D’Oh!! Kinnear to Serve Two of His Six-ish Newcastle Games in the Stands

By: Laurie | September 28th, 2008

Meet Coco the Clown. He is the reason Newcastle will be lacking even an interim manager for two games.

You remember Joe Kinnear? The new interim manager of Newcastle, the guy who signed on for six to eight games after everybody else in the universe said no to the job?

Where will he be spending the first two of those games? Unfortunately for the desperate Newcastle, not on the touchline. It seems that way back in 2004, when Kinnear was manager of Nottingham Forest, he was none too happy with a referee and ended the game by calling him “Coco the Clown.”

(In other words, we have our poster boy for the RESPECT Campaign.)

“The touchline ban is about two years old,” Kinnear said, meaning four years. “I got two matches for calling a referee ‘Coco the Clown’. That was when I was in charge of Forest. I asked the referee what he had done in his spare time, and that was that.”

Kinnear’s appointment on a six-game contract has been met with bafflement and fury from the Newcastle fans and he did not do his credibility any favours by calling Geremi “Jeremiah” in the post-match press conference.

He confirmed that he will not be allowed in the dug-out for next Sunday’s game with Everton and it could be inferred that the club had rushed through his formal appointment as manager yesterday morning, rather than on Monday as planned, so that yesterday’s defeat to Blackburn could count towards the ban.

The ban dates back to an incident on Nov 27, 2004, when Kinnear verbally abused the referee in Nottingham Forest’s game with Gillingham, not Rotherham as Kinnear remembered. The club were informed that the ban was still in force on Friday. “I don’t think the club knew about it,” Kinnear admitted.

Two matches? That seems a bit harsh. I mean… Look at Coco’s sweet face.

I’m pretty sure he meant it as a compliment.