Instead, my son sends me Instagram footage of a number 14 black and white shirt being set alight | OneFootball

It was 35 years ago now that Sky TV got its hands on English football and turned it into the monster that it is now.

Prior to that, it was an era of declining attendances and crumbling stadia.

When I first moved to London, I found myself with my art school buddies from Bath Lane College, we would end up paying in to games in London with cash through the turnstiles.

Great anarchic days where football was the sideshow to the other party mayhem.

Games like Watford on an evening and having to walk through allotments to get there from the station.

We knew Newcastle United was the greatest ever team but we could not back it up with football stats, as we hadn’t won anything in our lifetimes. We just knew it.

That was the eighties chaos and nonsense in the time of Jim Smith and Mickey Quinn.

Forty years later and football has changed inexorably, whether for the good or bad of the game and we ourselves are now well into the Alexander Isak debate. Will Liverpool buy him etc etc???

Well, Newcastle United may be the greatest ever team in me and my mate’s eyes but a simple litmus test has been undertaken by me.

I told my Nottingham Forest supporting mate Haddock that I was holidaying in Turkey and his immediate response was “get me the new dodgy Forest kit.”

Can I find a Forest kit? No.

But more alarmingly, in the massive Turkish markets could I find one Newcastle kit? No. Not a single Toon top to be had.

No Bruno. No Joelinton.

Man U, Liverpool, Man City, Chelsea, Barca, Bayern, Real all there in triplicate colours. With names like Bellingham, Salah, Mbappe and Palmer (yes Palmer) emblazoned on the backs.

Definitely no Newcastle United number 14 Isak shirt.

And there is the problem in my opinion.

Alexander Isak wants to be on the back of all those Liverpool shirts, like Salah is at the moment. He is in a hurry for European glory.

I don’t blame the lad for being ambitious but it is the manner in which he has gone about things.

As I said previously on The Mag, Alexander Isak could have been a legend at Newcastle United. He should have claimed the famous number 9 shirt for a season and become a Newcastle legend after scoring the winning goal at Wembley to bring us the first domestic silverware in 70 years.