If you'd happened to pass the Newcastle changing room just before kick-off in recent months there's a fair chance you would have heard Pearce, Shearer, Dabizas, Ketsbaia and Co psyching themselves up for the game ahead by singing "I am an antichrist, I am an anarchist, don't know what I want but I know how to get it, I wanna destroy . . ." Ahem.

Yes, Newcastle's changing room DJ Stuart Pearce is a Sex Pistols' die-hard and treated his team-mates to Johnny, Sid and the lads' greatest hits every match day. Until Ruud Gullit confiscated his ghettoblaster last week, that is.

"You would never see a top team in Europe looking to play at the highest level having that sort of thing going on," said an indignant Ruud. "It is something I have never experienced at any of the clubs I have been involved with. So, for me, there was nothing to discuss. I have taken the machine away."

Reggae's more Ruud's kinda thing and last week he attended a UB40 concert in Newcastle. Amongst the tunes he could be heard singing when leaving Blackburn, after Saturday's 0-0 draw, were "Please Don't Make Me Cry", "Many Rivers to Cross" and "If It Happens Again I'm leaving (I'll pack my things and go)". He denied, however, that these were references to six-from-bottom-of-the-table Newcastle's current plight.