I’m hurting today. It was not the manner of the defeat that is so upsetting (the points are everything) nor the fact it was Newcastle. Followers of my ramblings know my football monogamy is puritanical. I couldn’t give a monkey’s about any other team. It was simply that we got beat and we are doomed.

I’ve been working in Liverpool today and am typing this on the train going home. I was feeling physically sick this morning and feel the same now. We are definitely going down and although I accept that relegation has been inevitable for some time until now there has always been a glimmer of hope. I was ok while I was working temporarily forgetting about the events of last night. But I hurt so much when the realisation returns.

John Arlott, the great cricket broadcaster and writer always used to wear a black tie. A journalist asked why and he said it was because his son had died and the black tie ensured he never forgot this because if he did, even a second, the pain of realising his son had died was too much to bear. Maybe I should war a black tie?

A bit over the top maybe but I also can’t accept the then teenage Boris Becker was right when he got knocked out of Wimbledon in the first round the year after he won his first championship and said he wasn’t bothered because nobody had died, nobody had lost a war. That’s bullshit?
If it was just relegation I don’t think I would be that bothered but with alleged debts of £70m+, the Championship might not be the end of our slide from grace a la Southampton, Charlton and is it Norwich (no Internet to check my facts at the moment)? Maybe even oblivion. A dark day for the Boro and yours truly.

Football is shit. It really isn’t worth the pain, not even for the Boro!