Thankfully my football pundit career is still on hold after 14 years...

12th February 1994. 14 years ago I made my Sky TV debut. I was collared by one of their reporters outside Selhurst Park before the Toon played Wimbledon. It had been another great week. I had managed to disgrace myself by drunkedly leaving behind a pile of confidential work documents in a take away after our defeat to Luton in the FA Cup (a young but rotund John Hartson scoring one of the goals I recall), although thankfully only for about five minutes before it dawned on me and I returned back in time before someone picked it up.

The following Saturday via one of the lovely local public houses for maximum pre-match refreshment we trapsed down to the horrible Selhurst Park. Bedecked in Newcastle scarves and shirt I headed to the ground.

Suddenly a microphone was shoved into me and I was asked if I was a Newcastle fan (obviously I was). He then asked if the defeat by Luton indicated that the gap between the Premier League and the first division was narrowing. Prophetically I responded by saying no, that the economic dominance of the top division would create an increasingly bigger gap between the PL and the lower divisions. In hindsight this was actually quite an incisive thing to say, as this was not generally appreciated at the time.

In a manner which is rarely seen when they interview football professionals quick as a flash he asked

So how come you were turned over on Wednesday?

My drunken reply drifted into the cliches of

erm it was a cup game, 11 men versus 11 men

I then went into into fits of laughter as I realised I had drifted off into being silly.

The match was the usual surrender to the Dons, the 2 Toon goals coming from dubious penalties from Beardsley (one penalty offence I recall was actually outside the area) to the 4 we leaked. The day was forgotten as we drowned out our post match sorrows.

The following week I went to see England play for the first time, against Denmark on what was Telly Vegtables first match in charge. The next day I was at a work meeting on an Estate in West Kensington when several of the local staff said they had seen me on TV the night before. I mistakenly assumed they might have seen me in the crowd, but no apparently it was my interview from the previous Saturday. It got worse, it had been shown at least three or four times that week as I started to get phone calls from all and sundry.

It says something when a drunken knacker like myself somehow becomes some eloquent spokesman for the average fan in the street. Course, when you see the level of knacker Sky and the other media show these days I guess this is all relative. Given the media agenda nowadays I would of course tell them where to stick their microphone, but that probably reflects the increasing gap between the way they protray this club and reality.