By Mark Deeks
September 24 2002

2-0 away defeat at DYNAMO KIEV on September 18th. Who has the last word? Obviously our columnist Mark, who is here to tell us all about his "wonderful" day. Obviously it ended in misery with a loss, but nevertheless (if that is a word) here is his personal bit... DYNAMO KIEV.
AWAY.
SEPTEMBER 18TH

Regular readers of this column will be aware of my pet hatred of people not doing what they say they will. (See Liverpool away column for details!) You know how it is. Your favourite sportsmen, work colleagues, your favourite bands, certain so-called friends etc.... Well add TV broadcasters to the list.

"The Newcastle United tie in Kiev will be shown live on the ITN News Channel". That wasn't the information from one rogue report, that was a statement of fact from various websites and The Sun amongst others. I've got Sky. Let's face it, it's pretty much essential for the serious footy fan. That doesn't stop me getting confused as to which channels I've got from time to time though. So I checked.

And double-checked. I wanted to make sure. Like all of us, we were looking forward to this one right? The recent words of Gary Speed ringing in our ears about the shiver down the spine on a Wednesday night when those stars start flying around the screen and the operatic cries of "The Champions!!!" come out of the speakers. And then, with ten minutes to go, the harsh reality.

You see I was looking on the programme information for the ITN News channel and there was no mention of live football. "Oh well" thinks me, "Maybe it was a late change to their programme line-up, I'll just phone ITN to check".....
"Hello, ITN?"
"Hi, I wonder if you could help me...."
"Well if it's about the football you'll have to call this number [gives me number]".
[HOW DID SHE KNOW ALREADY?!?!?]

[DIALLED NEW NUMBER]
[ANSAPHONE MESSAGE]
"Blah blah blah blah..... tonight's football is only available to ITN News Channel subscribers who receive the channel via Telewest, NTL or cable DUE TO RESTRICTIONS OF LIGHT...blah blah blah"

WHAT?!?!? Yes ladies and gentleman, thousands of
Newcastle fans who receive ITN via Sky were denied
seeing our beloved boys play, (drum roll please.....) BECAUSE IT WAS DARK. Well, I've heard some baldicock habidashery nonsense in my life but this takes the biscuit. IT'S 2002 for pete's sake!

I phoned or emailed all of the following. BBC, Radio Five Live, Sky, The Sun and ITV. My thoughts went along the lines of "this would never happen to Man U". In the main, I was fobbed off (although my plight was read out on Five Live!). Can you imagine the uproar if one of Man U's champions league games was deemed anything less than a national event? It just wouldn't happen.

The result of my rather heated discussion with some poor soul at ITN was that they are "populist" network and therefore, obviously, Man U were going to be shown above any other British team! Well that's just fantastic. Although he was at pains to remind me that our next two games were on ITV 2, and that the team to be shown on the ITN News Channel would be rotated. I asked if any of Man U's games were scheduled for this less than widely available outpost of broadcasting and he said that he only had the schedule up to the first of October and no, they weren't down to be shown on it yet. What a surprise.

So there you go. For the record, a wonder strike
helped seal our fate in the Eastern depths and that only helped round off the night. However, I don't reckon that 2-0 over there is such a disaster. Sure there's no points on the board, but I still reckon that maximum points at home could be enough to see us close to going through. Fingers crossed boys and girls. Feyenoord on Tuesday's the first big one...