Just making it easy for our intrepid reporters to post their eye-witness reports.

For the record I'd like to report that the much-maligned Official Site posted a match report at 9:13pm - that is within a half-hour of the final whistle, and on this occasion well before the much-vaunted nufc.com. Well done - good night all round.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2001

Answers

Ante post.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2001

Just to let you know, a report was on www.toonweb.co.uk before the official website, but the correct squad for Lokeren was updated later.

Anyway, good result for the lads, especially for Lua Lua, he deserves a goal. It’s a shame Gavilan and Bernard didn't have an appearance, I suppose its fair considering Bobby could only use three subs. He should start them both next week to give them a chance to shine.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2001

Past midnight, still nothing on .com. Wonder if there's any video record of the goals, particularly LLL's overheed spectaclier.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2001

Well, to be fair to .COM, they're likely to be in Belgium. Well, that's my guess. I see the .COCK report is © Premium TV / NUFC 2000. Do you think it was pre-written??? ;-)

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2001

Just a few quick lines. There's 3 of us sitting here (Barry, Phil and Pete - sorry iit gets a bit flowery and out of hand lower down, but it's late and we're happy). just back from the match, having a pint in Brussels. Got to Lokeren at 4. As expected, stopped by the local law at a checkpoint. Water cannon, machine guns, the works. We were turned away and told to come back at 6. We were in a German car, but they were letting through the Belgian cars with no questions. Should have gone in mine. So we went to the mysteriously named Donk Lake, which turns out to be a local tourist resort, despite its name. Back to the road block, a bit early so we had to park up. The police advised us to go get a couple of beers before coming back. We put on our gear and hung around til 6. We took some photos with the police, and along came the Belgian TV. Pete and Phil are both translators so they speak Dutch, which made the TV people's day. We pointed out that the good people of Lokeren could sleep easily in their beds as the Geordies had nothing to do with the mindless cockney morons who rampaged through Charleroi the year before! So we're on Belgian TV on the Monday sports round-up. Off to the ground and parked right outside. Toon Army in good voice in the local bar, lots of good- natured banter with the locals. There were about 600 of us (they were still selling tickets for our section on the night), and maybe about 1000 locals, that's all. All the noise was coming from our section - the Lokeren fans were very subdued throughout. A vigorous first half performance saw us go in 3 up. Bellamy showed glimpses of his potential, especially in his persistence in getting to the goal line and angling the ball back to Quinn for the first goal. Ameobi put his gangling frame about admirably, though sadly failing to engage that elusive fifth gear. Despite his apparent lack of speed his tenacity of purpose propelled him past the last line of defence to place the ball beyond the keeper's reach. The third goal looked as if he'd lost the ball, but somehow he spun round on it and stabbed it home. Second half more subdued - did Uncle Bobby tell them to keep the score down to maintain interest for the last leg? Hot Air Balloon went across and Pete invented a new variation on the familiar refrain "Toon Balloon Black and White Army", which was taken up by a large section of the crowd. (For what seemed like a drop of eternity distilled). Lokeren to their credit engineered a couple of good opportunities and could have pulled one or even two back. Our glorious leader however had left the best for last. On came Lua Lua to replace Ameobi who got loud applause as he left the field. LL did little or nothing for 10 minutes, gave away the ball numerous times and then wallop - what happened? The ball was floating across the penalty area, defying gravity, one giant leap for Geordie-kind and the ball bulleted into the goal from an overhead scissor kick. Then the most spectacular goal celebration ever seen in Lokeren - a double somersault with a twisting dismount, whatever that is. On the whole the locals were very friendly and we saw no trouble at all from any of our or their fans - Headlines expected in the Belgian and UK papers tomorrow : " 600 English fans Not arrested for not causing a riot". Before closing, must mention two interesting and little known facts - 1) there is a bar called "Bobby's Club" just round the corner (Nomen est omen), 2) luscious local Lokeren lady never misses a Gallowgate match, even sups in the Strawberry, gets in cos she knows the bouncers. A great day, even the sun came out after a downpour all day until 4.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2001

Do I take it you enjoyed your day Barry? Great report - thanks for staying up late to type it ;-) As for the "Luscious Local Lockeren Lady" - is she just tyring to go one more than LLL? Probably seen her in the Straabeery. I'm sure she'll be there next weekend.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2001

Wonder if that's one of the Belgian girls that frequent the Strawbeery?

Thanks for the report guys!! The Toon and the Toon Army did us proud today!

-- Anonymous, July 14, 2001

Excellent - thanks Barry. Mission accomplished.
How did Robbie E. and Quinn perform? There was a suggestion on the match thread that they switched positions in the 2nd half.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2001

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2001

Didn't think that would work.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2001

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2001

Wa-hey!

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2001

Excellent, it will do Ameobi & Lua Lua no harm to get goal against European opposition. Lua's sounds spectacular, I hope someone caught on camera, I was up until 2.30am trying to find something on Sky Sports, Eurosport & erm Televison X but nothing. Perhaps some of the disapointed LP revellers might take in the return match.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2001

See if this works

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2001

Thankyou Barry - giant leap for Geordie-kind - like it. The Lokeren lady may well be one half of the lovely "Belgian lasses" duo who are in the Strawberry for every home game. One has to admire their fanaticism even more than their looks (and that is high praise as they look very good).

Was The Prince anywhere to be seen? He apparently still visits Newcastle due to love of the area, so I'd be surprised if he didn't see the game. In the Chronic he did predict that we would win by at least 2 or 3.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2001

Tony - you probably went to bed just before we filed our report at about 3.30 Lokeren time, 2.30 to you. The LLLL is actually a LLGL, the Luscious Local Genk Lady, but poetic licence demanded a small change in location for the sake of alllliteration. Very interesting to hear you all corroborate her story - say hello from Pete, Phil and Barry next time you see her. Pity we didn't know that Niall and/or Biffa of .com were there - it would have been good to meet them. We also met someone called Steve from Rotterdam who for a moment I thought might have been Stevo from here, but it turned out he didn't know of Greenspun, but I think we'll soon have another Steve from rotterdam joining up. The Lokeren fans were very friendly, so I hope they enjoy themselves in Geordieland next week - they have a couple of buses organised, leaving next Saturday at 4 am. I read the nufc.com which said there were 6000 there - but there was not even 2000, I am sure. Clarky - Robbie Elliot made some very good through balls down the left to Bellamy and occasionally got into forward positions overlapping Quinn. They seemed to work well together. I would say it means that Robbie is first choice left back and Quinn is maybe filling the Zenden/Robert/(even Dyer?) position until someone eventually arrives. Bellamy also certainly tends to the left side, and really did very well - he's enthusiastic, talks a lot to his team mates, runs around a lot (a bit like a Gallagher replacement) and gets into good positions. He very nearly scored a couple of goals after long dribbling runs, and I think we should have high hopes. That said, it' s clear that Lokeren are not a great team, so maybe 1860 Munchen (or Waalwijk) will be a better test. And Jonno - we didn't spot Philippe Albert ourselves, though we did sing "every one know his name', so maybe some people noticed him over on the other side of the pitch. We didn't seen Sven Goran either - didn't even know he was there.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2001

Barry, can you confirm which programme you'll be on? I've been watching all sports programmes on Belgian TV hoping to get a glimpse of the goals, but nothing. We had similar problems with the local police, we had a Dutch car... however after driving back to the Rendez-vouz point, everything worked out OK...

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2001

Sky Sports News had 3 of the goals on today - Luax2 overhead scissor kick was a bit special.

Thanks for the report.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2001

Markus, it should be the Belgian regional TV for Lokeren/Gent I suppose. Unfortunately I can't get it down in Waterloo!

-- Anonymous, July 15, 2001

Oh right, a wee bit optimistic then of me to think it may be on Belgian main telly here in the Netherlands... If anyone has got a movie clip of Lua2's goal I'd love to see it!

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

The Journal (or was it the Chronic) had good pictures of the Lua*2 goal and the celebration leap afterwards. The goal looks pretty special but the celebration afterwards looks quite staggering with a gravity defying leap and Lua almost 6 feet in the air. The lad seems to be a bit of an athlete. Let's hope we get to see that celebration at SJP (and SOL - and all over London) many times this season and that let's also hope that he does not become a danger to low flying aircraft.

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

Next time Luax2 tries the celebration, he'll no doubt land awkwardly and be out for the rest of the season :-(

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

One of the guys on Metro said Luax2 used to be a gymnast. Never heard that one before, but it would explain the ability to leap so high.

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

Yeah - I heard that - both onMetro and I believe at the time he signed. Something about being a natural athlete but not a team player. Sort of fits. Apparently he only took up football (OK, Sar-cuh) relatively recently. Explains a lot ;-)

-- Anonymous, July 16, 2001

Wasn't it that he'd done ballet?? I vaguely remember that being said...

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001

Nah Gav that was min!

-- Anonymous, July 17, 2001