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Ahead of "the biggest match in the history of our club", my family came into town. Their visit helped me to recognize some very important truths. I live nearly 2000 miles away from my young niece. She is 7 years old. She will only be seven once. So we went to the Space Needle, and she got to sit in the pilot's seat of a Blackhawk helicopter and we went on a cruise in Puget Sound. I enjoyed time with her because these moments come around once in a rare while.
Our club, however, is crap. It has been crap. It will continue to be crap. There is seemingly no end to this cycle. These realizations led to a week of inactivity from the site, which is unacceptable and for which I apologize to you who read. Regardless what happens tomorrow (only two of 10 matches mean anything), we will do what we as Newcastle fans do. We will dust ourselves off, determine in which direction we are to cast our eyes next and begin preparing for yet another season that will have us loathing the whole situation once again. Two matches. 180 minutes of football. There are only two clubs who can go down... Hull City or us. Truthfully, rooting for a Hull loss or draw is probably our only hope. In spite of Big Sam giving West Ham the entire week of prep off, we will be over-matched and will concede from a corner or a free kick or both. Even if we do stay up, it won't really matter... we'll be back here 12 months from now feeling and saying the same things. My niece, however, will be 8. There is an object lesson here, and some day I hope to take it to heart.
Newcastle United Starting XI
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p lang="ro" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NUFC?src=hash">#NUFC</a> v <a href="https://twitter.com/whufc_official">@whufc_official</a>: Krul, Janmaat, Coloccini (c), Williamson, Dummett, Sissoko, Anita, Colback, Gutierrez, Rivière, Cissé.</p>— Newcastle United FC (@NUFC) <a href="https://twitter.com/NUFC/status/602459065344761856">May 24, 2015</a></blockquote>
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Newcastle United Bench
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-cards="hidden" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NUFC?src=hash">#NUFC</a> subs: Woodman, R.Taylor, Gouffran, Ameobi, Cabella, de Jong, Perez.</p>— Newcastle United FC (@NUFC) <a href="https://twitter.com/NUFC/status/602459105459052545">May 24, 2015</a></blockquote>
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West Ham Starting XI
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">TEAMS: <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WHUFC?src=hash">#WHUFC</a> starting XI: Adrian, Jenkinson, Burke, Reid, Cresswell, Song, Nolan (c), Kouyate, Downing, Valencia, Cole <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NEWWHU?src=hash">#NEWWHU</a></p>— West Ham United FC (@whufc_official) <a href="https://twitter.com/whufc_official/status/602459148744265728">May 24, 2015</a></blockquote>
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West Ham Bench
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p lang="fi" dir="ltr">TEAMS: <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WHUFC?src=hash">#WHUFC</a> subs: Jaaskelainen, O'Brien, Tomkins, Amalfitano, Jarvis, Lee, Nene <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NEWWHU?src=hash">#NEWWHU</a></p>— West Ham United FC (@whufc_official) <a href="https://twitter.com/whufc_official/status/602459188158189568">May 24, 2015</a></blockquote>
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How To Watch:
Watch It
TV:
USA Network (US), Sportsnet World (Canada), Sky Sports 1 (Eng)
Online:
NBC Live Extra, Sportsnet World Now
International broadcast information is available here, and as always, we'll have a match thread live here for discussion of the game at hand. You can also follow along with us live on Twitter!