WHENEVER the editor is unhappy with his lot, he likes nothing better than to remind us sports writers how good a life we have.

“Getting paid to watch football,”

seems to be the top and bottom of it.

Now I’m not about to complain about the privileges that go with my position, but “getting paid to watch football” doesn’t really sum up what’s been happening in the last eight months. “Getting paid to watch rubbish” is what has really been going on.

As this most tortuous of seasons finally draws to an end, I thought it would be instructive to tot up how many games involving one of the North-East’s big three I’d seen, and then work out how many resulted in a victory for one of the region’s sides. The results did not make pleasant reading.

Everton’s 2-0 stroll at Sunderland on Sunday was my 40th league or cup fixture involving either Middlesbrough, Newcastle or Sunderland this season, and of those 40 matches, only six have ended in a North-East win.

Given that two of those victories came in derbies (Sunderland’s home wins over Newcastle and Boro), I’ve only seen a North-East side beat opposition from elsewhere four times in the last eight months. The rest of the time, I’ve been watching disappointing draws and even more dismal defeats.

A region that took pride in its reputation as a footballing hotbed has become the greatest sickbed of all.

It has been a wretched season from start to finish but, from a personal perspective, it is hardly unprecedented.

And with at least one of the region’s sides now all but guaranteed to spend next year in the Championship, that is the most alarming thing of all.

Prior to joining the Echo, I worked in Yorkshire, covering Leeds, Bradford and occasionally Barnsley or Sheffield Wednesday in the top-flight. At the time, it was a good place to be.

Within the space of two years, however, it had become a footballing wasteland, invisible to all but the most parochial of eyes.

Today, there is not a single national newspaper with a footballing correspondent based in Yorkshire.

The decline was both rapid and brutal, but despite Leeds’ great history and the traditional strength of both Sheffield clubs, no one outside of Yorkshire really batted an eye.

The worry is that, in a couple of years’ time, the same could be true of the North-East. While supporters of Middlesbrough, Newcastle and Sunderland take pride in their club’s current standing in the game, it would be wrong to assume they would retain their newsworthy status in the Championship.

They would be a story for a month or two – where would Stewart Downing go, who would be manager of Sunderland, would Newcastle be able to stay out of administration?

– but, from a national perspective, they would quickly fade out of the public eye.

By Christmas they would be just another Championship club. By May, if they were not securing an automatic return to the topflight, they would be completely obscured by the latest batch of fallen giants tumbling out of the Premier League.

So what, you might think.

Life would go on, and would it really be so bad if Newcastle, for instance, slipped under the radar and cast off their reputation as a national laughing stock?

Personally, I think it would be disastrous. So much of the North-East’s identity is bound up in football that for the region to suddenly become an irrelevance would hurt deeply.

There is much to be said for regional pride, and from the Tyne to the Tees, the North-East revels in its relationship with the beautiful game.

True, we have been ridiculed and laughed at this season, but at least the wider world is aware of our plight. As the next few seasons could prove, even insolence is preferable to indifference.

To be ignored entirely would be a much more serious state of affairs.

NEWCASTLE have finally taken decisive action over Joey Barton, but as with so much the club has done recently, it is a case of too little, too late.

Barton, easily the most abhorrent professional in the game, should have been sacked a year ago when he was sentenced to six months imprisonment for assault and affray.

Instead, since being released in late July, he has earned around £1.4m.

Despite having three years of his current contract to run, it is to be hoped that Barton’s horror tackle on Xabi Alonso was his final act in a black-andwhite shirt.

On previous evidence, however, I wouldn’t count on it.