On the day of his farewell match, Steve Harper spoke eloquently to the Telegraph about his former employer: "If the club was a body, the fans are the heart. It’s a cliché, but the fans do bleed black and white. They are its heartbeat, but the link between the brain and the heart is no longer there. "Newcastle are bleeding. If that isn’t addressed, if the wound is not allowed to heal, whatever is special about the club is in danger of dying. "The fans make the club tick, but they feel detached from it. Whenever the club has done well over, the fans have been on board. They have been fully behind their team, their club. "I think their loyalty has been tested far too often in recent years. It’s one of the great clubs, but it should be competing amongst the very best in Europe. "It’s getting harder and harder to break on to the top table and opportunities have been missed. We finished fifth a couple of years ago, but to sustain that you need investment in the team. "If I had a message to Mike Ashley it would be to engage with the fans, to repair that relationship. It’s not totally broken, but it doesn’t just need a plaster on it, it needs to be fixed. "I’ve seen players chewed up and spat out by it. It’s not just those who go to the game, it’s the whole city. "Everybody knows what is happening at the football club and when things go badly, they let you know about it. If things go well, it’s the one of most amazing experiences you can have as a footballer playing in England. "When there is a good feeling, when the momentum builds, you swim with the tide and you feel unstoppable. But when things turn sour, when the club is divided, you’re in a rip tide and it’s incredibly hard. "The fans are demanding, even under Keegan and Sir Bobby Robson, they’d get restless if you weren’t winning at half-time, but all they really demand is you put a shift in. They are working class people who want to see players put in the same shift they do in the week to put money in their pockets. "I’ve said to an infinite amount of players when they signed, just make sure you give everything you’ve got. It doesn’t matter which country you’re from, what colour your skin is, they want you to be committed to the shirt. "That’s the minimum they ask for, but you also have to have a certain character to succeed. "I think a few players got a shock last season. It’s not only British players who get this club. It’s not a case of ‘you’re foreign and don’t understand’. Look at (Fabricio) Coloccini, Jonas (Gutierrez), they get it the same way Kevin Nolan did. "Last year was a struggle and whenever you lose home games 0-3 to Sunderland and 0-6 to Liverpool, it’s going to open a few wounds and it did. It made a few people realise what’s needed to play here. It made a few players realise the size and the scale of the football club, as well as the situation we were in. "I think it was a huge wake-up call for some people. Like others before them, it’s now up to the players who have come in over the last couple of years to show they can handle the weight of the shirt. "When you’re here, you have to give 100% to Newcastle United, not worry about whether you are going to get a move
Posted on: Wed, 11 Sep 2013 18:08:07 +0000
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