FA Cup Fourth round/Newcastle 3 Coventry 1: This was always going to be an occasion when the football was an afterthought.
After the week Newcastle United had just inflicted on themselves, only a Coventry City victory would have thrust the game into the headlines. But Coventry City could not beat eggs.
Just three years ago, in their first season post-relegation, Coventry had players of the standing of Chris Kirkland, Lee Carsley, David Thompson and Lee Hughes. Today they have the prospect of a new stadium and another relegation.
Go back to the previous season and a certain Craig Bellamy was Coventry's leading scorer. In a very short time Coventry have disappeared. The question occupying everyone here is when will Bellamy do the same.
Had Alan Shearer not shown his customary coolness just before half-time the interval may have heard Bellamy's name being sung to the tune of Brown Girl In The Ring. That would have been an interesting development for the chairman, Freddy Shepherd, and the manager, Graeme Souness.
But Shearer struck, Shola Ameobi followed, and though Dele Adebola outjumped the leaden Patrick Kluivert to make it 2-1, Celestine Babayaro scored his first Newcastle goal via a deflection to ensure Coventry were discouraged.
The result put Newcastle in the fifth round, but there was a lack of jubilation. The adrenalin surge of the Souness-Bellamy fall-out has fuelled everyone, but at its end, among the players if not with Souness, there is weariness and, albeit temporarily, some sadness.
Kieron Dyer is Bellamy's closest ally at the club and could be expected to support him. But other characters in the dressing-room whom Bellamy has alienated over a period of time are not exactly thrilled by the episode. That is private, but Dyer, who knows about being in a corner at Newcastle, talked openly.
"He has probably been my best friend at the club," he said. "I tried to convince him not to go on television to do that interview (last Monday). But he has his beliefs.
"He thinks he is right and he has stuck to his guns. The club think they are right and they have stuck to theirs. The big losers in the end will be Newcastle United Football Club, because he would be in the starting XI. It's as simple as that. In the long run we are the big losers and it's a shame."
Dyer had become embroiled in a comparable situation with Bobby Robson and said the hostile backlash had changed him.
"I do feel like a different player and a different person," said Dyer. "I think the chairman said it best when he said no player is bigger than this club and you have to realise that.
"We have read a lot of stuff in the press saying that he has lost the confidence of the dressing-room, but that is not the case. Not once did we side with the manager or Craig."
Dyer finished by saying: "You never know, he (Bellamy) might still be a Newcastle player on Tuesday," and with the last 24 hours entered without the affair being "sorted", Souness's dreaded scenario was moving closer.
At the least there is the fifth-round draw today to compete with the Bellamy intrigue. Contemplating Cardiff, Dyer lightened the mood with a reference to Shearer: "We do call him 'golden bollocks', and it would just be the perfect script. All the greats seem to have a fairytale ending to their careers and we hope it is the same for him."
Guardian Service
