Now we move on to a Premier League match of vividly contrasting fortunes. Newcastle bouncing on a trampoline of all-consuming joy and Everton morose and fearful. One shooting for the land of plenty that is the Champions League the other scared of a rare and traumatic fall through the PL trapdoor.
Two clubs of history with potentially very different futures. Life can be both wonderful and harsh. Do Geordies know it! Cometh the hour on Thursday evening, cometh reality.
Stats are often sobering of course. Newcastle may have failed to win trophies over barren decades, but humiliation rather than a lack of success is quite another matter and therefore those of Everton devotion are currently living through hell. They stand on the cusp of their first relegation for 72 years since they went down at the end of the 1950-51 season just as Newcastle were being hailed as the FA Cup kings of England with three Wembley wins to come over five years.
