Belated Newcastle offside trap snares loveable fawn

Newcastle United have released a baby fawn back into the wild this afternoon after it became ensnared in the club's erratic offside trap.

While slumping to a humiliating 3-0 defeat at the hands of local rivals Sunderland, the offside trap appeared to be out of action as Stephane Sessegnon repeatedly flaunted its steely jaws.

However, the groundsman at St. James' Park was in for a shock when he came to oil the mechanism early this morning, as he discovered a cowering baby deer locked in place in an inviting shooting position.

"It [the fawn] seemed to have gone into shock," an eyewitness reported to FourFourTwo.

"These days the Newcastle box is a place where you expect to be able to wander at will."

The trap, which is usually employed somewhere between Steven Taylor and Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa, is regarded by many as antiquated and acts more as a deterrent than a means of active policing of Newcastle territory.

Newcastle boss Alan Pardew is known to take a more progressive stance and is an advocate of reconciliation meetings with opposition strikers, aiming to alleviate the root causes of their desire to score against Newcastle.

In its heyday in the 1990s, Arsenal famously constructed an offside trap so effective it took Paul Rideout the best part of four years to win his freedom. Rideout re-emerged looking wild-eyed and gaunt only to blaze wide of David Seaman's right post.