Pard times in Ashley's Orwellian dystopia

ALAN PARDEW was today announced as the new Newcastle United manager after the sensational sacking of Chris Hughton on Monday.

The former Reading, West Ham United, Charlton Athletic and Southampton boss has signed a ludicrous five-and-a-half year deal which is meant to keep him at the club until 2016.

But Pardew arrives amid understandable fan unrest after his alleged complicity in Mike Ashley's decision to fire Hughton.

According to the BBC, Ashley and Pardew had been plotting to remove Hughton for weeks having become friends at one of chairman Derek Llambias' casinos in London.

Media sources suggested Hughton was on the brink in October before a last-minute Fabricio Coloccini goal rescued a point in a 2-2 home draw against Wigan Athletic.

I dismissed rumours of Hughton being fired as paper talk at the time and he then led the team to successive league wins over West Ham United, Sunderland and Arsenal.

Earlier in the season, there had been a 6-0 win over Aston Villa, and away wins at Everton in the league and Chelsea in the Carling Cup.

There had also been some disappointing days - defeats to Blackpool, Stoke City and Blackburn Rovers as well as draws against Wigan and Fulham, all at home.

Newcastle have also only taken two points from their last five games and suffered a painful 5-1 defeat at Bolton Wanderers and a 3-1 loss against West Bromwich Albion.

But Hughton left with his head held high having won the Championship with a club record points total and guided the Magpies to mid table this term - four points off relegation but only four points off 7th place.

Disgustingly, it still wasn't good enough for Ashley and the board released a statement on Monday afternoon, axing Hughton citing his inexperience at the top level.

Yet, despite this call for an experienced head, it is Ashley's mate Pardew who has walked through the revolving doors at St James Park to become the owner's sixth permanent boss in three years.

And so, Ashley opens another chapter in this Orwellian tale which is in no threat of concluding soon.

The choice of Pardew has stunned Tyneside and, indeed, football in general but - as part of the Inner Circle - he was the obvious choice to Ashley.

Expect Pardew to toe the party line as Ashley continues cost-cutting in the transfer windows, just as Joe Kinnear was happy to comply after his similarly stunning appointment in 2008.

It's all just a little bit of history repeating. Or worse, this could be another case of Ashley airbrushing history - just like George Orwell's Big Brother in Nineteen-Eighty-Four.

At one point in the Ashley regime, Newcastle had been looking to emulate Arsenal before that was downgraded to Aston Villa.

With the Magpies sitting 12th in the Premier League at Christmas in 2008 under Kinnear, Ashley wrote in the programme for the match against Liverpool on 28th December.

He asked: "If, like me, you like a gamble now and again then what price a flutter on us reaching that top six?"

Well, you would have got decent odds after the match. Newcastle lost 5-1, Shay Given and Charles N'Zogbia soon left, and United were relegated having had four different managers across the campaign.

Ironically, it was during the relegation season that Newcastle drew up the five-year plan to regain their competitiveness in the top flight by emulating Villa.

A five-year plan? You couldn't make it up - it was like something from the Communist Party in Soviet Russia which Orwell so wonderfully parodied.

Now the five-year plan seems to have been ditched after just two years - with a new Pardew-led five-and-a-half-year plan put in its place.

Just as Orwell's protagonist Winston Smith changed the records at the Ministry of Truth to show that Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia rather than Eastasia, or vice versa, so Ashley doctors the club's history to his benefit.

Meanwhile, half-truths and downright lies are spoon-fed to a largely acquiescent local press at the same time as Ashley shuts off the channels of communication elsewhere.

The tribunal which happened as a result of Kevin Keegan's dismissal concluded that "the club admitted that it repeatedly and intentionally misled the press, public and the fans of Newcastle United".

This latest episode proves that nothing has changed - and it never will while Ashley remains in charge.

Of course, the worst part of it all is that the fans - or, perhaps, the proles as Ashley sees us - are powerless to his whims.

Freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength and Newcastle United are doomed.

The Season 2010/11 - Newcastle humiliate Sunderland in Hallowe'en massacre

Newcastle United 5 Nolan 26, 34, 75; Ameobi 45+4 (pen), 70
Sunderland 1 Bent 90

A BRUTAL massacre took place at St James Park today as Chris Hughton's Newcastle United humiliated local rivals Sunderland in the 142nd Tyne-Wear derby.

Kevin Nolan scored the first hat-trick in the fixture for 25 years with Shola Ameobi scoring twice as United hammered Steve Bruce's men.

This was indeed a horror show for Sunderland and 51,988 people bore witness to the front pairing of Ameobi and Andy Carroll combining brilliantly all afternoon for Newcastle.

Ameobi and Carroll even showed a hitherto unforeseen turn of pace to terrorise the Sunderland defence, winning countless free-kicks and corners for the excellent Joey Barton and allowing Nolan to lurk in the box.

Then, when he got his chances, former Bolton Wanderers man Nolan finished with deadly accuracy, emulating Peter Beardsley's three-goal haul in January 1985.

He opened the scoring on 26 minutes, hooking the ball beyond three Sunderland defenders on the line after it had fallen to him invitingly from Mike Williamson's header off a corner.

And he made it 2-0 shortly afterwards, slotting home unmarked from 12 yards after the ball had broken to him from Carroll's attempted scissor kick.

Earlier in the move, Ameobi had carried the ball from the half-way line to the edge of the box with a surging run past three men before laying it off to Jonas Gutierrez to cross for Carroll.

With half-time fast approaching, a very good half turned for United into a dream one as yet more direct running, this time from Gutierrez, caused yet more panic in the Sunderland backline.

Argentine winger Gutierrez was only halted by a clumsy challenge from Nedum Onuoha and Ameobi stepped up to make it 3-0 from the spot, much to Nolan's chagrin.

Nolan would eventually get his hat-trick but first he had to wait for Ameobi to score his second, and the best goal of the day.

Danny Simpson delivered a fine cross from the right but the unfortunate Carroll smacked his header off the bar.

The ball fell to Ameobi on the edge of the box and he smashed an unstoppable rebound high into the net past Sunderland keeper Simon Mignolet.

With fully 15 minutes left, it was 5-0 as Nolan completed his hat-trick and Newcastle eyed a repeat of their earlier win this season over Aston Villa.

Once again, Barton delivered an accurate cross from a corner and again it was flicked on by Ameobi for Nolan to win the second header and send it goal-wards.

In the end, the repeat of the Villa result never materialised as Newcastle stepped off the gas and toyed with their opponents for the final quarter of an hour.

Darren Bent scored a last-minute consolation for the Black Cats' ten men, reacting quickly to a loose ball from a corner to volley past Tim Krul.

But, make no mistake about it, Sunderland had been second best all afternoon as Corbridge-born manager Bruce painfully had to admit.

It had not helped that they had played most of the second half a man down after former Magpie Titus Bramble had been sent off for a last-man challenge on Carroll.

However, this was just the icing on the cake for many Geordies who suffered five seasons of his shambolic performances earlier in his career.

An incredible but fully deserved 5-1 win, then - though, in some ways, this result should have been expected considering the Magpies' totally unpredictable season so far.

Hughton's team had enjoyed victory in the league three times before today - 6-0 against Aston Villa at home, and away at Everton and West Ham United. Newcastle also won 4-3 against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in the League Cup.

However, a rather Jekyll and Hyde start had seen successive home games without a win against Blackpool, Stoke City and Wigan Athletic in the league, and Arsenal in the cup.

Media rumours that Hughton was living on borrowed time prompted the club to release a statement denying anything was afoot and new contract negotiations would open in the New Year.

But that whole episode smacked of a panicked media construct with the press pack left without a story after the recent situations at Anfield and Old Trafford had been resolved.

Indeed the first newspaper to suggest any doubts was the Daily Mail. Their motive? Well, they have been banned from St James Park for the last two seasons.

Sadly, the story was perpetuated in the Sunday weeklies where it gained momentum with also-banned former Newcastle Evening Chronicle gobshite Alan Oliver at the forefront in the People. More disappointingly still, even the BBC got caught up in the non-story.

It is safe to say that this arbitrary line of attack has been closed off for now after a wonderful performance, full of flair and attacking verve.

Indeed, from their 14 league and cup games so far this season, Newcastle have scored 26 goals and conceded 23, a combined average of 3.5 goals per game.

It would seem that Hughton has overseen the return of the Entertainers except now there is a new King Kev at the helm.