It is almost 10 years to the day since the last Tyne-Wear derby at St James’ Park.

Newcastle United were in trouble the last time they faced Sunderland on home turf, with the season having unravelled steadily following the appointment of Steve McClaren in June 2015.

I was in the USA to cover the club’s pre-season tour in that summer, and there was a sense of optimism in the camp, and back home, at the time following some much-needed squad investment.

In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, ahead of a game against Mexican side Club Atlas at Miller Park, the home of the city’s Major League Baseball team, one local newspaper referred to the city’s English visitors as one of the Premier League’s “most-storied” teams.

I know it is an Americanism, but that phrase has stuck with me. Certainly, those who report on the club are rarely short of a story.

A couple of weeks after the game in Milwaukee, which had ended in a 2-1 defeat, a friendly away to York City at their old Bootham Crescent ground hinted at what would follow in the season proper.

United again lost 2-1, and the team looked like it would struggle to score more goals away than it would concede at the other end of the pitch.

What happened the last time Sunderland visited St James’ Park

Fast forward to the visit of Sunderland on March 20, 2016, and the team was under new management, with McClaren having parted company with the club following a 3-1 home defeat to Eddie Howe’s Bournemouth which I described at the time as “shambolic”.

The team was 19th in the league, and running out of games. It did not look like it was too good to go down, despite the talent in the squad inherited by Rafa Benitez, McClaren’s successor.

Newcastle desperately needed a win, but they had to settle for a point from a 1-1 draw.

What I remember most from the match is not Aleksandar Mitrovic’s 83rd-minute equaliser – he cancelled out a first-half strike from Jermain Defoe with a with a towering back-post header set up by fellow summer signing Georginio Wijnaldum – but what happened in the minutes after the restart.

Mitrovic – who had been a boyhood United fan growing up in Serbia – suffered a head injury going for another ball into the box in the dying minutes, but was desperate to get back on the field.

Benitez could not make a substitution, as he had already made three changes, and concussion protocols meant that he could not return to the pitch. Mitrovic had to be physically restrained as he attempted to get back on the field.

So United had to see out a nerve-shredding game with just 10 men, no easy task. It was a fraught end to a fraught game.

But they did, and Mitrovic later apologised to the club’s doctor, Paul Catterson, for his actions.

Those emotional moments on the touchline underlined what was at stake that afternoon, and how much the game, and the result, mattered to a club which would ultimately be relegated for the second time under Mike Ashley’s ownership. Sunderland finished one place above them, and stayed up.

Mitrovic always had plenty of fight in him, and Newcastle will need to press high and contest everything on Sunday against a strong and capable visiting team has already exceeded expectations following its promotion last season.

Cool heads, though, will also be needed in the heat of the derby. Brains and brawn are needed.

This could be the best, or the worst, game for a team reeling from a 7-2 midweek Champions League defeat (8-3 on aggregate) to Barcelona. The scoreline over the two legs, of course, did not reflect the balance of play over the 120 minutes, but the team cannot dwell on that.

“The positives of this game for us can be huge, for the fans, for the city,” said Howe, United’s head coach, in his pre-match press conference.

A decade on from the last Tyne-Wear derby, there is not any relegation jeopardy for either club, but this game is still hugely-important for both teams and fanbases. United are out of the Champions League and the domestic cups, and ninth in the table, but there is still a lot to play for this season.

Newcastle have not beaten Sunderland at home since a 5-1 win in October 2010, though that statistic is skewed by the visitor’s eight-year spell out of the Premier League following their own relegation at the end of the 2016/17 season.

What is clear is that this game will have a major bearing on the narrative around this most storied of clubs between now and the end of the season.

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Twelve months ago, things were a little different for one Newcastle United player.

Eddie Howe’s squad was preparing for the Carabao Cup final, but this member of the playing staff was preparing for surgery, having suffered a season-ending injury.

The player, of course, was Lewis Hall.

Hall was not even able to attend the final at Wembley, as he had had foot surgery the day before. He had to watch what would turn out to be a historic game on TV like so many Newcastle fans.

That was tough on the left-back, who had got into his stride, and played his part in the club’s run to the final, in his second season after initially finding starts hard to come by after joining from Chelsea, at first on loan, in 2023.

Success in football is not represented on a chart by a straight, upward line, it is often jagged, going up and down, and Hall has had to overcome challenges to get to where he is today.

And, the thing is, he can get even better.

Hall was competing with Dan Burn, like him a boyhood Newcastle, for a place at left-back when he joined the club. Hall, though, grew up in Berkshire, not Blyth, his allegiance to the club coming from his rugby-playing dad’s side of the family.

He and his elder brother Connor – who also became a professional footballer – used to wear black and white tops for their garden kickabouts.

Wearing a protective boot and using crutches, Hall was able to watch his sibling play for Brackley Town at South Shields late last season. Playing Champions League football would have seemed a long way off for Hall as he struggled up the stairs to his seat for the National League North game.

Hall, though, was back up and running last summer, and this season the Hall family have been back at St James’ Park to watch fit-again Lewis, presumably one of the first names on the team sheet given his form.

It is easy to forget that Hall is only 21 years of age, such is his influence on the pitch. He’s been football’s archetypal “Mr Consistent” this season, with and without the ball.

Hall started his career as a midfielder, and that football education in a different position has served him well. The Slough-born player has a dynamism and drive in possession, and he’s adept at getting out of tight spots, as explained by Connor.

“He’s a technical player, and I’m a bit rough round the edges,” he told The Sun last year. “Whenever he gets the ball in tight areas, I’m like ‘oh!’, but he always seems to get out of it.”

Newcastle fans have been lauding Hall – who made his senior England debut last season – for some time, but it is not only the club’s fanbase who are talking about him now.

Hall’s performance in Tuesday night’s 1-1 draw against Barcelona at St James’ Park has got him a lot more attention, not least because he kept Lamine Yamal, runner-up to Ousmane Dembele in the 2025 Ballon d’Or, quiet for 90 minutes.

Hall, quiet and unassuming off the pitch, lets his feet do his talking on the field, and, time again, he got the better of Yamal, who made little impact in open play.

Unfortunately for Howe’s side, Yamal was able to claim a draw with a late, late penalty won by Dani Olmo.

Hall posted a photograph on Instagram after the game with the caption: "A performance to be proud of last night. Still all to play for".

Captain Bruno Guimaraes, sidelined with an injury replied: “Best in the world.”

When Newcastle signed Kieran Trippier, also in the starting XI against Barcelona, the right-back was arguably in the world-class bracket, and there cannot be many better left-backs in the game than Hall.

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Some games live long in the collective memory. Others less so.

So four days after a forgettable defeat at St James’ Park, Newcastle United fans were given a night to remember at the stadium.

I have watched, and reported on, some big home wins against Manchester United over the years.

The biggest of all, of course, was the 5-0 win in the 1996/97 season, best remembered for THAT Philippe Albert chip over Peter Schmeichel.

Back in the mid-1990s, when Kevin Keegan’s side challenged for the title, this game was one of the biggest on the club’s fixture list, and it still has an edge to it.

That era is still remembered today. Both sets of fans chanted about Alan Shearer’s decision to turn down a move to Old Trafford – 30 years after he joined his boyhood club in a world-record deal.

The 3-0 win early in Sir Bobby Robson’s tenure as manager in which Shearer and Duncan Ferguson ran riot, and Roy Keane was dismissed for taking a swing at Newcastle’s No.9, also comes to mind.

Newcastle had beaten Man United on their three previous visits to Tyneside, but supporters would have been forgiven for heading to the ground more in trepidation than expectation following the weekend’s home defeat to Everton.

Yet this fixture can bring out the best in the team – and Eddie Howe’s side, like Keane all those years ago, came out swinging.

Fans saw another classic on Wednesday night against a team which had been unbeaten in the Premier League under Michael Carrick, a boyhood Magpie who we never got to see wear black and white.

Without a number of players, including captain Bruno Guimaraes, Howe’s side dominated much of the game, despite playing with 10 men for 45 minutes following Jacob Ramsey’s harsh dismissal for a second yellow card, shown for simulation after he went down in the box. Replays showed contact from goalkeeper Senne Lammens.

This performance, unlike the one against Everton, was what this team has been about under Howe.

They recovered after Anthony Gordon’s 45th-minute penalty was cancelled out deep in added time at the end of the first half by Casemiro.

Necessarily compact after the break, they needed pace on the break, and that came from William Osula, who came close to joining Eintracht Frankfurt last summer.

Osula started and finished a stunning late move to claim a hugely-hugely important win. Osula laid the ball back to Kieran Trippier in his own half before running more than half the length of the pitch to score with a curling left-footed shot.

Miles Starforth's Newcastle Notes

They say never meet your heroes, but I was very fortunate to meet Kevin Keegan

They say never meet your heroes…

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It was a goal out of nothing, and the 2-1 victory meant everything to a team which had not won a Premier League home game since January 7.

Osula might not be the answer to all the questions that have been asked about the club’s resources up front following last summer’s sale of Alexander Isak, but he can be part of the solution between now and the end of the season.

Certainly, he made his match-winning contribution look easy, but the team had had to do it the hard way over 90-odd minutes.

The club, still in three competitions, has started off the toughest of months on the front foot – just Manchester City, Barcelona (twice), Chelsea and Sunderland to come now.

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They say never meet your heroes.

But that statement does not apply to Kevin Keegan, a hero I was very fortunate to meet.

Newcastle United published a statement from Keegan’s family before last night’s game against Leeds United revealing that the 74-year-old had been diagnosed with cancer.

The pre-match news stunned St James’ Park, the stadium with which Keegan will always be most associated with given his playing spell and two managerial stints at the club.

Both sets of fans applauded in support of Keegan, arguably one of the most important figures in Newcastle’s long history.

I got to know Keegan a little during his second managerial stint, as I was reporting on the club for the Shields Gazette.

Older colleagues who had reported on his first spell as manager said that he had changed, and that some of his spark had gone. Yet Keegan could still light up a press conference with a turn of phrase. Those moments left an indelible impression on me.

So Keegan’s infectious energy and effervescence still bubbled away, and I can only imagine what he was like when he spoke to players in the dressing room, especially during his first stint when he took the club from the brink of the old Third Division to the top of the Premiership, as it was then known.

Even then, during his challenging second spell as manager, he was box office, though, maybe wisely, he kept his counsel at times as his relationship with owner Mike Ashley and the club’s hierarchy became increasingly strained.

The journalists who covered the club at the time were invited to Newcastle International Airport to see Keegan after an airline named an aircraft after the former England international.

United had just signed a player, but Keegan would not say a word about the new recruit. His awkward silence spoke volumes about the disconnect between him and the club’s recruitment which would ultimately lead to his departure.

Keegan, years later, documented the off-field events which would end what had been described as his “third coming” in a book, My Life in Football, written by Daniel Taylor.

The name of the chapter on his second return to St James’ Park said it all: “My big mistake.”

Keegan’s efforts as player and manager at the club, though, will never be forgotten.

We’re all with you, King Kev.

Then came the game, and, fittingly, it was a 4-3 Premier League classic.

Eddie Howe’s side came from behind three times to beat Leeds thanks to a goal from Harvey Barnes 12 minutes into added time.

A lot has been said about Newcastle’s shortcomings this season, especially away from home, but the character and commitment we saw at St James’ Park last night could yet take the team a long way.

When I got home from the match, I was reminded by a social media app that I had shared the back page of the Gazette exactly three years earlier.

The headline – “We’re here to compete” – was based on a quote from a post-match press conference after a goalless draw away to Arsenal.

"We’re not here to be popular, and to get other teams to like us,” said Howe.

“We’re here to compete and, to compete, we have to give everything to try and get a positive result. I’ve got no issue saying that. That’s our job – and that’s what we’re going to try and continue to do.”

Howe’s team, it is clear, is still here to compete.

And Keegan, if he was watching last night, would have just loved it.

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So Newcastle United, finally, have a No.9 leading the line.

Yoane Wissa scored with his first shot on his full debut last night as the defending champions booked a place in the last four of the Carabao Cup with a 2-1 win over Fulham.

It was a proper striker’s goal, an instinctive finish from a player in the right place, at the right time.

Newcastle needed a win after an inexplicably bad derby performance against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light on Sunday, and they got one.

Fittingly, local hero Lewis Miley, fielded out of position at right-back amid a number of injuries, scored a late winner to lift the mood on Tyneside after a gloomy few days.

But Wissa’s first-half goal was just as significant.

Head coach Eddie Howe said: “A really positive night for him, in lots of ways. He took his goal really well, and he’ll only get better for the minutes.”

It was the first strike by a United No.9 since February 8, when Callum Wilson, the last player to wear the jersey, scored against Birmingham City in an FA Cup tie.

However, we have not had a Premier League goal by a Newcastle player wearing the iconic shirt since Wilson scored 594 days ago against Burnley at Turf Moor on May 4, 2024.

That is too long.

The No.9 jersey was a good fit for Wilson, who would have scored a lot more goals had it not been for a series of injuries.

Hopefully, £55million-signing Wissa, left out of DR Congo’s Africa Cup of Nations squad, will also wear it well.

Wissa – who was sidelined with a knee injury soon after joining the club from Brentford in the summer – should give United some of what they have been missing this season.

Nick Woltemade, comfortable dropping deep, has done well since his own summer move to St James’ Park, but Wissa should give Newcastle, still adjusting to the loss of Alexander Isak, another dimension as he gets in behind opposition defences.

United were not at their best against Fulham, but they dominated the quarter-final tie, and deserved to go through to the semi-finals.

“The will and drive to win was there,” said Howe. “We gave everything, even in the difficult moments.”

Wissa’s drive in the final third of the pitch will be hugely important over the coming weeks and months.

Howe’s side were drawn against Manchester City in the semi-finals.

In the meantime, Newcastle have work to do in the league. The club is 12th in the table, and six points adrift of the Champions League places.

Chelsea are next up at St James’ Park, and a first home league goal from a No.9 since April last year would be very welcome as the club looks to make up ground in the division after a challenging few months.

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Most of us have seen social media posts ranking football derbies. Designed for engagement, they invariably get plenty of comments, likes and dislikes.

The Tyne-Wear derby is almost always put in one of the top tiers of these rage-bait graphics.

And that will not surprise anyone on either side of the divide.

The fiercely-contested fixture finally returns to the league calendar today after an absence of more than nine years.

And any fan of either club who is not even mildly nervous or apprehensive has probably not experienced a derby first-hand, as they are angst-filled and nerve-shredding occasions for everyone given what is at stake.

There is just too much at stake to be relaxed ahead of them, though the stakes are high for Newcastle, competing to progress in the Champions League and Carabao Cup, on other fronts too.

A different challenge at the Stadium of Light

The fact that the two clubs have not met in the league for so long only adds to the sense of anticipation on Tyneside and Wearside.

Newcastle beat Sunderland 3-0 in an FA Cup tie at the Stadium of Light two seasons ago.

But much has changed since then.

I watched twice at Sunderland at the Stadium of Light last month when I covered two fixtures for The Guardian, including a 2-2 draw against Premier League leaders Arsenal.

“The gap between the Championship and Premier League was evident in that cup tie, but Sunderland, whose fans can use the new £31million Keel Crossing to cross the Wear for games, have bridged the gap this season thanks to [Regis] Le Bris’ management and a strong summer in the transfer market.”

As I wrote at the time, what struck me was just how hard Regis Le Bris’ side were to play against. They pressed high, were physical, and attacked with pace and purpose. The way they unsettled Arsenal on home turf, and got in their faces, reminded me of Eddie Howe’s Newcastle in some ways.

So the Sunderland team that will play Newcastle will be very different to the one which faced the club in the cup.

Speaking on Friday, Howe said that he and his staff would do everything they could to make any new players aware of the fixture’s importance before kick-off time, but there is only so much they can do and say.

“There’ll be some new players that maybe don’t understand it as well as others,” said United’s head coach.

“So we’ll use whatever methods we can in the next few days to make sure that everyone enters the pitch fully aware of the importance.”

All of the club’s players players, by now, should be aware of what the game means to the fans, even if broader progress at home and abroad this season is more important than any one fixture.

This game, whatever the result, will not define the club’s campaign.

The ferocity and intensity of the game may surprise some players, and Howe will have to choose his team carefully. Newcastle are a strong, physical team, but so too are their opposition, who are unbeaten in their last nine league fixtures against their great rivals.

This is a fixture during which crunching tackles will be cheered as loudly as defence-splitting passes, though cool heads will be needed amid the heat of occasion.

Aleksandar Mitrovic’s knockout blow

The two teams drew 1-1 the last time they met in the Premier League in March 20, 2016.

What I remember most about that game at St James’ Park is Aleksandar Mitrovic – who had been knocked out minutes after scoring an equaliser – having to be physically restrained by Paul Catterson, the club’s doctor, when he attempted to return to the field for the last few minutes.

Despite having been out cold, he still wanted to help his team land a knockout blow.

The striker had to stay off because of concussion protocols, but he did not know this at the time as he argued on the touchline.

Howe’s players will need to play with their heads as well as their hearts, but this is not a fixture for the faint-hearted.

Sunderland, unbeaten at home and 10th in the league, have a habit of coming from behind, while 12th-placed Newcastle have repeatedly conceded late goals this season, most recently away to Bayer Leverkusen on Wednesday night.

This derby, which comes after the sad passing of former Sunderland midfielder Gary Rowell aged 68, looks to be finely balanced, and it could be decided by the finest of margins.

Of course, the rivalry between Newcastle and Sunderland predates football. It goes back to the 17th century and the English Civil War when the cities were on either side of the conflict between Royalists and Parliamentarians.

It is an age-old rivalry.

Sunderland were out of the Premier League for eight seasons, but the rivalry has simmered away during that time. It will come to the boil at 2pm today.

And given the history, and passionate support on both sides of the divide, this fixture belongs at the top of the top tier.

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Newcastle United fans have started arriving in Marseilles.

It’s a beautiful, vibrant Mediterranean city, but travelling supporters have been “strongly advised” by French police not to visit the Vieux Port during their stays.

From the marina, you can see the stunning Notre-Dame de la Garde, the basilica which towers above the city.

But Newcastle fans, if they heed police warnings, will not see the view.

Visiting supporters have also been told not to wear colours, or congregate in large groups, this evening – or all day tomorrow.

I have some experience of Marseilles.

Back in 1998, I got a ticket to see England play Tunisia in what was their first World Cup group fixture for eight years at the Stade Velodrome, the home of Olympique Marseille.

I was a newly-qualified news reporter with the Evening Chronicle at the time, but I travelled as a fan. However, I would have a story to tell once I had left the city.

A friend and myself, staying outside the city in Aix-en-Provence, headed for the Vieux Port the day before the game.

Everything was fine – until it was not.

England fans were happily drinking in the sun through the day, but it was clear some locals and Tunisian supporters were paying close attention to them.

And, later in the afternoon, they were provoked. Glasses and beer cans were tossed towards the England supporters, and the place erupted. Everything boiled over on a sweltering day in the city.

We decided to head back to the train station at that point, but it was too late. The police – who had been on standby – quickly got involved. It was chaotic.

One exit off the Vieux Port was blocked by CRS, the French riot police, but we escaped the tear gas via down a side road. Unfortunately for us, the CRS were not just after the hooligans causing mayhem behind us. We both got whacked with batons as we tried to get away from it all down a narrow street.

At least 32 people were injured during seven hours of violence that day, according to the BBC.

So that was my story. We got away before things got worse, but it was still a bruising experience.

I did not see any serious trouble on the day of the game, which was decided 2-0 in England’s favour by goals from Alan Shearer and Paul Scholes, but the sound of police sirens across the city was never-ending.

One thing I remember is that because I had heard so many sirens during my brief stay in Marseille, that distinctive sound was still ringing in my head that night in my sleeper train cabin.

I dictated a story, a first-hand account of the trouble, to the Chronicle’s copytakers on what had been described back home as a “riot” when I changed trains at Lille the following morning.

Also, I remember gingerly walking back into the Chronicle newsroom later that week with a black eye – and getting a round of applause from my colleagues.

It was one way to make an impression as a trainee reporter.

Six years later I returned as a football writer when Newcastle played Marseille in a UEFA Cup semi-final.

Thankfully, I did not see any flashpoints in the city, or around the stadium, though Marseille’s ultras managed to start a fire through their use of flares in the end closest to travelling fans.

Chelsea-bound Didier Drogba was the difference over the two legs, his two goals at the Stade Velodrome giving Marseille a 2-0 aggregate win following a goalless draw at St James’ Park.

That tough defeat felt like the beginning of the end for then-manager Sir Bobby Robson, and so, sadly, it would prove a few months later.

This season, though, it feels like the just the start of something in Europe for a team, buoyed by Saturday’s win over Manchester City, which is sixth in the Champions League table, and level on points with champions Paris Saint-Germain.

Hopefully, United fans will get to see another positive result – and safely enjoy their visit to the city.

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It will not be long before Newcastle United are on the road again,

Much has been said and written about the club’s away form this season.

Eddie Howe’s team, yet to win on their travels in the Premier League, suffered a 3-1 loss to Brentford before the international break a week after losing to West Ham United in the capital by the same scoreline.

Newcastle, normally so hard to play against, were beaten too easily for the liking of Howe and the club’s fanbase.

After losing to Brentford, United’s head coach said: “We haven’t done our jobs, and we feel we’ve let everybody down.”

However, some of the toughest trips are yet to come. The club has not yet played Arsenal, Manchester City or Chelsea, the division’s top three as it stands, away from home.

Nor have they travelled to the team which is fourth in the division – Sunderland.

Earlier this month, I reported on two games at the Stadium of Light for The Guardian.

And what struck me during the second fixture, a 2-2 draw against Arsenal which ended the Premier League leaders’ 10-game winning run in all competitions, was just how hard Regis Le Bris’ team is to play against.

Sunderland did to Arsenal what Newcastle have previously done to Mikel Arteta’s side at St James’ Park. They were physical, and pressed them high. They unsettled them, and attacked with pace and purpose.

The club’s slogan since the play-offs has been “Til The End”, and they claimed a point thanks to an injury-time goal from Brian Brobbey.

Newcastle, sixth in the Champions League table and level on points with Paris Saint-Germain after three successive European wins, visit the Stadium of Light on December 14, and they will face a very different side to the one they comfortably beat 3-0 in the FA Cup two seasons ago.

Sunderland have changed manager since then. And the club has also changed a lot of players.

The gap between the Championship and Premier League was evident in that cup tie, but Sunderland, whose fans can use the new £31million Keel Crossing to cross the Wear for games, have bridged the gap this season thanks to Le Bris’ management and a strong summer in the transfer market.

Sunderland, though, will lose up to seven players to the Africa Cup of Nations next month.

United will only lose DR Congo’s Yoane Wissa, a summer signing they have had to make do without so far due to injury.

According to the Premier League, “there is a possibility that some players will leave early for the tournament” ahead of the round of fixtures which includes the Wear-Tyne derby.

Newcastle have six games before the Sunderland game, including Champions League fixtures away to Olympique Marseille and Bayer Leverkusen, and a first visit to Everton’s new stadium, but the first league derby in more than eight years will be on the horizon very soon.

It has been more than 14 years since the club last won a Premier League fixture at the Stadium of Light.

On a bright August afternoon in 2011, Ryan Taylor wrote himself into Geordie folklore when he lifted a free-kick over the wall.

As the last few jubilant away fans left the stadium, I sat down in the dugout with a colleague to interview him.

I told him: “You have no idea yet what you have just done!”

All these years later, that goal is still celebrated in song.

And, for all the club’s struggles away from home this season, a new folk hero could emerge at the Stadium of Light.

St James’ Park’s Euro 2028 host status

Five Euro 2028 games will be played at St James’ Park.

And England could play a Round of 16 fixture at the stadium, one of nine tournament host venues, should they top their group.

Last week’s announcement took me back to 1996, when the stadium staged three European Championship group fixtures.

A student at the time, I had the opportunity to work as a volunteer in the media centre, a temporary building behind the Gallowgate end of the ground, for the tournament.

The work itself was mundane – there was a lot of photocopying and faxing – but the experience of working behind the scenes at the tournament was anything but mundane.

I was in awe of some of the big-name players, among them Zinedine Zidane, Gheorghe Hagi, Hristo Stoichkov, who represented their countries at St James’ Park that summer.

That all said, I did skip one of the Euro 96 games at St James’ Park.

Instead of watching France v Bulgaria, at was at Wembley, sat along from a bowler-hatted Dutchman (see photograph below), to see England beat Holland 4-1.

Alan Shearer was among the scorers on an unforgettable afternoon at the national stadium.

Euro 96 was particularly memorable, and the prospect of another international tournament coming to St James’ Park is an exciting one.

Whatever the future holds holds for St James’ Park amid the need for a higher capacity, the city and it’s iconic stadium are perfect for Euro 2028.

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Define success for Newcastle United this season.

Will be a top-four finish? Or top five? Or progression in the Champions League? Or a run in a domestic cup?

There was, understandably, a negative reaction to the weekend’s 3-1 defeat to West Ham United.

The result left the club 13th in the Premier League, and Eddie Howe did not hide his frustration after the game at the London Stadium. The team was lethargic, and lacked ideas as well as legs, after a demanding few months on the pitch.

Newcastle are yet to win away from home in the division, and that is a concern with just over a quarter of the domestic season gone.

“I didn’t like the body language of the group,” Howe, tellingly, said.

Yet the Champions League table makes for much better reading.

The club, which has won six of its last eight games in all competitions, is sixth, and level on points with Paris Saint-Germain, after winning three games in a row in the competition for the first time since Sir Bobby Robson’s side memorably recovered from a seemingly-disastrous start in the 2002/03 season and qualified for the second group stage.

Newcastle beat Athletic Club 2-0 at St James’ Park last night thanks to headers from Dan Burn and Joelinton.

This time, there were no problems with the body language.

It was as much of a routine win as you could hope for in the competition. There were not exactly any Bonfire Night fireworks on the pitch as the sound of rockets reverberated across Tyneside, but Burn’s header was a cracker.

So the well-placed club could well reach the knockout stage of the competition for the first time in its history, but progress in Europe would inevitably come at a cost given the demands the extra games would place on Howe’s squad.

Matching or bettering last season’s Premier League finish will be a challenge for the Carabao Cup quarter-finalists.

But the success of this season will not solely be judged on the club’s final domestic position.

Four years of Eddie Howe at Newcastle

Howe will celebrate four years as Newcastle head coach on Saturday.

There has been much to celebrate in that time. The club has finished fourth, seventh and fifth in his three full seasons in charge, qualified for two Champions League campaigns – and won a first major domestic trophy in 70 years.

That is hard to beat, and, in Howe’s time on Tyneside, his fiercely-competitive team has proved hard to beat. That is why the West Ham performance was so hard to take.

There have been downs as well as ups over the past four years, but Howe is already one of the most successful managers in the club’s history.

The midweek win means it will be a happier anniversary for Howe, who took on the job when the club was winless and seemingly heading for the Championship. Eighteen months later, the club was in the Champions League for the first time in two decades.

And there could be more to celebrate this season, despite the club’s underwhelming Premier League away form.

What are the links between Newcastle and Bilbao?

Athletic produced a lovely video for its social media channels ahead of the game.

It celebrated the bond between the two clubs, which was forged when they met in the UEFA Cup in 1994.

There were memorable scenes before, during and after the second leg in Bilbao, which ended in defeat for Newcastle, knocked out on away goals.

Of course, there are cultural and historical links between the North East of England and Bilbao which go back much further, right to Athletic’s inception. Coal from the region was shipped to Bilbao, and iron ore was sent back in the opposite direction.

And the game of football was also exported to the Basque region from England in the late 19th century,

“The game was initially brought to Bilbao by British migrant workers and young Basques who had studied in Britain,” states the club’s website.

The shared industrial history of the two proud cities, each with a strong identity, resonates with fans today.

In the video, one Athletic fan said: “When you mix Newcastle coal and Bilbao iron, you create good steel.”

Athletic fans seemed to enjoy their club’s latest visits to Tyneside, and the bond between the two fanbases was strengthened as they mingled with Newcastle supporters in the city this week.

Let us hope that the two clubs – who met at St James’ Park for a friendly three years ago – can one day meet again at Athletic’s Sam Mames home.

Certainly, the stunning stadium, built on land next to the stadium which hosted the 1994 tie against Kevin Keegan’s side, would be quite a venue for a future pre-season game.

It would be the friendliest of friendlies.

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Over the years, I reported on a few near misses from the press box.

By that I mean times when I felt that Newcastle United could, and should, have gone further in major competitions.

Three of those near misses, or missed opportunities, came under the lights in Europe.

There was the UEFA Cup run of the 2003/04 season, when a Didier Drogba-inspired Olympique Marseille ended hopes of silverware in what turned out to be Sir Bobby Robson’s final full season in charge of the club.

Things went up in flames at the Stade Velodrome, a stadium the club will revisit later this season for a Champions League fixture, on a night when the home side’s fans started a real fire in their end.

Three years later in the same competition, it all went wrong away against AZ Alkmaar as the home side, beaten 4-2 at St James’ Park, went through on the away goals rule after a 2-0 loss for Glenn Roeder’s side in Holland.

Defensive mistakes, and a disputed penalty in the home leg, had proved costly in what had seemed like a winnable competition, and European campaign which had begun quietly against a Norwegian club nine months earlier ended without a bang.

After the game, the disappointment was palpable in the mixed zone.

Shay Given said: “What can we say? We have let the fans down again. The whole team did not play well and we are out of Europe, so it is the end of the season.”

Newcastle fans, of course, are used to being let down.

Alan Pardew and an awkward question in Lisbon

But the near miss that sticks out most in my mind came against tonight’s Champions League opposition, Benfica.

Before a ball was kicked in the Europa League quarter-final tie, things had kicked off in the Portuguese press after then-manager Alan Pardew’s pre-match press conference at the Estadio da Luz.

Pardew’s response to a slightly-loaded question about how Benfica, the most successful Portuguese club, would fare in the Premier League did not go down well.

The club, Pardew suggested, would finish between eighth and 10th.

Portuguese journalists did not like the idea that the hugely-successful club would be a mid-table side in England, and the next day’s headlines in Lisbon were not kind.

Newcastle played well in the first leg, but were still beaten 3-1. They were even better at home, especially after Papiss Cisse – who had scored at the Estadio da Luz – netted to put the team within a goal of the last competition’s four.

I clearly remember that frenetic last period as the team pushed for a second goal. In the end, Benfica levelled in injury time to end what was the club’s only European run during Mike Ashley’s time as owner.

Ashley’s indifference to European competition at the time had seen only one senior player, Vurnon Anita, recruited for what would be a challenging campaign at home and abroad following the previous season’s fifth-placed finish, and the club’s league form, inevitably, suffered.

But the team, and Pardew and his coaching staff, deserved credit for taking the team so far in Europe that season.

Ultimately, his side was just a goal away from reaching the semi-finals. Had they progressed, they would have surely been one of the favourites to win the competition.

What Mourinho has said about Newcastle

The hope on Tyneside is that Eddie Howe’s team can progress in the Champions League this season, having put their opening defeat to Barcelona behind them with a convincing 4-0 win over Union Saint-Gilloise, their biggest in the competition proper.

Howe and “little Magpie” Jose Mourinho, appointed Benfica manager for the second time last month, held their pre-match pressers yesterday.

Having learnt his trade under the late, great Sir Bobby, Mourinho has never needed much encouragement to speak well of Newcastle on his previous visits to St James’ Park.

And this time he revealed that he had told his players about the club’s “beautiful” and atmospheric home.

“I’ve never hidden how dear Newcastle is to me because of the influence of a legendary person at this club. St James’ Park is a fantastic place to play football. People do not come here to watch the game, they come here to play it with them. It’s not just the stadium, it’s this club, the history, the passion and the fans.

“With the economic power they have now, it’s a team that’s very close to even bigger things. It’s a very special club, because of the culture in this region. It’s very different culturally to London and to Manchester. I said to my players: ‘It’s beautiful here, and you will feel that atmosphere.’”

Mourinho knows from experience just how hard it can be to get a result at St James’ Park when Newcastle’s players AND fans are playing as one.

And tonight, hopefully, will be another special Champions League occasion.

So when I think of Benfica at St James’ Park, I think of that near Pardew-era miss, and that 20-minute period when Newcastle threw everything at their visitors, only to concede a late goal.

This Newcastle side, looking to put their weekend defeat to Brighton and Hove Albion behind them, can make their own history tonight.

And, looking at Howe’s team, I see a striker, five-goal Nick Woltemade, who seemingly cannot miss.

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Forget about the price tag.

Not for the first time, a Newcastle United striker’s price has been questioned.

Bayern Munich executive Karl-Heinz Rummenigge made headlines when he suggested that the Premier League team were “idiots” for paying a club-record £69million fee to sign Nick Woltermade from VfB Stuttgart after the Bundesliga champions failed with several bids for the 23-year-old.

Woltermade has answered with his feet (and head).

He netted in Wednesday’s 4-0 Champions League win over Union Saint-Gilloise – the club’s biggest-ever group-stage win, and first away victory in the competition proper for more than 22 years – to take his goal tally to three from six appearances.

That’s a very good start.

Transfer fees

It was not so long ago that the £25million release fee that Newcastle paid to Burnley for Chris Wood, back at St James’ Park on Sunday with Nottingham Forest, was being questioned on Tyneside – and elsewhere.

At the time, I made the point that that figure was probably the going rate for a reliable Premier League striker who had just turned 30.

Strikers do not come cheap.

Wood, signed amid an injury crisis, had a good year at St James’ Park. He gave the team a much-needed focal point up front in the absence of Callum Wilson, and helped the club stay up that season. Wood then played his part as the team pushed on towards Europe the following season. The fee, mocked by some, was money well spent.

I interviewed Wood in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in late 2022 during a mid-season break for the World Cup in Qatar.

Wood, sat in the team hotel’s cool lobby, reflected on his first year at the club after training in the December heat earlier in the day.

Barely a month later, he was gone, and the next time I spoke to him was for FourFourTwo at Nottingham Forest’s training ground on a chilly Nottinghamshire day.

Finding himself behind Isak and Callum Wilson in the pecking order, Wood had spoken to Howe about his future the previous winter.

“I spoke with Eddie, and he just said ‘at the moment, it seems you’re going to be third choice’,” said Wood, who was allowed to join Forest, initially on loan.

Wood has been playing week in, week out at the City Ground – and scoring week in, week out.

The club-record £60million fee Newcastle paid for Isak looked expensive too early in his career at St James’ Park as he adjusted to the English game, but he quickly established himself as a world-class striker during his time on Tyneside. Money very well spent.

United reinvested the British-record £125million fee they eventually banked from Liverpool for Carabao Cup-winner Isak in Woltemade and Yoane Wissa this summer.

There was also Joelinton. It was evident that Joelinton was not a £40million No.9 during his difficult first season at the club.

It turned out that Newcastle, however, had signed a far more valuable midfielder following an enforced positional change in Howe’s first season on Tyneside. Again, money well spent.

Woltemade’s big impact

So 6ft 6in Woltemade has already made a big impression, but the team is still getting used to him – and he is still getting used to the team.

Woltemade, comfortable dropping deeper, a different player to Isak. Howe’s side is evolving and changing. Nothing can stay the same.

Howe said: “I think he’s started very strongly in what’s been a difficult period for him, because he’s thrust straight into action, no training time with us, really, of any note and I think he’s done really, really well, so we’re really pleased to have him with us, and the transfer fee, for me, is absolutely irrelevant.”

Time will tell just how well the money was spent, but Woltemade has filled his boots in his first few weeks at the club.

And what is relevant right now is Woltemade’s sizeable contribution on the pitch – at home and abroad.

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I was reminded of the briefest of trips to Wales with Newcastle United ago this week.

In the programme for last night’s 4-1 Carabao Cup win over Bradford City, shirt collector Gavin Haigh revealed another match-worn top from his impressive collection.

This jersey had been worn by Jonjo Shelvey five years ago for the club’s first visit to Newport County’s Rodney Parade.

The two clubs had been paired in the fourth round of the Carabao Cup in the 2020/21 season, with a Jacob Murphy-inspired Newcastle having beaten Morecambe 7-0 in the previous round.

This behind-closed-doors tie had come amid ongoing Covid-19 restrictions, and it had been raining, heavily, on Rodney Parade that day. United fans had to watch the game on TV.

Back to Shelvey – and that shirt.

Shelvey, wearing the black and white No.8 top featured in the programme, got Newcastle back into the game with a stunning goal.

The midfielder took the ball just inside the box, and twisted and turned before curling a shot into the top right-hand corner.

The goal was memorable. And his celebration? Odd.

Shelvey, wearing the captain’s armband, ran in front of the ageing West Stand, cupping his ears and making a “shhhh” gesture in the direction of the few socially-distanced journalists seated in the press box.

Presumably, Shelvey was unhappy at some criticism of him and the team, then managed by Steve Bruce. It was a great goal, but I wrote at the time that a strike against a League Two side at an empty stadium would not fully silence any of his or the team’s critics.

“Shelvey’s quite entitled to that opinion, but what he must understand is that most of the criticism in the media has been mild compared to that which has come from fans themselves. Some have gone in a lot harder on Bruce and his team.”

I liked Shelvey as a player, a technically-gifted player with the vision and ability to see and play a game-changing pass. Shelvey gave the team some great moments during his time at St James’ Park, and he was also an honest, engaging and insightful interviewee when he spoke to journalists. He gave a fascinating insight into life at the club under Howe while away with the club in Austria three years ago.

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Former Newcastle United goalkeeper Tim Krul has hung up his gloves – almost 19 years after making a stunning debut for the club.

The 37-year-old has retired after leaving Luton Town at the end of last season.

“I have truly lived the dream I had as a young boy,” said Krul on Instagram. “Thank you to the clubs, coaches, team mates, my beautiful family and most importantly you fans for your support throughout my career.”

Krul, memorably, kept a clean sheet on his Newcastle debut, a 1-0 UEFA Cup win away to Palermo in the 2006/07 season, after being drafted into the starting XI amid an injury crisis.

The Den Haag-born player went on to make 184 appearances for the club in all competitions. Krul was part of the squad which won promotion from the Championship in the 2009/10 season, and he established himself as the club’s No.1 in the the following season.

He set a Premier League record for the most saves in one game when stopped 14 shots against Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane on November 10, 2013.

Krul left Newcastle in 2017 after recovering from a serious knee injury suffered while playing for Holland, and joined Brighton and Hove Albion, where he was reunited with former Newcastle manager Chris Hughton. He was given a standing ovation on his first return to St James’ Park.

He went on to have a successful five-year stint at Norwich City, twice winning promotion to the Premier League with the club, before joining Luton two years ago.

Krul won 15 senior caps for Holland, and was famously brought off the bench for a penalty shootout against Costa Rica in the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

He saved two spot kicks as Holland won 4-3 on penalties to progress to the last four.

Krul graduated from the PFA Business School this month after completing its Global Football Sports Directorship course.

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It was time for a quiet pint after the loudest of nights at St James’ Park.

This was May 22, 2023, and Newcastle United had qualified for the Champions League for the first time in 20 years.

After reporting on the goalless draw against Leicester City which guaranteed the club a top-four finish, I headed across the road to The Strawberry with some colleagues.

By then, the pub had emptied. Fans had headed home ahead of work in the morning, but, as a football writer, I had only just put my laptop back in my bag after a frantic few hours at the stadium.

The significance of the result was still sinking in, even though I had filed many words on its significance for the club after the final whistle.

Eddie Howe – who had taken over a relegation-threatened team less than 18 months earlier – spoke about his team’s “incredible” achievement in his first full season in charge.

Champions League football couldn’t have been further away as the winless club seemingly edged towards the Championship before Howe’s mid-season appointment as head coach.

As more fans headed home, I was reminded of a magical night at St James’ Park decades earlier.

Newcastle fans had become accustomed again to European football in the 1990s and 2000s.

Kevin Keegan took the club back into Europe, ending a 17-year absence from major continental competitions, after guiding his team to a third-placed finish in the 1993/94 season.

And I was reminded of that European journey on a road and rail trip earlier this year to Ghent, a city I will always associate with Antonie Sibierski. But that is another story.

Back in February, I changed trains at a stunningly-rebuilt station in Antwerp, a city I had not visited since a stunning win for Keegan’s United back in 1994.

The club beat Royal Antwerp 5-0 – Robert Lee famously scored a hat-trick of headers – on its return to European competition after a 17-year absence.

United’s 5,000-strong following watched from a crumbling terrace at one end of the Bosuilstadion.

My coach, full of jubilant fans who could not quite believe what they had seen in Antwerp, travelled to Amsterdam for the night to celebrate the club’s winning return to Europe.

That season’s European journey ended abruptly after an agonising away goals defeat to Athletic Bilbao, due at St James’ Park in November for a Champions League fixture.

Win, lose or draw, those nights on the continent were special for fans, but European football became the exception rather than the rule once Mike Ashley bought the club.

The club had just one campaign in Europe, in 2012/13, during his 14 years as owner. I reported on every one of those seasons, home and away, for the Shields Gazette, and the club spent far too much of that time in the bottom half of the Premier League.

Times have changed.

In the The Strawberry after the Leicester game, I found an old photograph, a blurry screenshot, on my mobile phone and posted it on social media.

It was from a game 27 years ago yesterday.

In the shot, Faustino Asprilla was celebrating his hat-trick goal in a 3-2 win over Barcelona at St James’ Park in front of the Leazes end.

Asprilla had somersaulted after meeting another Keith Gillespie cross with his head, and for those inside the stadium, and especially those sat around me in the front rows as he celebrated, it was an unforgettable moment.

Incidentally, I had paid £23 for my ticket.

Those kind of moments do not come along very often for fans of most clubs. It went down as one of United’s greatest European nights.

During some of the more forgettable Ashley years, Champions League football was a distant dream, though Alan Pardew did get close to qualification when his Hatem Ben Arfa-inspired team finished fifth in 2011/12. The went all the way to the quarter-finals of the Europa League, where they were narrowly beaten over two legs by Benfica, another of this season’s continental opponents.

Pardew had antagonised the Portuguese media ahead of the first leg at the Estadio da Luz with his response to question about how Benfica would fare in the Premier League. He suggested that the club would finish between eighth and 10th, an answer that did not go down well in the city given the stature and history of the Lisbon club.

I reflected on that testy pre-match press conference, and the brutal matchday headlines that followed, in a diary piece when Newcastle returned to the Estadio da Luz for a friendly in the summer of 2022.

In closing, I wondered if Howe could guide the club even higher up the table, beyond the mid-table positions that Pardew had said Benfica might have occupied a decade earlier.

“Newcastle, of course, haven’t been back in Europe since that season, though Champions League football is an aim of the club’s ambitious new ownership team.

“And maybe, just maybe, head coach Eddie Howe can guide the club to European qualification this season.”

Howe’s team, of course, exceeded all expectations that season, finishing fourth.

Today, supporters are looking forward to another visit from Barcelona.

The game kicks off another European adventure for the club, which finished fifth last season after ending a 70-year wait for a major domestic trophy by winning the Carabao Cup.

Speaking yesterday, Howe said: "When we were drawn against Barcelona, it had a magical feel to it. I'm really excited to sample the atmosphere – I think it’ll be an incredible thing again.”

Over the road, The Strawberry are ready. The club’s eight Champions League fixtures are chalked up on a blackboard.

This Newcastle team is a match for anyone on its day, as it showed the season before last when Paris Saint-Germain were beaten 4-1 on another unforgettable European night.

Enjoy!

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Watching England’s win over Serbia, I was reminded of one particular statistic from the Mike Ashley era.

There was a time when it was unusual to see one Newcastle United player in an England squad, let alone two in the starting XI and another on the bench.

Last night, Anthony Gordon and Tino Livramento started for England, 5-0 winners in Belgrade, a city to which a few hundred Newcastle fans had had an eventful trip for a Champions League fixture during the late, great Sir Bobby Robson’s time as manager.

Dan Burn – who had started against Andorra last week – was an unused substitute at the Rajko Mitic Stadium.

Elliot Anderson, sold by Newcastle to Nottingham Forest last year, also started the World Cup qualifier. The 22-year-old – who had made his debut against Andorra on Saturday – again impressed in midfield.

Anderson – who thrived playing week in, week out for Forest last season – is one that got away, having been reluctantly sold by the club so it could comply with the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules.

Lewis Hall would most likely have also been involved had it not been for the injury which saw him the back end of last season, while Jacob Ramsey, signed from Aston Villa last summer, will be hoping to earn a call-up from Thomas Tuchel ahead of the 2026 World Cup in the USA.

So there’s an abundance of England talent in Eddie Howe’s squad.

The England cap fits

But back to that statistic. Only 11 England caps were won by Newcastle players during Ashley’s 14 years as owner. That is less than one a season, on average.

Michael Owen played seven games, while Alan Smith (2), Andy Carroll (1) and Andros Townsend (1) were also capped in that period.

I reported on a few of those England games, and even saw Owen and Smith start together for the Three Lions for a game against Germany during Steve McClaren’s short-lived time managing his country. Another Newcastle player, Steven Taylor, was an unused substitute at Wembley that day.

Andros Townsend ironically won his only England cap as a Newcastle player on Wearside, having come off the bench at a Euro 2016 warm-up game at the Stadium of Light.

Today, seeing two Newcastle players in the England starting XI is normal and unremarkable. So much has changed at the club since the takeover in late 2021.

And the number of senior Three Lions caps – 48 – won by the club’s players in almost four years tells its own story.

Kieran Trippier, the club’s first post-takeover signing, leads the way with 19 caps, while Nick Pope (2) and Callum Wilson (5) have also featured for their country.

Gordon (14), Hall (2), Livramento (3) and Burn (3) have featured more recently.

I wrote about Blyth-born Burn’s remarkable footballing journey long before he joined his boyhood club, and his elevation to the England squad, aged 32, added another extraordinary chapter to his story.

Newcastle transfers

Moving to Newcastle was not always a great career move for players with England ambitions. Fortunately, that is not the case now, as underlined by the caps won by Gordon, Livramento and Hall, three talented young players who moved to the club to progress their careers.

Ramsey will hope to follow them into the senior set-up, having played for England’s Under-21s.

Of course, a number of players, including Bruno Guimaraes (Brazil), Sandro Tonali (Italy), Nick Woltemade (Germany), Anthony Elanga (Sweden) and Yoane Wissa (DR Congo), were also away during the international break.

This is a huge season for so many of the club’s squad – for club AND country.

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Newcastle United fans were able to relive the club’s Carabao Cup success before Liverpool’s visit to St James’ Park last month.

Thousands visited the excellent NUFC: The Road to Wembley exhibition at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art on the Quayside.

The club’s historic success was charted in words, photographs and artwork, and fans could also pose with the trophy, jubilantly lifted by Bruno Guimaraes and his team-mates at Wembley after a 2-1 win over Liverpool in March.

And the bus which had carried the team through packed streets to a memorable celebration on the Town Moor was parked outside the Baltic.

At Wembley, the match-winner had been Alexander Isak, the striker scoring what turned out to be the goal which ended the club’s 70-year wait for a domestic trophy.

Isak was the hero that day, as he had been many times before then in his career. Selling him this summer had been unthinkable to fans and owners alike.

Yet today 25-year-old is a zero, not a hero, on Tyneside, with his historic goal seemingly forgotten.

And many supporters welcomed his deadline day departure to Premier League champions Liverpool for a British-record fee.

Isak could have been remembered by supporters for that Wembley goal – and many other memorable strikes – but instead he will always be known as the player who actually went on strike to force a move away from the club.

In his first Liverpool interview, Isak – who had been training alone at Newcastle – said that he “couldn’t wait to get started” at his new club.

Supporters on Tyneside will not forget how it ended for him at United.

In an farewell message posted on Instagram, Isak also spoke of his “gratitude” to his former team-mates, the club’s staff and the city of Newcastle.

Transfer stance

Eddie Howe, of course, had hoped to keep Isak, a player the club did not need to sell to stay within domestic and European financial fair play rules, and the club’s head coach has handled a very difficult situation very well.

One of the most important things for Howe is squad unity. His team has been united in more than just name during his time as Newcastle manager, and maintaining this unity is a priority for Howe.

The Isak situation, clearly, went past the point of no return ahead of the transfer deadline, and the club, which had reacted strongly Isak’s explanation of his situation, about had to get the best fee possible, and sign replacements for him and Callum Wilson, before the summer window closed.

United negotiated a fee of around £125million for Isak, and signed Yoane Wissa, the club’s new No.9, and Nick Woltemade from Brentford and VfB Stuttgart respectively.

The club has done good business during the most challenging of windows.

Millions of words have most likely been written about Isak since it emerged that he wanted to leave in July, but Newcastle confirmed his departure with a curt, 37-word statement which did not even mention the goals he had scored for the club in his 109 appearances.

“Newcastle United can announce the sale of striker Alexander Isak to Liverpool for a significant British record transfer fee.

“The Sweden international joined the Magpies from Real Sociedad in 2022 and made 109 appearances in all competitions.”

There was no “good luck” message for a player who had disrupted pre-season, and, arguably, cost the club points in the opening three games.

The contrast with the fulsome club statement which had announced Sean Longstaff’s move to Leeds United earlier in the summer could not have been greater.

Newcastle, rightly, thanked” the homegrown midfielder for his “outstanding contribution” to the club – and “wished him well for the future”.

Cup-winning goal

Isak’s contribution had also been outstanding up to the Carabao Cup win, but his actions this summer angered the same fans who had worshipped him. His most important act on the pitch was scoring that all-important goal at Wembley, but supporters will remember how he acted off the field after deciding his future lay elsewhere.

The Sweden international, signed for £60million from Real Sociedad three years ago, had established himself as a world-class striker thanks to Howe, his staff and his team-mates.

Isak also said in his first Liverpool interview that he wanted to “create history” at the club.

Howe, of course, has created something very special at St James’ Park since taking charge, and he can create more history this season with a stronger, and fully united, squad.

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Sean Longstaff’s life changed last summer.

Longstaff became a dad after his partner gave birth to a baby boy called Brady before a ball was kicked last season.

The midfielder reflected on the change a year ago after playing in the intense heat and humidity of a Tokyo summer while on tour with Newcastle United.

“He just gives me a chance to completely switch off from football, which I think I really like,” said Longstaff. “It's a life-changing summer and I couldn't be happier.”

Then came a life-changing season for Longstaff and his team-mates as they ended the club’s 70-year wait for a domestic trophy by winning the Carabao Cup in March.

Every one of Eddie Howe’s players wrote their names into the club’s history books on that unforgettable day at Wembley.

Longstaff, of course, had scored the decisive penalty in a second-round shootout victory over Nottingham Forest after a 1-1 draw at the City Ground early in the season.

Leeds United transfer

Longstaff’s sleep patterns might have settled down now he’s a year into fatherhood, but the transfer window can be an unsettling time for players.

And Longstaff’s life will change again this summer after his long association with Newcastle, his boyhood club, came to an end.

Leeds United, his new club, have bought well. The newly-promoted club has signed a player who has played a lot of Premier League football since being promoted to the first-team squad by Rafa Benitez in the summer of 2018.

Longstaff, 27, made 214 senior competitive appearances, and scored 16 goals, during his seven-year first-team career at the club.

But the statistics only tell half of the story.

Longstaff’s story at the club has had downs as well as ups. Months after his first-team breakthrough, he suffered a knee injury playing against a West Ham United side featuring Declan Rice, who he was being compared to at the time.

By the time Longstaff recovered, Benitez was no longer the club’s manager – and he had to prove himself all over again.

He was joined in the first-team squad by younger brother Matty – the midfielder scored an unforgettable winner on his Premier League debut against Manchester United – but there were darker times ahead.

Out in the cold

Longstaff found himself out in the cold in the 2020/21 season during a long winter as the team fought to stay in the division.

"To not be involved for so long was really frustrating,” said Longstaff told the club’s programme after returning to the team. “Obviously, I have my own views on it, and whether I feel it was right or wrong, (but) it doesn’t really matter. All you can do is keep yourself ready.”

It was not until the arrival of Howe that we started to see Longstaff fully in his stride again.

Howe recognised what he had to offer, and Longstaff was often an unsung hero in the team, quietly making a difference with and without the ball. He covered an awful lot of ground, and enabled others to flourish around him.

Howe, according to Longstaff, “saved” his Newcastle career.

There were also big goals on big occasions, not least his two memorable strikes in the 2023 Carabao Cup semi-final, second-leg win over Southampton, and his goal in the club’s stunning 4-1 Champions League demolition of Paris Saint-Germain at St James’ Park.

More recently, a video was shared on social media of Longstaff, a pace bowler, demolishing a wicket playing cricket for Tynemouth this summer. Longstaff’s cricketing talent was not lost on Leeds when they teased the announcement of his signing.

The days of top-level footballers playing cricket in the summer had seemingly gone, so it was refreshing to see Longstaff donning his whites in the competitive North East Premier League.

Longstaff, now preparing to wear Leeds’ white shirt, is a throwback in that sense, but the powerful player, comfortable with the pace and intensity of Premier League football, is also ideal for the modern game. Off the pitch, he has stayed humble.

But, at his age, he wants to play week in, week out, and he will get that opportunity at Leeds.

Sometimes, homegrown players need to leave to play and progress their careers, just look at the impact Elliot Anderson has had at Nottingham Forest.

“Thank you for everything, @NUFC,” said Longstaff on X.

The move will also help Newcastle, working within domestic and European financial fair play rules, compete in the transfer market this summer.

Back in 2018, Longstaff sung Justin Bieber’s Love Yourself in front of his team-mates during a pre-season trip to Ireland after being promoted to Benitez’s first-team squad.

Longstaff went on to become a much-loved player – and he will always be one of the club’s own.

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Callum Wilson took to the field for his Newcastle United debut almost five years ago at a near-empty London Stadium as the last of the shoppers headed home from the nearby Westfield shopping centre.

Wilson started as he meant to go on, with a goal in a 2-0 behind-closed-doors win over West Ham United.

Many of those Westfield shoppers will have found a bargain or two, but I wrote at the time that the biggest steal of the summer could turn out to be Wilson.

And so it turned out.

Contract decision

It was revealed this week that Wilson would not be returning to the club following the expiry of his last contract.

I will be honest. I did not fully appreciate just how good Wilson was when he joined Newcastle from Bournemouth, then managed by Eddie Howe, in a £20million deal in the summer of 2020.

But it did not take me long to realise that the club had bought an exceptional player.

Wilson made a positive impression on his first media appearance. He was relaxed and at ease in his new surroundings, and the journalists gathered for a media day in the training ground’s indoor barn got a sense of his infectious personality.

He handled the questions well, tackling everything with a smile.

The club would need Wilson’s positivity during a challenging period which straddled a change of ownership.

Fate would reunite Wilson with Howe – who had signed him from Coventry City at Bournemouth – on Tyneside in late 2021.

An ideal No.9

By then, Wilson had taken the club’s cherished No.9 jersey, previously worn by Joelinton.

It is a heavy shirt to wear, but Wilson ably took that responsibility on his shoulders – and brought many more goals to Newcastle. The No.9 jersey was a perfect fit for Wilson.

A natural finisher, he scored all kinds of goals for the club. He is a physical player who links intelligently with his team-mates inside and outside the box.

Wilson’s ability and attitude were never in question, though his availability was affected by a series of injuries. However, time and again at Bournemouth and Newcastle, Wilson recovered from setbacks, notably winning a place back in England’s squad for the 2022 World Cup after long spell out with a calf/Achilles injury.

It is not hard to see why Howe was keen for Wilson, a Carabao Cup winner with the club last season, to stay. The club had “opened discussions” with Wilson and goalkeeper John Ruddy, also out of contract, over new deals. Ruddy, 38, will stay on at the club.

Also, it is also not hard to see why Wilson, at this stage of his career, would want more first-team football, having spent a lot of time on the bench since the arrival of Alexander Isak.

In a message to fans, Wilson, 33, said: “Thank you for everything. We stood strong together through the highs and some lows to help the club experience new heights.”

Wilson, certainly, made a massive contribution to the cause during his five years at St James’ Park.

Now a free agent, another club will be getting a bargain.

Life’s a beach

In my early years as a football writer, the club’s players would be put through their paces on the beach at Tynemouth for one day after reporting back for the start of pre-season training.

The newspaper I worked for at the time would send a photographer to get some images of the squad’s annual trip to the seaside.

I looked through the photographs in the office, and identified every player bar one.

With a lot of help, I was eventually able to name the player.

It was a young Charles N’Zogbia, who had been developed by Le Havre. N’Zogbia would turn out to be the late, great Sir Bobby Robson’s last signing.

While the beach session was fun for the players – and provided some great photos for the media – it was not the best way to keep a prospective signing under wraps.

And, sadly but understandably, the beach sessions ended a long time ago.

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My mobile phone’s camera roll is full of photographs. Many are photos of football grounds.

The stadium photos were mostly used on social media, and online, in during my time as a Newcastle United reporter for the Shields Gazette.

Having covered more than 900 games for the newspaper, there are a lot of images.

Even now, as a freelancer, I still take photos of stadiums. I even took a few photos of Morecambe’s ground, the scene of one of Jacob Murphy’s most important Newcastle games, when I took in a game there late last season while on a family holiday.

I am a stadium obsessive who endlessly leafed through books about football grounds, and memorised capacities, growing up.

But the photos of grounds, when I scroll through my camera roll, are not memorable. You can only look at a photo of a Premier League or EFL ground so many times, though St James’ Park is a different matter.

Some of the grounds I have reported from are long gone, and the photos of St James’ Park we all have on our phones could one day taken on an added significance should the club decide to move to an all-new stadium on Leazes Park amid unprecedented demand for tickets.

But the hidden gems in my stadium-clogged camera roll are photos of players, personalities and people.

I am not a photographer – for professional photos, follow brilliant club photographer Serena Taylor on Instagram – but even an amateur with an iPhone can capture a moment in time. Some of these images are on my Instagram account.

Geordie legends

This week, the club launched its new adidas third kit with a promotional video filmed in the Tyneside Irish Centre, a goal kick away from St James’ Park.

There were some lovely cameos from Faustino Asprilla (recognise anyone else in the photo below?) and Jonas Gutierrez, two South Americans who wrote themselves into Geordie folklore during their spells in North East England, along with present-day captain Bruno Guimaraes and Sandro Tonali, his team-mate.

Local hero Sam Fender, fittingly, was on stage at the club as Mark Knopfler’s Going Home (Theme of the Local Hero) was played.

There was also a welcome nod to three much-loved players who are sadly no longer with us – Gary Speed, Pavel Srnicek and Cheick Tiote – in the video.

I was fortunate enough to meet them all during my time as a beat reporter.

Speed was arguably one of the most impressive people I have met in my life, and I loved ghostwriting his weekly column in The Pink in my early years as a sports writer at the Evening Chronicle.

Incidentally, I have just finished reading Unspoken: The Family's Untold Story, written by John Richardson, who was a close friend of Speed. It is worth a read.

Having watched Srnicek from the stands during his first spell as a Newcastle player in the 1990s, I relished the opportunity to interview him when he returned to the club late in his career. They say never meet your heroes, but meeting Srnicek was not a disappointment.

Tiote, like Speed, was a fearsome competitor on the pitch. Off the field, he was a lovely guy. He was not always a man of many words with a microphone in front of him – he preferred to let his feet do the talking – but he was thoughtful and always spoke well.

They are tragically gone, but they will never be forgotten on Tyneside, along with Christian Atsu, who lost his life in an earthquake in Turkey two years ago. I still vividly remember the day Atsu tearfully told his moving life story ahead of a fundraiser on Tyneside to help children in his native Ghana.

Life is precious.

The football world, mourning the tragic loss of Liverpool’s Diogo Jota this week, has again been reminded of life’s fragility.

Heading for Ukraine

One of my favourite photos was an out-of-focus image of the back of Tiote’s head. Yes, the back of his head.

I was seated behind Tiote, sporting a very distinctive haircut, on a club flight to Ukraine for a Europa League tie against Metalist Kharkiv in 2013. Suffice to say I would not have said a word if he had fully reclined his seat.

Behind me, Gutierrez and Fabricio Coloccini happily played Uno, I think, for the entire flight to a vibrant South American soundtrack.

The aircraft, which we were told was often used by musicians and bands, had a bedroom with a comfortable bed in the middle. That came in useful on the late-night return for Tim Krul, who suffered an ankle injury in Kharkiv and was in some discomfort.

Gutierrez, Atsu and Krul have also popped up on my camera roll over the years.

I will always remember speaking to an emotional Gutierrez after he set up one goal and scored another in a dramatic season-ending win over West Ham United. The team had gone into the game needing a result to be certain of Premier League survival, and, thanks to Gutierrez, they ended a troubled season on a high.

A ‘sliding doors moment’

Then-head coach John Carver gave a fascinating insight into the extraordinary pressure on him and his players that day in an interview with The QT last year.

“I remember saying to Jonas on the Monday ‘you could be the hero here – I’m going to play you. What a fitting reward after what you’ve been through’,” said Carver. “It was quite incredible how it worked out. His mum thanked me, and gave me a big hug, after the game.

“I did the press, which was a good feeling. I’m not sure what I would’ve done if we’d got relegated. I’m not sure how I would have coped with it mentally. It’s a sliding doors moment.”

Months before that season-defining game, I had interviewed Gutierrez in a deserted car park at Whitley Park after an appearance for the club’s Under-21 side. Gutierrez spoke openly about his cancer battle and comeback – and his determination to make a first-team return.

The contrast between that low-key outing in front of a few hundred fans – and his final appearance at a sold-out St James’ Park – could not have been greater.

So, as we wait for the players to return for the start of pre-season training (and the first transfers of the summer), I thought that I would dig out a few old camera photos.

Phones and cameras will be capturing new memories up and down the country very soon.

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There was a notable absentee at Wembley as Newcastle United won the Carabao Cup – and it was not because he could not get a Carabao Cup final ticket.

And fans, players and staff celebrated the club’s historic trophy win back in March, one boyhood fan was back at home on Tyneside watching on TV.

Goals from Dan Burn and Alexander Isak, memorably, ended a 70-year wait for a major domestic trophy.

Newcastle had done it the hard way, having been drawn against four Premier League sides on the road to Wembley.

And they also had to do it without Lewis Hall in the final against Liverpool.

Hall had surgery on a season-ending foot injury on the eve of the showpiece.

Until then, Hall had been a player-of-the-season contender alongside the likes of Isak and Burn.

Hall – whose allegiance to the club comes from his family’s roots in the North East – had got into his stride in his second season at the club, and his first since joining from Chelsea on a permanent deal.

The left-back’s club form had also earned him a senior international call-up with England. Hall did not look out of place when he won his first caps in the Nations League fixtures against Greece and the Republic of Ireland.

Once a midfielder, Hall is a dynamic player who drives forward and makes things happen in the final third of the pitch. He also has a knack of getting out of tight spots without losing possession.

However, Hall would lose out on a place in the team for Wembley through injury.

The Berkshire-born player also lost out on a box seat in the stadium – as he had just had surgery and was wearing a protective boot.

Hall had to stay at home with his foot up for what would have been the biggest game of his fledgling career.

Tino Livramento’s high praise

Had he been fit this summer, Hall could well have been playing for England’s Under-21s in this summer’s European Championships in Slovakia alongside club-mate Tino Livramento, who was a revelation in the opening draw against Slovenia in Nitra, Slovakia.

Livramento – who also joined Newcastle from Chelsea – was sensibly selected for the Under-21s ahead of the senior team to give him tournament experience.

That same experience benefited Anthony Gordon, who was named the player of the tournament two years ago when Lee Carsley’s side won it by beating Spain in Batumi, Georgia.

Livramento, incidentally, named Hall as his Player of the Season.

“I know he has been out for maybe the last 10-ish games, but played pretty much every game that he could possibly play before the injury,” Livramento told the club.

“The improvement from obviously not playing a lot last season to then coming in and playing every game and being amazing. He’s obviously my boy, so got to give him a shout-out!”

Injury update

The important thing for Hall is to be ready for a big season for his club.

United qualified for the Champions League for the second time in three seasons thanks to last season’s fifth-placed finish.

The good news is that Hall, working through the summer, is back running and steadily working towards joining in when Eddie Howe’s players report back for the start of pre-season training.

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