Paul McMillan would call it an abuse of executive power. To me, it was a routine exchange between newspaper pros. Dec 4 2008, as all Sunderland fans know and Newcastle fans pretend to have forgotten, was the eve of a momentous occasion: the 100th anniversary of our 9-1 win at St James’ Park in what was a Toon championship season.
I had written a restrained, objective piece about the centenary for the sports pages of The National, and was second into the office that morning. Paul, who works for the online edition, was first. Noticing that my article seemed to be nowhere on The National’s website, I made my first decision of the day and asked Paul to put it there. My request, of course, had no more to do with partisan sentiment than his compliance smacked of cap-doffing by a downtrodden worker. I acted for the greater good of the paper.
And in time, whatever he felt, Paul forgave me. When I asked him to write about the coming weekend’s Tyne-Wear derby, he agreed like a shot. It was his chance for revenge.
You saw the first instalment here; here’s the second, his answers to our questions……

What on earth do you make of events at St James’ Park this season? Fun for Sunderland, a mystery to neutrals, but must be humiliating for Mags…

Watching Newcastle has always been compared to a soap opera. But this season we’ve been more Crossroads than Coronation Street.

It’s been clueless from top to bottom.
I did not have high hopes at the start of the season and have had to lower my expectations with almost every game. For the first since we came into the Premier League I would be happy with a 17th place finish.
I think appointing a headstrong manager like Keegan and then, effectively, making him a puppet while Dennis Wise buys players was idiotic to the extreme. We are now stuck with a squad of players who are not motivated on the pitch or trying to move on.
I welcomed the appointment of Joe Kinnear – as a stopgap – but it’s not looking as good now with the transfer window about to close and (at the time of writing) no signings to get excited about.
In fact, it sums up our season that Kinnear was appointed to steady the ship but instead rocked the boat with an impressive 52 expletives in his first press conference.
Personally, I think he could have increased the transfer kitty by releasing a festive cover of John Cooper Clarke’s spoken-word classic Evidently Chickentown” (look it up on YouTube).

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