You'd be surprised how many hate us nowadays. The normal crack is we're all fat deluded bastards, who want to sack every manager if we lose two games in a row, and we think we deserve to win trophies and should be bidding for Messi. It's a load of tired bollocks put forward by arsehole journalists like Mathew Syed, and Talksport like outlets.
There has never been a reaction to a club being relegated in my life time like there was when we went down, I can say it objectively as I spend time outside the NE, even Leeds relegation didn't come close. Match of the Day felt like a wake for them, maybe partly cos of their pal Shearer, but for days afterwards it's all every national radio station was talking about, there was more talk of it than anything else, and it felt like everyone literally everyone wanted to stick the knife in. I mean a club like Aston Villa, making banners and there were loads of them not just one, celebrating our relegation all over the ground.
I was in the Holte End that day, and I'll tell you now 90% of them celebrated like they'd won a trophy, relegating us was more important to them than their winning a game 1-0. I will never forget it, ever, and I will always hate Aston Villa because of it, if the shoe was on the other foot we would hardly have noticed or cared, but I guess it maybe the next tier lot of Villa, Spurs and Everton all felt put out at our title challenges and general dismissiveness towards them over the previous 16 years.
We're not like Leeds in terms of people though, they're horrible dirty scum generally, who make visits there as uncomfortable as possible.
