Souness Can Stand the Test of Tyne

Two sets of passionate fans. Two wholly committed teams. Two much respected managers – real football men. And a fantastic setting for a local derby – St James Park. When Newcastle United met Sunderland, it was a match neither could afford to lose – and a pity either had to lose.

As it turned out, it was a game worthy of the occasion – intense, exciting and punctuated both by thrilling football and spectacular goals. A game which ebbed and flowed tantalisingly until the final whistle brought relief and joy to United and despair to their opponents, for whom there is little consolation in the knowledge that at times they had played well enough to have won. Newcastle got the points. Sunderland had to be content with having proved a point.

There are many even beyond the hotbed of football which is St James Park who will rejoice for Graeme Souness. Coping with pressure is very much in the nature of a football manager’s job, but what Graeme has been obliged to endure has been remarkable by any standards. Some 14 months ago he was appointed to lead a massive club which has been starved of success and consequently grown impatient with the experience of too many false dawns. And ever since, for what must have seemed like an eternity, the media has reverberated with stories proclaiming that he is ‘facing the axe’ and ‘on the brink’.

Graeme Souness has confronted this formidable challenge with extraordinary patience, fortitude and dignity. He was given money to spend and he has built a team, his team – only to see it decimated by injuries to key players like Parker, Luque, Emre, Dyer and, more recently, even Owen and Shearer. And in what must be the ultimate test of his resilience, it is constantly suggested that his position is precarious because he has had enough time to ‘get it right’.

The question is, when it comes to football management, how much time is ‘enough’? If what Graeme Souness has had so far is deemed to be ‘enough’, there will be a few successful managers who will be thanking their lucky stars they weren’t at Newcastle – among them Sir Alex Ferguson and Alan Curbishley.

More to the point, if Newcastle United do get it wrong and prematurely dismiss Graeme Souness, the axe will be wielded by the man who appointed him - Chairman Freddy Shepherd. Which begs the question – how much time does he require to ‘get it right’?