ALMOST exactly a year ago, Newcastle United were 11th. And, in one of the most shameful episodes in Premier League history, Sam Allardyce got the sack.

One might deduce that the discarding of Allardyce after just 24 games in charge got Newcastle precisely nowhere, for tomorrow they visit Ewood to take on Big Sam’s Blackburn Rovers and guess what? They’re 11th.

But, in fact, it is worse than that.

Newcastle, once the heart and soul of the Premier League, are the club that no-one cares about any more.

St James’ Park, despite its magnificence as a structural entity, no longer generates the atmosphere that once made it one of the most vibrant grounds in the country.

No wonder perhaps, when home support is dwindling and travelling fans, still panting for breath after scaling the north face of the Leazes End to reach their seats, are left squinting through the Tyneside stratosphere to determine what might be going on below them on the pitch.

Newcastle pooped their own party years ago, and under Mike Ashley are fast becoming what Aston Villa were in the latter days under Doug Ellis. Unexciting, uninspiring and a waste of a place in the top flight.

Even their attempts to liven things up by appointing the world’s most sweary manager, Joe Kinnear, have failed to make things any better on the field.

Admittedly, Big Sam had not exactly endeared himself to the locals on Tyneside, even if much of that was to do with the long-ball reputation first whipped up by Graeme Souness to explain away a defeat at Bolton during his Newcastle days.

But Newcastle were not as far behind the elite 12 months ago as they are now and far less vulnerable to the drop.

And, if they’d bothered to let him hang around and prove it, they actually had a capable manager on their hands who could have taken the club forward.

He’s needed less than a month to prove that at Ewood.

Rovers, of course, got the same criticism for sacking Paul Ince last month but their risk of relegation was much more immediate, such was the worrying nature in which they had been cast adrift.

Newcastle had time to build, but Ashley opted not to do so with Allardyce.

Instead, he chose to chase the hopelessly impossible dream under Kevin Keegan.

He ended up with the seemingly confused Kinnear, a man who insisted he couldn’t possibly be linked to Newcastle’s supposed ‘Cockney mafia’ because he was born in Ireland but then days later put his iridescent language down to a tough upbringing in, er, Watford.

That Ashley has remained at the helm, first declaring his intention to sell and then taking the club off the market once the heat had died down, is his most impressive feat yet.

But if Rovers leave Ashley crying into his beer in the directors’ box tomorrow, not too much sympathy will be spared for him.

Certainly, one can be quite sure, not from Allardyce.