Northern Rocked

I suppose it's fitting for a club that often seems to lurch from crisis to crisis (even if, at the present moment, things seem alarmingly stable) to find its shirt sponsors experiencing a major crisis of their own.

There's been no official word from Newcastle about what implications Northern Rock's predicament might have for the sponsorship deal, but suffice to say any collapse would be far more catastrophic for the thousands of people with accounts and mortgages with them than for the club.

We certainly wouldn't have any trouble in attracting a new sponsor, even at short notice, and today's News Of The World claims that Vodafone are a definite possibility - their deal with Man Utd having ended, they're apparently looking to lend their support to another Premier League side.