SackPardew wish to congratulate Alan Pardew on winning Football365s Person Of The Year award: There is only one Profile365 Person of the Year, and its Alan Pardew. Where to start with ol Chunky? Pards of course kicked off the year in flamboyant fashion, instructing Manuel Pellegrini shut your noise you f***ing old c**t, which would have been a solid gold slice of excellence even if the Chilean wasnt only eight years Pardews senior. Which, of course, he is. A few months later, as the defeats and the pressure piled up, he stuck a nut on David Meyler, the result of an argument over a throw-in, which is about as close to performance art as football gets. In a World Cup summer one would think May-August would not leave much room for a mere club manager to take the spotlight, but that reckons without Pards, who paid tribute to himself after the signing Remy Cabella. He then entered the season with aplomb, and by aplomb we do of course mean not winning many games at all: one, in fact, from Newcastles first nine matches, and that was against Gillingham. And herein lies the real reason Pardew is so entertaining; its because hes a bit like one of those players who bumbles around the pitch for 88 minutes, then does something implausibly brilliant that makes everyone watching check their coffee for a hallucinogen, like a tramp in a rubbish comedy film. The Marlon Harewood Conundrum, as anthropologists have come to know it. For most of the time he looks like the bluffers bluffer, a chancer who got his job thanks to bonhomie around the poker table and has kept it because his boss is seemingly on a one-man mission to deliberately annoy thousands of Geordies. Then he goes on a six-game winning streak and you think, actually, he might have something this lad, isnt someone who did the right thing by accident for a while and, like a silver-haired stopped-clock, achieved momentary success. But thats immediately followed by a universe-balancing one win in six, that win being, obviously, for this is Pards, against Chelsea. Just enough success to feed his ego, not enough to convince most that he isnt a hugely entertaining fraud. Kudos, incidentally, to those Newcastle fans who staunchly stuck to their Pardew out stance during their run of victories, rather than decimating their own and their familys dignity by daubing Back from the dead on a bedsheet and taking it to the ground. In this time of short-termism and transience, its good to see some people stick to their principles. And then the excuses. Oh, the excuses. Youll probably be familiar with them, but if not theyve been helpfully collated on the internet, but should you not wish to leave Football365 even for a moment, Pardew has at various points blamed for Newcastles woes; fans being too loud, fans being too quiet, social media, the Europa League, the length of grass, the Notting Hill Carnival, agents, young players and the nation of Senegal. Among others. Its not really a surprise that when things go wrong Pards cracks out the Excuse-O-Matic-Distractionator, because obviously it cant be because of him. Pardew is a man so consumed by his self-regard that it probably doesnt really occur to him that any of this might be his fault: he must think Well, this cant be because of me, because Im awesome. What dark forces are at work this time? Maddening for supporters of the team hes managing, terrific for the rest of us. And, after all of this, if you still dont think Pardew belongs on the cover of a worldwide publication, observe how he motivates his players. Truly, quite the human being. So heres to Alan Scott Pardew, Profile365s Person of the Year, 2014. If he is to retain his crown for next year, its going to be quite the 12 months ahead.
Posted on: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 11:42:36 +0000
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