Sporting Declaration: Never-say-die Jets show their true grit

For Newcastle Jets players, staff and supporters, however, it's a fairly flimsy premise to have been left clinging onto as their club teeters on the edge of the abyss.

It is now almost six months since the Jets announced that advisory-and-investment firm KordaMentha had been appointed to find a new owner for the embattled A-League franchise, which has been bankrolled on a stopgap basis for the past three years by benefactors from rival clubs.

KordaMentha had been hopeful the process would be completed by last Christmas, but the big fat man in the red suit failed to leave anything under the tree.

The festive season came and went, and then we were told a deal might be struck by the end of February.

That proved to be another false dawn and, even worse, the group who had expressed interest in taking over the Jets, FC32, very publicly pulled out of negotiations after conducting extensive due diligence.

FC32, who own other sporting franchises around the globe, have since moved on and have apparently bought, or are close to buying, a team in Austria.

It could easily have been Newcastle.

The Jets, meanwhile, have reportedly attracted interest from several other prospective buyers, including one consortium who were understood to be deep in talks with Australian Professional Leagues (APL) officials this week.

The word out of Jets HQ is that a positive outcome is "very close", and anyone with an emotional attachment to the club will be desperately hoping that is indeed the case.

Because the alternative, to quote APL chairman Stephen Conroy, would be a "terrible tragedy" and leave Newcastle on the national-league scrapheap, and not for the first time.

"We're not in a position that we can underwrite another club ... we shouldn't be propping up one club," Conroy said in February. "We don't have the financial capacity to do this for clubs as they go through their challenges.

"We've got to get our organisation in order and the clubs have got to do the same."

Conroy added that "we need to know by relatively soon whether this [Newcastle] is going to be a club that is going to play next season or not".

So here we are, with barely a couple of weeks left in the season, still awaiting confirmation of whether it is time to start reading the last rites.

And if the uncertainty is worrying for fans, imagine how draining this must be for players and staff, for whom football is not just a couple of hours of entertainment on the weekend.

It's their livelihoods. Like the rest of us, they have bills and mortgages to pay and families to support, which is usually easier when you are gainfully employed.

Somehow, despite the black cloud hanging over them, both Newcastle's men's and women's teams have remained focused on the task at hand.

The Jets' women could easily have fallen in a heap mid-season when coach Gary van Egmond abandoned the club - yet again - to accept a more lucrative offer.

Instead, under his successor Ryan Campbell, they regrouped to qualify for the play-offs, and if they can beat Melbourne City across a home-and-away semi-final series, will find themselves in the A-League Women grand final in a fortnight.

Newcastle's men, under unflappable first-season coach Rob Stanton, had won back-to-back games leading into Friday night's 1-all draw with Wellington, to avert any threat of collecting the wooden spoon.

They are now unbeaten in their past four games.

It has been a remarkable, never-say-die effort from both sides.

Novocastrians are traditionally parochial, and most of us walk a little taller when our sporting teams deliver on-field success.

Given all the odds stacked against them, the Jets have done us proud this season, and full credit to them.

We can only hope that their efforts have not been in vain.

OF all the days I have spent in the crowd watching Test cricket, wishing I was on the other side of the fence, one stands out above the rest: June 17, 1993, England versus Australia at Lord's.

My first visit to the hallowed, spiritual home of cricket would have been special in any circumstances, but it was made even more so by a dashing young Aussie opener named Michael Slater.

Slater had debuted at Old Trafford a week or so earlier, scoring a half-century in his first Test innings. But it was at Lord's that the 23-year-old stamped himself as a rare talent, blazing 152 and sharing a 260-run opening stand with Mark Taylor.

What made it even more memorable was that I had a tenuous connection to Slater.

I'd played against him as a teenager, and actually should have claimed his wicket, if not for a butter-fingered teammate.

He had also played in junior teams with my younger brother and even had dinner at my parents' house in Bathurst during a representative carnival.

Mum and Dad still remember him as a delightful, well-mannered young man.

At the time, he was already being touted as a future superstar, and it was no surprise that he proceeded to wear the Baggy Green in 74 Tests, scoring 14 centuries.

His career record would have been even more impressive if not for his nine dismissals in the nervous 90s.

After retiring, he proceeded on to a successful commentary career, and most would have assumed he was living the dream.

So I find it hard to comprehend this week's news that Slater has been remanded in custody until May 31, when he will face a series of domestic-violence charges in court.

I realise, as a police officer told the court, it was "not his first rodeo". In the past few years, he seems to have been in and out of courts to answer a procession of similar allegations, most of which involved abhorrent treatment of women.

No doubt, sympathisers will be few and far between, and that's fair enough.

But the guy has a history of mental illness, and he clearly needs help.