Many of the recent injuries to Newcastle players can be blamed on badgers, revealed a United coach today. The problem is that the training pitch which is shared with the Durham County cricket club in Chester Le Street is often frozen , and frozen pitches mean more injuries during training. In recent weeks, Marcelino, Steve Harper and Rob Lee have all had injuries whilst training on the frozen pitch , this could have been avoided if there had been under soil heating at the training ground, and this is where the Badges come in.

Newcastle should have moved into a new training complex near Ponteland, but work on the site has been put back as there are Badgers living there. They have to be relocated before the work could start . The complex which will have undersoil heating, the latest state of the art equipment , along with lots of VCR's for Mr Robson to use, should be up and running early next season.

Another feature of the complex allededly being proposed is the installation of their very own de-compression chamber. It is believed that injuries heal quicker if a player is subjected to de compression. Barry Venison was the original pioneer of the secret project five years ago and many believe that Alan Shearer has been having sessions in the chamber at the Newcastle RVI which have helped him to recover from his injuries a lot quicker than it would normally take.

-- Anonymous, February 05, 2001

Answers

Haddaway Rik ; - )

-- Anonymous, February 05, 2001

Freddie Shepherd actually confirmed the Badger problem in a recent interview with Bobby Moncur on centuary radio

As for the de compresion, I got an E mail confirming my theory this morning from a guy called Roly Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment. I happen to know about this ... I raised money for a decompression chamber in Grimsby when I lived there and was diagnosed (wrongly) as having MS (multiple sclerosis). Also I have used one many times. The theory is that you go into a chamber (like divers use) and it is then taken down to a "depth" of between 16 and 32 feet. This takes about 10 to 15 minutes. When you are at the "bottom" you breathe pure oxygen through a mask. After anywhere between 45 and 60 minutes you come back to the surface as slowly as you went down. The main side effects are boredom (I read Pickwick Papers), noise and a feeling of pressure on your ears ... like an aircraft going up and down rather steeply. It is also a bit cold. The theory is that more oxygen is absorbed into your blood when under pressure. This is meant to be good to repair broken bones and everything else. As far as I know it is not proven to work ... equally it won't do any harm - unless you have a perforated eardrum. Most people feel quite good after it ... but then oxygen is a blast, so is the relieve of boredom! from Roly

-- Anonymous, February 06, 2001

I got an E mail confirming my theory this morning from a guy called Roly Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment

Funny name!

-- Anonymous, February 06, 2001

Not Roly Gregoire from the RTG site? Spends more time in the hospitality suites at SJP than he does at SoS despite being a mackem.

-- Anonymous, February 06, 2001

I remember Barry Venison having this oxygen treatment for a hamstring injury during his time at SJP.

-- Anonymous, February 06, 2001

Oh yee of little faith, you'll see that I'm not talking crap when it's headline news on Sunday. I can see it now,

World Exclusive, the secret behind Shearer rapid recovery revealed

"Alan Shearear uses H.O.T"

The reason that I think they don't mention it is that they don't want other clubs to use this technique, s for Venners

-- Anonymous, February 06, 2001

See! re Hyperbaric chambers. Remember when I brought this up last year. Well now the club are following up on one of my suggestions. ;-}

-- Anonymous, February 07, 2001