Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

The burden of being a Newcastle United fan

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The second thing I learned about football, after moving to London, is that you can never, ever switch your allegiance. That was unfortunate, because the first thing I discovered was that I liked Newcastle United and had already chosen them as my team. It’s been fairly relentless pain ever since. In 2016, I watched Newcastle get relegated. They bounced back to the Premier League the next season, but it’s been utter mediocrity ever since.

I’ve followed them from stadium to stadium, unwavering in my support, cheering on often extremely boring and disappointing football. I like the idea of loyalty in sports; to ditch a team because they depress you would show weakness of character. It doesn’t matter how awful Newcastle are, I thought, nothing could put me off.

Then blood money funnelled into the team a few weeks ago and now I’ll admit the burden of fanship feels unbearably heavy. It’s a bad sign for undying loyalty when you find yourself rooting for the other side: in my case, Crystal Palace last weekend. Not the team, but the fans, who were holding up a massive banner depicting our new owners — Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund — as an Arab oligarch holding a bloody sword, next to a list of the human rights abuses committed by the Saudi regime, including ‘beheadings’, ‘censorship’ and ‘persecution’.

All legitimate accusations. The PIF, which has put up 80 per cent of the funding to buy the team, is the Kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund. Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud — whom Boris Johnson told us to cheer on because he allowed women to drive — sits on the board. If you can’t separate Huawei from the Chinese Communist party (and you can’t), then there’s no fudging the ugly truth that brutal dictators now preside over St James’ Park.

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