The draw was our 12th away from home - a new club record - and we equaled the 17 draws in total which was set in 1990-91 when we played 46 games, rather than 38.

Surprisingly, though, we finishing the season with just eight defeats equaling the club's best since 1898 (when we lost six times in a 30 game season). The other times we've lost eight games; 1992-93 (46 games), 1995-95 and 1996-97 (both 38 games).

And of those eight defeats in the league only the nightmare at Chelsea was by more than one goal. In fact, the only teams to beat us and score more than a goal were the sides that finished 1st, 2nd and 3rd:

Birmingham (h) 0-1
Blackburn (h) 0-1
Man United (h) 1-2
Arsenal (a) 2-3
Bolton (a) 0-1
Chelsea (a) 0-5
Man City (a) 0-1
Spurs (a) 0-1

The other game we lost by more than one goal was, of course, the 0-2 defeat in Marseille, with the two other cup defeats both being 1-2 (Carling Cup - WBA, FA Cup - Liverpool) and not forgetting the 0-1 Partisan home leg defeat.

No team managed to the double over us while we were able to turn our two away wins against Middlesbrough and Fulham into doubles.

Shola Ameobi managed double figures in the goalscoring stakes for the first time as a first team player - this was his 10th in 40 games (26 starts.)

All told, 24 players represented us in the Premiership this season.  

A note about the home side - unused goalkeeping substitute Paul Harrison was named in the senior squad for the first time. The 19 year-old lost both his father and uncle in the 1989 Hillsborough Stadium disaster.

First of all, an unpleasant but necessary duty that must be performed: thanking the players and manager of Manchester United for their sterling efforts in securing the place for us in Europe that we were unable to grab for ourselves. And the reds finished with only nine men. That's almost as many as we started with... 

Some folks would doubtless prefer to believe it was because their 62 year-old boss has a sneaking admiration and/or respect for his fellow knight, our 71 year-old gaffer. But here in the kingdom of bigotry (part of the land of cynicism) that we inhabit, we would much rather cling to the notion that, like us, Fergie just cannot abide the mock humbleness and twee simperings of David O'Bleary.

The 2001 winner of the most odious man in Leeds award (beating off stiff competition in the process) was in such full gush after his final match of the season that several journalists at Villa Park had to be soaped down by the team that usually clean oily seabirds after tanker crashes. 

The boy David now tells that the romance has gone out of football due to all that terrible money floating around - this from a man who acknowledged what a colossal hard-on spending sackfuls of someone else's money at Elland Road was. If he went on a diet he'd only be two-faced.

On behalf of all right-minded people can we once again implore O'Bleary to go back to the land of blarney and play his Daniel O'Donnell records to himself, saving us from seeing his twisting face on the telly with monotonous regularity. Come on deadly Doug, get that dagger out from under your tartan blanket just one more time....   

Right, enough waffling. Let's rip into our lot for their underachieving season and general lack of oomph when things came to a head. Actually no, let's not bother. 

We've done the bugger to death, as has everyone from punters panelists to Chronicle texters to the gentleman on the Whickham omnibus. Glad it's all over. Again.

So much of this season has been spent on inquests and inquisitions about just how we get back to where we thought we were in August 2003 - at the gates of the Champions League, ready for more big nights of European football (although not front of sold-out home crowds of course) and with only some Serbian no-marks to brush aside.

We've tried to get excited about this fourth place thing, but in reality it's as false as the Nationwide playoffs, when 20,000 fans who don't normally even log onto teletext to find out how their alleged favourite team are getting on suddenly sprout wigs, foam hands and jesters hats before piling into people carriers to sit in traffic jams on the M4. 

And then never go again the next season, leaving the same 6,000 diehards to wave collection buckets at each other and be nervously interviewed on Skysports about setting up fan trusts.

For us, are we to go through all that grief just to f*** it all up again in the qualifier? Luck of the draw? possibly. Further proof that we are indeed fated to foul up? almost certainly. Or as good a microcosm of the problems that beset us as we got all season? We'll take C please Chris and that's my final answer.

The failure to beat Partizan was an early indication of the fact the team isn't a team. Big names, big wages, big egos. A belief that it's all there for us just by turning up with our socks rolled over our knees a la Henry, with our fresh-out-of-the-box blades on. 

It cost us millions against Partizan and it cost us millions in the Premiership games afterwards, because the players collectively still didn't learn, they knew better. Better than a man with decades of experience in winning trophies. The price of failure is disappointment in the stands, but not in the bank accounts of the underachievers.

Football legend that he is, Robson was incapable of galvanising those around him. His scouts let him down season after season in bringing chancers to Tyneside, while the players he wanted to replace had to stay, because they themselves had failed to climb the ladder to where the swag is stored. The coaching staff may have coached, but was anyone listening?

An injury list as long as your arm, poor old Bobby, poor old Geordies, unlucky again. Except that proved more and more difficult to believe as the months went on - too injured to train and play but not injured enough to appear in nightclubs at the opposite end of the country. Swinging the lead, or as we would call it, extracting the urine.

Someone needs to get a hold of a sizeable proportion of the people with squad numbers at this club and disconnect their DVD players, turn off their phones and turn on hoses connected to cold water taps. And had they done it at Anfield they could have gone and sorted out half of the home dressing room, who seem similarly vacant and clueless.

Robson has shown he can't do this. Shepherd talks a good fight and was credited with winning the FA Cup tie at Southampton after his "Rolls Royce" address to he Geordie nation, but the effects were remarkably short-lived. Maybe it's a generation thing, maybe we need to start kicking people out. Or just kicking them.   

And as for today, it was part two of the Hawthorns love-in last season. Again the sun shone, the beer flowed and we strode hand in hand to the stadium with our opposite number. Our final game last season ended in stalemate and so did this one - there was absolutely nothing at stake for either side in that one, while today we still needed to do something. 

So that's what we did - something. Better than the nothing we've often offered up, but a long way short of something meaningful, something impressive, something to be proud of.

They tried a bit, Gerrard got himself warmed up in the second half and for a while it looked as if we'd screw up again, but as masters of the away draw we did what was required and the job was completed in unspectacular fashion. Yes we cheered, chanted and clapped the players and manager, but the Intertoto Cup got the pulses racing more than this, man.

With a UEFA Cup place claimed, we got away with the bare minimum required this season to keep the grumblers from raising their voices. Bobby keeps his job because he wants to - we can't afford to pay him off, we can't afford to crow-bar someone else out of their job. 

By my reckoning that leaves us with a choice of George Graham, Ron Atkinson or the drummer from the Stereophonics, so we'll continue with the Knight for one more campaign eh? Unless it all goes wrong again "early doors" and he becomes the third consecutive Newcastle boss to leave in August - which would surely be some sort of record.

We were going to rattle through the team at Anfield player by player, but it seems hardly worth the bother. Some are leaving, some want to leave, some should leave, some just look like they want to go home to bed. They should all go away and think about what they get paid for and whether in 10 months they have been worthy of all the adulation, praise.....and money.

There you have it then, a disjointed final match report of the season. Acceptable in parts, awful in others, drifting towards the end but not a total debacle. Certainly the product of some muddled thinking and in need of rest, relaxation and a change of direction. 

While some would argue that we've just described Tony Blair's administration, in our mind at least the parallels with his alleged favourite football team are clearly evident. New Labour - Old Newcastle. Another year older and nothing learnt.

Go back to your barstools and prepare for the fixture list. You have not been charged for this call.

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