This is the news I can exclusively reveal to you today, several weeks after the poll ran on the Chronicle's website, icNewcastle.co.uk.

But why has it taken so long to reveal this? And why am I announcing the results when I don't work for the Evening Chronicle and quite frankly have nothing to do with them?

Because quite simply, they refuse to discuss the result and the winner.

You may recall that Graeme Souness' last game in charge was the away trip to Manchester City on February 2nd 006. The next day, February 3rd, Souness was relieved of his duties, much to the delight of a certain Alan Oliver, who spent the majority of his time writing "news" undermining Souness and several players at the club.

Later that day the Chronicle ran a phone in poll to find out who was the fans' choice for the Toon hotseat. Unfortunately this page no longer seems to exist on the site, with the link now redirecting to an article entitled "Freddy: I will get it right".

The candidates available to vote for, via phone in, were:

Martin O'Neill  0901 564 3175   

Sam Allardyce  0901 564 3176
 
Sven Goran Eriksson 0901 564 3177   

Ottmar Hitzfeld  0901 564 3178
 
Alan Shearer  0901 564 3179 
 
Guus Hiddink  0901 564 3171

(These numbers no longer work of course as the poll no longer runs)

The results were revealed the next day by Alan Oliver in an article titled "You want O'Neill":

"Martin O'Neill is the man most Newcastle fans want to be United's next manager. The former Celtic chief today topped our phone poll of the men you wanted to see in the St James' Park hotseat.

O'Neill polled over half of the votes with 53%, making him the clear fans' favourite.

Ottmar Hitzfeld was second with 34% of the vote, with the ex-Bayern Munich boss a surprise, but popular candidate.

Alan Shearer, currently assisting caretaker manager Glenn Roeder, came third with just 5.5%."

Please note that these results were from the telephone poll only and lasted for less than a day. At the same time however, there was also a poll on the Chronicle's website, with the same candidates if I recall correctly. The winner of this poll was Ottmar Hitzfeld, the German winning about 55% of the votes, again if I recall correctly. At approximately 8:30 that evening, Hitzfeld, with an outstanding CV of success, had about 63% of the vote, that much is fact.

Then there came another online poll by the Chronicle. This one was much larger than either of the two above, running for a course of weeks. Each week, the candidate with the fewest votes being eliminated from voting. My sources inform me that the candidates were Martin O'Neill, Ottmar Hitzfeld, Guus Hiddink, Paul Jewell, Sam Allardyce, Sven Goran Eriksson, Alan Shearer and perhaps one or two others.

And my sources also inform me that it came down to Hiddink and Hitzfeld, with Hitzfeld the runaway winner of the poll, as the below picture shows.

In conclusion, Ottmar Hitzfeld won the poll with considerable ease. From the off he had a high percentage of the votes for manager, whilst other candidates such as Sam Allardyce struggled with only a small selection of the votes. However, nothing was said. A poll which had been run for weeks, assumingly to find out who the fans REALLY want, came to an abrupt end.

There was no article "You want Hitzfeld" and if I am not mistaken, there was not even a clarification of the result. Not a word. The poll simply vanished, as if it didn't matter anymore. Why was this?

It is quite clear why. Any Toon fan who reads Alan Oliver's work on a regular basis will see he is firmly in favour of Martin O'Neill being the next manager. Indeed, he recently stated that "I believe O'Neill is Plan A, and I hope Plan B includes names like Stuart Pearce, Mark Hughes and Roeder himself and not Moyes, Allardyce, Hitzfeld, Bruce..."

It would not be unfair to suggest that the Chronicle disregarded their poll because they didn't like the result. Despite possessing a CV unrivalled by most of the names linked to the job, Hitzfeld is clearly not favoured by Alan Oliver, whilst O'Neill certainly is. Their poll showed Hitzfeld as a clear winner, so they chose to ignore it and pretend it never existed.

But if they are not willing to announce results, I certainly am, and so are several others at Tyne Talk and also on other sites such as Newcastle Online.

The fans have spoken, over the course of several weeks, and Ottmar Hitzfeld is the popular choice to take the manager's job.

His CV is indeed impressive, and I need to do no more than simply link you to a dossier about the German, twice winner of the Champions League with two different German clubs.

I am willing to accept that Martin O'Neill won the Chronicle's phone in poll on February 3rd. He is not my choice for the job, but if he was the popular choice, so be it. However I am also willing to accept that Ottmar Hitzfeld won the Chronicle's online poll on February 3rd, and again in the poll that took place in the weeks following, with a comfortable margin. That is something that Alan Oliver and the Chronicle seem to be unwilling to do.

And finally, I am also willing to accept the results of another poll, held recently at Newcastle Online:

Alan Oliver, we are fully aware of what you are doing, and you are fooling nobody. Since the Chronicle and yourself are unwilling to reveal these results, I have done it for you, on behalf of Tyne Talk.

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