HATEM BEN AFRY, Yohan Cabart and Shola Amamobi — welcome back Joe Kinnear.
The former Ireland international is back in the Premier League and back at Newcastle United, this time as director of football. Kinnear spoke to talkSPORT about his new role and was not backward in coming forward to his “snide-y” critics in the Geordie press.
In a wide-ranging 14-minute interview, Kinnear spoke about being on the phone to Alex Ferguson ‘week-in, week-out’, buying striker Dean Holdsworth for £50,000 and selling him on for £3m, and how the local media in Newcastle were gutted when his team beat Spurs at St James’ Park.
Asked by host Andy Goldstein about his reaction to criticism from Newcastle supporters upon confirmation of his return, Kinnear said, “I’m not sure of that. It’s only a certain section… I had over 10,000 letters when I had my heart attack [in 2009]. That was a wonderful thing.”
He believes many Geordies are ‘influenced by the media set’ in Newcastle and remarked that modern football often sees fans stamp their feet and a majority of managers that are lucky to last two seasons at a club. He added:
They keep saying what did I do. Where have these people been? Have they been on another planet? I have played in 5 cup finals — I have won the lot. I had over 400 games for Tottenham Hotspur; been manager of the year 3 times. I have travelled all over the world as a manager. Now this job come up, which I thought was a fairly responsible job, but already they are jumping on the bandwagon ‘Oh watch out Pardo, watch out’.
“But that’s the snide-y press. That’s the people up there or the people round that area that I have upset and they have a grudge so I expect it. It’s water off a duck’s arse.”
Kinnear named some of the Newcastle players that have done well for the club in recent seasons but got many of the names wrong – Yohan Cabart [Cabaye], Shola Amamobi (Ameobi) and Hatem Ben Afra (Ben Arfa), whom he later called ‘Ben Afry’.
Have a listen to the full interview here:
YouTube credit: TheBlaze106
