It’s a fair Kop and all

For your delectation we now have all the fun of the top-flight fair given how Sir Alex’s most adored “wee club in the North-East” – Newcastle United – have revealed a plan to introduce slides at their St James’ Park headquarters. (I simply refuse to call one of the nation’s most historic grounds anything other than what it is most famously known as).

Apparently, said slides have been proposed as a means of easing post-final whistle congestion and speeding Toon fans quicker from the fortress high on Gallowgate hill.

There’s no denying it’s a novel idea though hopefully Newcastle’s proposed chutes will not be of the same materials as those which emanate from airplanes and for which you have to remove all footwear.

I mean, all those stilettos for tottering outings on the Bigg Market soon after the match could be a serious hazard on any plastic downway.

More practically, what if you so enjoy the ride, can you, as many a child would implore, “go again”?

You might never leave the environs of the stadium.

If the slides are installed at St James’ Park – and no, it’s early March now, not April 1 – then it could establish the biggest new trend in football stadia since the claret-swilling, cigar-chomping good burghers and owners of clubs ensured they had roofs above their heads to keep away the elements.

(The rest of us hoi-polloi would have to wait many decades before being afforded the same comfort).

So what other playground/fairground attractions would suit other of our clubs?

Those dinky turning teacups surely have to be sited at Man Poo’s Old Trafford fortress.

Yet again, it’s another stately, untroubled and unrattled progress to another Premier League crown – their 20th top-flight title (groan) – after the hiccup of those “noisy neighbours” filching it last May.

And, of course, should things start to unravel then there would be plenty of teacups for a certain knight of the football realm to hurl at players who may have the temerity to give him any lip, or who may not have the bottle to hang on to a runaway lead.

Any decent fairground must have a tunnel of love and Chelsea has got to be the destination of such a carriage.

I mean the whole of Stamford Bridge is in thrall to their “get interim” manager Rafa Benitez, who obviously reveres owner and serial manager-changer Roman Abramovich. He, in turn, clearly has an unswerving affection for John ‘legend’ Terry. How else could the disgraced one-time England captain survive so long if it’s not blind love?

Another transport of delight is surely the ghost train and that has a crowded platform at Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium.

For as driver Roberto Mancini steers the carriage through perils and spectres, seated behind him lying in wait like so many P45-waving phantoms are the likes of Jose Mourinho, Manuel Pellegrini and Jurgen Klopp. Maybe even the much-loved Senor Benitez might grab a ticket in the hope of becoming the new driver of the Sky Blues gravy train.

Now if you want dodgems, then they will be hurtling around the Emirates Stadium.

Already, ride-operator Arsene Wenger has had to demonstrate the fleetest of foot to dodge a battery of bumps and collisions as he complains above the jarring organ music: “Sacre bleu, they’re all after me.”

Loop the loop, anyone? Goodison Park is the venue for that particular vehicle of circular frustration.

Year in, year out for the last decade, David Moyes has piloted his Blues brothers towards a glittering trophy only for it to remain elusive as he spins around, and around, and around, and around…with not even a goldfish as consolation.

And what is a fairground without a helter-skelter?

The ideal home for such a dizzying edifice has to be Anfield, where occupants Liverpool were at the top only to fall all the way down.

Since those nosebleed days, they then buy another ticket and set off on another pursuit towards the zenith, but once more, the singularly one-track journey bends and twists, and ends in an inevitable direction, to a massive bump of reality.

Anyone for the waltzer?