I’ve got a team that I support through thick and thin, disappointed as they may make me. I’m not going to jump ship from Newcastle whether they stay up or go down, but I have to admit I’ve got a wandering eye when it comes to football clubs.

Is it cheating if I root for Aston Villa, too? I never root for any team but Newcastle in a head to head, but I find myself pulling for Villa whenever they play any other club.

I love that they look poised to challenge the Big Four. I love that they are, seemingly, the anti-Big Four. Martin O’Neill is a brilliant manager but he’s not working with the same resources as Alex Ferguson and Rafael Benitez. Not that any manager would sniff at having John Carew, Gabriel Agbonlahor and Emile Heskey at their disposal. Villa are a deep, talented squad.

I’ve been flirting with interest in Aston Villa for a while, but the tipping point was when one of my favorite Magpies, Jimmy Milner, got his transfer wish away from the foundering Newcastle to play again on the team with which he enjoyed a loan spell years prior. Milner was poorly used on Tyneside and he deserved better, and he got what he deserved. I’ve been rooting for his and Villa’s success ever since the move. Villa’s position to challenge the Big Four aids in my like of the Birmingham club because of my disdain for the table-toppers. I see the Villains as a slightly-bigger-than-David vs. the Goliaths of ‘Pool, l’Arse, Chel$ki and Man U (I might start calling Man U “The Hand”, since manu qualifies as such in Latin). AVFC is an underdog relative to the big dogs, but a big dog relative to most of the rest of the league. It’s an alluring combination and their supporters are fortunate to have such a brilliant club to follow.

I’m never going to stray from Newcastle; they’ll always be my first choice … but a man needs to see some highs every now and then and, with the Magpies unable to provide them, Villa has ably fulfilled that need.

If the Magpies drop into the League Championship (I’m praying they don’t), I’ll have no recourse to follow games except in the box scores online … but at least Villa can provide the stop gap of a surrogate team to support and games to watch while I wait for the black and white stripes to return to prominence.