Newcastle United fans have almost seen it all
As a Newcastle United writer, I have almost seen it all from the press box – but never a major trophy win. This team can make history in the Carabao Cup final.
Newcastle United fans have seen a lot over the years – not all of it good.
In the Premier League era, there have been highs, lows and everything in between.
I documented a lot of what they saw over a 20-odd year period from press boxes up and down the country.
You could not make some of it up. I reported on thumping wins, agonising defeats, extraordinary comebacks, bust-ups, wonder strikes along with relegations and promotions.
Off the pitch, there were even crazier goings-on.
Of course, there was the mundane and mediocre too, but the club has thankfully now risen well above the mediocrity with which it was once associated thanks to a change in ownership.
However, one thing I have never seen as a writer is the club winning a major trophy, and the majority of Newcastle fans have never seen this in their lifetimes.
There has been some cup magic over the past couple of decades, but you have to go back a lot further to the last time the club won any silverware.
And so, two years after their last appearance at Wembley, Eddie Howe’s side have another chance to end the club’s 55-year wait for a trophy in Sunday’s Carabao Cup final.
However, Premier League leaders Liverpool stand in their way, and Arne Slot’s side are odds-on favourites to win the cup.
Newcastle will have learnt from the last final. Preparations have been tweaked, mindsets adjusted. It is day out for the fanbase, but not the team.
And anything can happen on the pitch, as I have seen as a writer.
Cups of woe
The club has come close to winning a trophy a few times since back-to-back Wembley appearances for the 1998 and 1999 FA Cup finals.
One that sticks out is the 2004/05 run in the UEFA Cup.
It followed a run to the semi-finals the previous season – Olympique Marseille beat Sir Bobby Robson’s Newcastle over two legs thanks to two goals from Didier Drogba at a fiery Stade Velodrome – and there were hopes that talented team Graeme Souness inherited could go all the way.
Souness’s side were drawn against Sporting Lisbon in the quarter-final, and took a 1-0 lead into the second leg at the Estadio Jose Alvalade thanks to a goal from Alan Shearer on Tyneside, but everything unravelled in Portugal after the midfielder gave the visitors club a 2-0 aggregate lead.
Kieran Dyer, Jermaine Jenas and Titus Bramble were all forced off with injuries – and Newcastle lost 4-1 on the night.
Players, staff and journalists flew directly to Cardiff from Lisbon for an FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United.
They again lost 4-1, and a campaign which had promised so much ended within the space of four days. The club’s season was effectively over, and the flight home from Wales was even quieter.
The club, which was once said to be “cursed”, has been seemingly so near, and yet in reality so far, from a trophy on a few occasions. Some of these defeats still rankle all these years later.
Howe’s team, though, can make their own history at Wembley.
Newcastle’s history is intertwined with my own story.
Having barely missed a game, home or away, from almost two decades during my time at the Shields Gazette, my life revolved around the fixture list.
When I think back to my own life events, they are invariably framed around the season at the time and what was happening at the club. I often think in seasons, not years.
I was very fortunate to report on the club all those years, though, unfortunately, success on the pitch was elusive, especially during Mike Ashley’s time as owner.
The domestic cups weren’t then a priority for a club which, more often than not, was trying to stay in the Premier League in that era. I reported on umpteen relegation battles in the Ashley years, and two of them ended badly.
A third relegation was looking increasingly likely when the club was taken over in October 2021.
So much has changed – on and off the pitch – since that momentous day, though pace of squad change in recent transfer windows has been slowed by financial restrictions.
We all remember the years of previous trophy wins. From the last league title in 1927 to the FA Cup wins of the 1950s, and, finally, the Fairs Cup success of 1969.
Will the year 2025 go down in history?
Captain’s tale
Ahead of the 2023 final, I visited Bob Moncur, the last Newcastle captain to lift a trophy.
When I used to get a lift with Moncur to away games during his time as a radio summariser, he was a stickler for punctuality. Woe betide the passenger who was not ready for a prompt, early-morning departure.
A trophy win would certainly be timely.
Over a cup of tea in a Gateshead suburb, we chatted about the club’s 1969 Fairs Cup triumph in Budapest – and the club’s post-takeover transformation.
“It's only now I know how significant that night was,” said Moncur. “We were very fortunate to get in in the first place, finishing ninth, because of the two-city rule that got us in. I think from then on it was just a bonus for us. Eventually we won it.
“Obviously, there were big crowds, but even then I didn't realise, because I was 24, how significant it was to the fans.”
Should captain Bruno Guimaraes – who scored the club’s winner against West Ham United on Monday night – lift the trophy on Sunday, the significance of the victory will not be lost on anyone connected to the club.
Got everything crossed for Sunday - fingers, arms, legs and eyes!!