Why I'm betting Newcastle fans will miss the Championship next season

By Ian Winwood

Published 14:04 05/03/10

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We have reached the point in the season when things are beginning to be set in stone.

The nights are getting lighter and the weather will soon be getting warmer.

We know that Portsmouth will be relegated, and we know the Newcastle United will be taking their place in the Premier League.

I've no doubt that for the Toon Army, relegation last May felt and looked like the end of the world.

While the rest of the football fraternity tried not to kill themselves laughing as time was called on the Magpies stay in the top flight, their fans must have thought there was no light at the end of this trapdoor and that their club had nothing whatsoever to look forward to.

Ten months on and it's clear that Newcastle United are in fact the Harlem Globetrotters of the Championship, beating most of their opponents not only easily but stylishly too.

Two months or so from the end of term, it's also clear that only a horror movie type twist will prevent the club from returning from whence they came at the first time of asking.

All of which has had me thinking. Really, Newcastle fans, has your season in the Championship really been all that bad? Has it really been the disastrous example of downward mobility that you feared it would be?

Or, let's put it another way: If you had the choice of sitting through Newcastle United's season in the Championship, or Sunderland's present season in the Premier League, which would you choose?

Fans, of course, would like their team to be in the Premier League. But that doesn't mean that being in the Premier League is always fun...

During their surely brief stay in the division below, Toon fans have experienced their team win on a regular basis.

They've been able to visit grounds that will be new to many of their supporters, whether these be in Scunthorpe, Plymouth, Peterborough or Derby.

And they've been able to experience all this at as little as half the ticket price of grounds in the top flight.¨

Newcastle supporters, be honest: next season when you're schlepping down to London to see your team lose at the Emirates in a lunchtime kick off, or else being cheated out of a penalty at Old Trafford, there will be a part of you that will miss your season in the Championship.

Obviously you won't miss it so much that you'll want to come back. But you will miss it. Mark my words.

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