What Would The Geordies Think?

I don’t mind soccer – I’m just not a big fan of it.

But compared with the other sports out there, I’d say it has the best-looking players. Yes, I’m shallow – whatever.

My brother was a huge fan of the English Premiere League and that goes way back to the years between ‘97-’00, when I was still in high school, where I often saw him glued in front of the television late in the morning watching either soccer matches or commentaries. When I was home during school holidays, I’d stay up with him while having idle chit-chats about anything.

It was during those chats when I noticed that on local telly, International soccer matches mostly had their original commentator’s voices completely turned off or else substituted by Indonesian ones. Moreover, they always had their own preliminary discussions between local commentators expressing their expert opinions on who was going to kick whose ass, or the other.

Now they even festooned the whole thing up with quizzes and competitions so the audience at home wouldn’t feel so bored watching them people yippy-yappying about soccer even though everybody was like, ‘Yeah, yeah.. shut up already and let us watch the game!’

Of course I didn’t understand a single thing about what those ’so-called experts’ were saying, but I couldn’t help feeling dismayed when Newcastle United was playing, in which they pronounced Newcastle as ‘Noo-ka-stel’.

I was speechless then; didn’t they know? I mean surely they would have listened or at least heard of the British commentators who must have mentioned the correct pronunciation of it for ooh… I don’t know, a gazillion times, at least?

Or were they just plain ignorant? Could it be that they were too lazy to learn how to pronounce the name correctly, which in return misled thousands of Newcastle United fans in Indonesia who pronounced it the same way as they did?

The ‘t’ in it is supposed to be silent, you know? And I really don’t care if people think this is a silly topic to fuss about, but it’s just wrong. I can’t help but feel sorry for those Newcastle fans who keep saying ‘Noo-ka-stel, Noo-ka-stel, Noo-ka-stel….’ – bloody hell, it’s ‘Noo-ka-ssul‘!!

And now, having a fiancé who is clearly a soccer fanatic, I was ready to embrace myself to the fact that I had to let soccer back into my life – again. However, I was in for a total shock when I realized that, after eleven years of commentating – I don’t know – thousands of soccer matches, those commentators still pronounce it the wrong way.

And I wouldn’t have noticed this if my fiancé didn’t bring it up in the first place – in which he happened to say ‘Noo-ka-stel’ and thus received appalled looks from me as a response. It’s ‘NOO-KA-SULLLLLL!!!!!!!’, I practically yelled at him – even tried to twist his ear lest he tried to give some attitude just in case he wasn’t convinced.

Him: ‘Really? But those guys say it’s-’

Me: ‘I KNOW what they say and they are WRONG! Arghhh…’ clearly, I was exasperated.

So what happens now is that he keeps teasing me by saying Newcastle the incorrect way, and I keep correcting him – out of habit – while he displayed a wicked grin on his face.

And when Newcastle United is on the telly and those Indonesian commentators are talking, he’ll be pointing it out blatantly and say, “Look! They mispronounce it as well! It’s not my fault that I did it too!’ whilst we both fall about laughing our arses off.

Bloody eejits.