit to the current management. Maybe we should just not let Mike Ashley ruin our fun.
Because, in the end, Mike Ashley is not Newcastle United. He won't be in charge forever. Even at my somewhat advanced age I'm likely to see this tyranny pass, and owners take over who will at least want to succeed. When that happens I intend not to have burned my black-and-white-striped shirts. I intend to be chanting and quaffing and traveling all the more proudly in them, because I survived this nightmare. That's what being a fan means. Especially when you picked Newcastle United in the first place.
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