Town planning

Today's draw for the second round of the League Cup saw us pitted against Lee Clark's Huddersfield, so it's clear which two things will dominate the build-up to the St James' Park tie: the fact that it'll be a homecoming for Town manager Lee Clark, who left Tyneside in 2007 to join up with former boss Glenn Roeder at Norwich (not to mention Terry Mac and Derek Fazackerley too), and the fact that when the two sides met at the Galpharm Stadium in pre-season there was a bit of argy-bargy, resulting in the durability of Habib Beye's shirt being tested.

Of course, it could have been worse - our opponents could have been Leyton Orient, 2-1 winners at Colchester last night, which would have meant the stinking corpse of that 6-1 pre-season thrashing being exhumed...

On a different League Cup note, congratulations to Jonny Godsmark, currently on loan at League Two side Hereford, for scoring the only goal as the Whites took the scalp of Charlton in the first round.

And on a different note altogether, it seems that Spiderman, Damien Duff, Tim Krul and Bigger Lad all made it through the midweek international fixtures unscathed. There's still time for one of them to twang something getting off the team coach, though...