Legendary commentator Barry Davies is a firm believer that ‘each generation gets the commentator it deserves,’ and it would be fair to say that Newcastle United fans of a certain age have been spoiled when it comes to those behind the mic.
When a goal hits the back of the net at The Gallowgate it’s the television images everyone wants to see. Alan Shearer running away, hand aloft, and the fans going crazy in delight - these are the scenes that will stand the test of time. Yet they are often accompanied by a voice - a commentator tasked with capturing that moment for those at home.
It’s no easy job and more often than not, the words uttered will fall out of the viewers’ minds quicker than the changing days of the week. Yet every so often, a piece of commentary hits the spot and will stay with the viewer or listener for life.
It was with this in mind that I set out to compile a list of the greatest Newcastle United commentaries of the recent times but not only that, I wanted to chat to the men whose words left such an impression on me - a young lad growing up watching his club.
Thankfully, those on the list were happy to reminisce, and so for the latest Chronicle NUFC long read - we look back on the greatest Newcastle United commentaries as told by the men who spoke them.
Newcastle United 5-0 Manchester United - October, 20th 1996
'On a day when Newcastle would have taken one, here they are looking for number five with Philippe Albert - oh! Absolutely glorious' - Martin Tyler, Sky Sports
"Dan Burn hasn't scored for Newcastle United yet, has he?," Martin Tyler asks as we talk Premier League centre-backs. I tell him he's right but offer my view that when Burn does score - given he's a boyhood Newcastle fan - it'll no doubt be a very special moment.
"Well, if I'm holding the microphone, maybe it'll be a glorious goal," Tyler adds with a chuckle. It's a nod to his famous line as Belgian defender Philippe Albert chipped Peter Schmeichel at the Leazes End back in October 1996 on a day that Newcastle United thumped their top-of-the-table-rivals five-nil.
For many, that moment of magic on the pitch was matched by the moment of magic from Tyler - now in his 48th year of broadcasting - and the chance to reminisce about that night at St James' Park is never turned down by the commentator, especially when in the company of the goalscorer himself.
"The nature of the goal itself was a work of art," Tyler says. "And the fact that it produced the ultimate scoreline, which would be one that you wouldn't have expected makes it all the more memorable.
"I see Philippe quite a lot because he works on Belgium television and not a meeting goes by without probably me raising the subject because it's a defining moment. Defenders don't always, even ones who had such an illustrious career as he did in the Premier League, leave with that kind of goal memory.
"That will stay with him forever and anybody who's ever seen it. I'm sure every Newcastle fan who bumps into him when he does come over - it's the first topic of conversation, and for me, even though I might have seen him three weeks earlier. It's a shared experience, I suppose between scorer and commentator.
"It was just a joy to have the microphone in my hand. It did wrap up a scintillating day from Newcastle, and it was a great moment.
"I was lucky enough to be holding the microphone but the commentator doesn't make it a great moment that's what a footballer does. And Philippe is a great bloke, as well as a very good footballer. I'm delighted for him that we're talking about it. If you need to know about Phillipe Albert then you only have to put that goal against Manchester United into your search engine."
The performance against Manchester United summed up Kevin Keegan's Newcastle United - attacking, fast-flowing and thoroughly entertaining. The result came among the backdrop of the Magpies losing a 12-point lead to Man. United at the top of the Premier League the season before and a four-nil thrashing in the Charity Shield just months prior.
The coverage on Sky Sports of the game is fondly remembered for several lines from Tyler's commentary. From David Ginola being 'very prominent indeed', Les Ferdinand's header going 'off the bar and in', to Alan Shearer's goal which allowed the 'script to be complete' - all stand-out quotes. But it is that moment with Schmeichel looking up at the stars as Albert runs away with a grin on his face which steals the show.
For Newcastle fans that moment, just as Tyler's Sergio Aguero moment in 2012 is for Manchester City fans, is one that will stay with many for life. But where do those moments come from? "We have less time to think I guess," Tyler concedes, 'that's our trade. We are reactive people. It's our job to be ready for moments, but you can't plan for something like that.
"There's a bit of what goes into a commentary, like the smell of the fixture if you like, but the joy of it, the joy of football is, it produces scorelines against the grain of expectation if you like and goals that are remembered forever. Long after I've gone, and long after Philippe has gone we're in the era of passing on these wonderful moments. I still scratch around on YouTube for any games from when I was growing up in the 50s but it's not there and, you're searching for a needle in a haystack really. Now it's carefully defined, you can roll it out when you want and that's brilliant because it's passing on the wonderful brilliance of the beautiful game to the next generation.
"With that goal against Manchester United - it's Philippe's history, Newcastle's history and the Toon Army's history. If I've got a little bit to play in it then it's quite humbling."
Tyler has spearheaded Sky Sports' coverage of the Premier League since its inception in 1992. He's also covered countless World Cups for overseas broadcasters, and it's fair to say his love for the game and the job is as strong as ever.
"I feel so fortunate. I couldn't have done for five years let alone 47 without realising what a lucky bloke I am. In my office, I've got all my match notes starting in the 1970s - they're all here and it shows you that time has just sped by but time goes fast when you're having fun, and there's quite a lot of fun in it.
"You know the responsibilities from the first game you ever do. It doesn't matter whether there are millions of people listening or just a few 100 like when I first started out - it's just the same every game you do. You can spend the best part of 50 years doing it right and you could lose it in 50 seconds but you don't think like that.
"It's just enjoying the football, to be honest with you and that's why I love football. I'm obsessed with football and the privilege of having a pretty decent seat in the house and being able to shine my love on to the broadcast but let's be straight about this, it's about the players.
"It's more about the players than perhaps the players get credit for it at the moment because we're very manager centric but for me, it's always been about the players, they're the ones who have to go and do it.
"Obviously the broadcaster's come in, we have some fantastic pundits who I work with and who Sky use which is also very important for the experience of watching on television. I just tick along, call the names and let Gary [Neville], Carra [Jamie Carragher], Alan Smith and Andy Hinchcliffe or whoever I'm working with to just pick their way into it and analyse the game
"So it is responsible, but it's for the love. I'm not sitting there po-faced or anything like that - I'm thrilled. People always ask me about the past games but for me, it's the next game - it's always about the next game."
Tyler was the voice across the years that Keegan's Newcastle tore up the Premier League and became many people's second team. Their swashbuckling style was applauded by most who watched them. Of course, it did on several occasions, lead to Newcastle fans leaving games on the wrong side of a result - no more so than the famous 4-3 defeat to Liverpool at Anfield in April 1996.
That night saw Newcastle take a 3-1 lead on Merseyside - with goals from Les Ferdinand, Tino Asprilla and David Ginola but Black and White hearts were broken thanks to Stan Collymore 'closing in' and scoring a 92nd-minute winner. The cameras flashed to Keegan who was slumped behind the advertising hoardings. While a nightmare result for the Magpies, it is often voted the greatest game in Premier League history. With Tyler once again the man behind the mic, it would have been amiss of me not to mention it.
"If Newcastle fans try and forget this game - they shouldn't," Tyler pleads. "Because to be part of that is something special. During lockdown, they gave it the full treatment on Monday Night Football and I watched it with my son.
"He had never seen it but knew I banged on about this game as the 'best I've ever commentated on,' and we watched it together. I thought this is going to be terrible because it wasn't going to be anything like that night but it was even better. That has nothing to do with the commentary but because of the football and the characters.
"For me personally, it's the best game - not just in the Premier League but ever. It encapsulated everything that is good about football because both teams wanted to win. It was a midweek game, so it had the full glare on and we've seen games that had all the hype and didn't deliver. This did."
Both that game and the five-nil thumping of Man. United were just two of a handful of clashes that define that era of Newcastle United under Keegan. Sadly, fans only have the positive results to look back on and don't need reminding of the trophy cabinets which sit empty up at St James' Park.
Going back to that remarkable night on October 1996, it's not lost on Tyler how lucky he was to see Keegan's Mags in full flow. "The headlines of the time will tell you just how the nation saw it. I hope what I said summed up the qualities of Newcastle United. They would have destroyed anyone that day.
"The other side of the story is that the Champions were beaten five-nil. As a commentator, you can't really ask for more than to come away thinking that is a headline act.
"We don't pick our games, we get told where to go to and sometimes you feel like picking up the phone and saying 'thanks boss' and that was one of those days."
***
Newcastle United 2-0 Tottenham (AET) - FA Cup Semi-Final - April, 11th 1999
'It's Alan Shearer, that's the way to finish it! Oh, that's how he dreamt it last night! Alan Shearer sends Newcastle United back to Wembley' - Clive Tyldesley, ITV.
"You wouldn't have had any memories of what I said if Al hadn't scored," Clive Tyldesley tells me as we discuss Shearer's second strike in the 1999 FA Cup semi-final against Tottenham at Old Trafford. The legendary broadcaster is keen to point out, as he sees it, his near insignificance in a day that saw Newcastle United return to Wembley for the second year running.
"I am just the backing vocalist," he continues, "it's easier to say something crass than it is brilliant. If you're struggling, just say the obvious but if there's a moment which stirs your heart and your heart goes with it and you find the right words at that moment then it does add to what are boyhood memories for fans."
And for many that April afternoon in Manchester 23 years ago - the last semi-final Newcastle won - it is exactly that, a boyhood memory of their team taking a step towards a major honour. It was a season that was disappointing in the Premier League - a 13th place finish was stark in contrast to the second-place finishes that fans had experienced just a few seasons before.
Ruud Gullit had replaced Kenny Dalglish in the August but would only last a year in the job. The cup run had kept the season alive and Shearer's strike against Tottenham was for many the highlight of an otherwise dismal campaign.
"It wasn't a great season, was it?," Tyldesley recalls, "With Ruud, it wasn't a particularly happy marriage. I remember both finals of '98 and '99 being a bit of a non-event, I don't think my mind is playing tricks on me when I say neither afternoon wasn't much to treasure for the Newcastle fans who travelled down, so the semi-final victories and the last 15 or 20 minutes of the quarter-final against Everton matter more."
That afternoon saw thousands of Geordies take over Manchester and they roared on their side from the Stretford End. It was a game that didn't excite the neutral but for Newcastle fans was littered with nods to the great Keegan side that went before, as lining up for Spurs were David Ginola and Les Ferdinand. Many Toon fans may remember a 20-year-old Andy Griffin marking Ginola out of the game - no mean feat when you consider the French winger would go on to be crowned the PFA Players' Player of the Year and the FWA Player of the Year that season.
The game was forced into extra time and with a replay beckoning - there was to be no penalty shoot-out that day - Sol Campbell handled in the box and Shearer fired home. It was Shearer doing what he did - scoring from the spot, but the best was still to come.
"The details are forgotten because Dabizaz handled the ball just as much as Sol Campbell handled the ball," Tyldesley laughs, 'but Newcastle won two-nil. If it had been one-nil with Alan's penalty, it would still have been a good moment but somehow football does this.
"It clears the stage, the business of the day is looked after and Newcastle are going back to Wembley to try and win the cup again - so what else shall we add to make it extra special? I'll tell you what, we'll just get Big Al to come along and fire one in off the outside of his right boot, off the underside of the bar!
"Shall we make it the Newcastle end? The Stretford End? Yeah! He can run to them, and some goon with the microphone in his hand can try and come up with something that is part of the memory. That's just my job. I'm just that goon with the microphone. The backing vocalist."
As the ball cannoned in off the bar, the Newcastle fans exploded into celebration and Tyldesley, with Shearer running toward the crowd, summed it up perfectly.
"They'll be lucky if they're able to kick off again," he shouted above the deafening cheers - it's a line he remembers well.
"It was very much 'I predict a riot', it was over. There was no way the Spurs were coming back. Commentary lines have to fit the moment.
"In television, you do have some time - as long as you shout Shearer and get the goalscorer right, and particularly if there are 25,000 Geordies up on their feet shouting as he scores, then you do have a little bit of time to go 'Woah, what am I going to say next?'
"It's about the moment and the legacy. If you try to come up with something to remember it by then you will mess it up. You'll spoil it. It just won't fit. It'll be a jigsaw piece that you're trying to jam in, a jigsaw piece from another puzzle. The game creates its own narrative.
"Those moments deserve better than 'great' or 'amazing.' The commentary lines I'm most pleased with are the ones that start to sketch the headlines the next day in the Chronicle - if you come up with some words in the moment that somehow capture the significance of the moment and the story behind the moment then you've done a good job."
And there was a particular significance for Shearer - after all he had turned down a move to Manchester United three years earlier in hope of lifting titles with Newcastle. In those three years, the Magpies had slipped from the top of the table while the red of Manchester were enjoying success.
It's a question Shearer gets asked often - if he ever regrets turning down Manchester United and sacrificing countless trophies for a move to his hometown club. For Tyldesley, who is good friends with the Toon legend, there is no doubting Shearer lives with zero regrets when it comes to his career.
"It's a story I never tire of hearing - Alan's story to go back to St James' Park when he had the world at his feet. He could have signed for Manchester United and maybe a few other clubs besides.
"I know it's a decision that he has never for a moment regretted. Moments like that one [The Spurs semi-final of 99] at the Stretford End and leading the team out ultimately in the final the following month - and although there wasn't a title with Newcastle, these were moments he still treasures to this day.
"His reward for the decision he took [to join] were those moments. They were fleeting moments compared to some of the achievements of who he lined up alongside for England but I think those moments mean as much to Alan as any medal would to any player he ever played with.
"That is very special. It warms me to see a great man, a great player who took a huge decision having those memories to look back on, and that goal against Tottenham was a special moment for him and everybody behind that goal that day."
And for Tyldesley, who continues to cover the Premier League for US broadcaster CBS and is also the in-house Rangers FC commentator, the art of capturing these sorts of moments is something special.
"I wrote in my book 'football happens in moments. You never know when they are coming but you know when they are gone because when they are gone Beckham is walking and Keegan is slumped.'
"Our job is to try and capture those moments and add some accompaniment. We are the background vocals, particularly in television. We are not important. We are only the soundtrack and no-one goes to the movie to listen to the soundtrack.
"I've never scored a goal that matters so the next best thing is to be a very small part of people's memories of goals that mattered an awful lot. "But we are only pawns in the big picture, and the big picture is how much you invest in supporting your football club."
Leeds United 3-4 Newcastle United - December, 22nd 2001.
''Here's Nol Solano for Newcastle United and he's made it 4-3. Bobby Robson does a jig of delight on the touchline and then remembers he's nearly 69.' - Jon Champion, ITV
"We never got to see the best bit," Jon Champion tells me with a tinge of frustration, "at Elland Road the commentary position is right over where the dugout is so Bobby was right down below us as I remember it, and I could see him doing this jig and I mentioned it but by the time camera cut to it, he'd sort of finished doing the main bit of his a dance.
"But it was just a wonderful, expressive moment."
The Magpies headed to West Yorkshire that afternoon top of the Premier League table having beaten Arsenal 3-1 just days earlier. With Leeds also challenging at the right end of the table playing, like Sir Bobby's Newcastle, with fast and attacking football, the stage was set for an entertaining game.
The Magpies got off to the perfect start as Craig Bellamy put them ahead just before the break but with 56 minutes on the clock found themselves 3-1 behind. Robbie Elliot pulled one back for Newcastle before Shearer drew the scores level and it then fell to Nolberto Solano to find the winner with just seconds left of the game. The result and performance very much summed up Sir Bobby's Newcastle United - they were there to entertain.
"For me, Keegan's Entertainers of the mid-90s were the most fun team there has been in the Premier League era," Champion offers up, "but the sides that followed under Bobby Robson, at times weren't that far short. They produced some wonderful moments.
"I was particularly struck by that Bobby Robson jig because we knew at some point he was coming towards the end of his career because of his age but he'd been so wonderfully generous to all of us commentators over the years in terms of information, always being available, always returning your phone call.
"If you needed to know different things ahead of a game, like someone was carrying an injury and might not make the full match or you wanted to know what the lineup was, as long as you promise not to tell anyone else - he was always available with that information. Bobby was just very kind. It would always be 'come in and have a cup of tea or a glass of wine' after the game.
"He was just such a lovely man. So I think inevitably the human aspect of it came across at that moment just to see a man that had been so good to so many of us at the helm for a wonderful moment like that."
It is a moment of commentary that stands out for so many people but Champion is his own biggest critic. A modest, down-to-earth broadcaster but someone, despite the years of experience, who is always striving for more.
"I think as a commentator, the hardest bit is knowing when not to talk actually. So I said quite a lot over that clip.
"Maybe I shouldn't have said quite so much because the pictures were evocative and tell their own tale. But at the same time, if I hadn't mentioned the jig, the match director in charge of all the cameras wouldn't have cut to the shot of Bobby Robson on the touchline at that point, necessarily anyway, so there's so much that goes through your mind.
"I think in a moment like that, in a moment of high drama and high emotion, you just let the feeling of 40,000 people around you, the overriding emotion carry you and hope that you come up with something that's reasonably reflective of what that moment is. If people are still talking about it 20 years on then I guess you can quietly pat yourself on the back and say, 'well, maybe you found the words to reflect the moment' but for every time that you get it right, there are probably 10 times that you get it horribly wrong.
"You could never pre-plan any sort of line like that, and in fact, in my experience, the lines that people come back to you and talk about are the ones that are the most off the cuff.
"If you think of the most classic line of football commentary in English culture - it was 1966 World Cup final and 'they think it's all over, it is now,' and there's no way that he could have thought of that in advance or scripted it or tried to come up with a clever line to reflect the moment at which England clinched the World Cup.
"As a young commentator coming through at Match of the Day, I had John Motson and Barry Davis as my two mentors, two very different commentators stylistically but two brilliant commentators. They would say to me, 'look, don't try and pre-prepare any sort of a moment just let the emotion, what you're seeing and what you're feeling in your heart carry you at that moment in time.
"That's what I did that day with the Nobby Solano goal and the reaction of Sir Bobby, it was just what I felt at that moment."
Feyenoord 2-3 Newcastle United - November, 13th 2002
''Shearer, it's a good jump. It's Kieron Dyer, past Van Wonderen... oh and Dyer, blocked! Bellamy! It's in! Oh, extraordinary!" - Jon Champion, ITV
"I have to tell you, I hate listening to that clip," Champion admits, "I love the moment but I just cringe when I hear it."
Champion is referring to Craig Bellamy's last-minute winner against Feyenoord in Rotterdam back in 2002 - a goal that would send Newcastle into the second group stage of the Champions League.
"If I'm in Newcastle, people want to talk about various moments over the years," Champion says, "and that's the one above all others that they want to talk about in terms of the commentary. Yet, if there was one Newcastle commentary I'd love to be able to redo it's that one without the voice breaking."
The Magpies had lost their opening three games of the first group stage but wins against Juventus and Dynamo Kyiv left them on the verge of creating history by becoming the first team to qualify for the next round after losing the trio of opening games.
"An air of expectation had grown," recalls Champions, "because I remember seeing our match allocations on ITV and after they'd lost their first three there was this game in Rotterdam that had my name against it. I'm thinking 'crikey, how are we going to bring that one alive? Newcastle, sadly, they're going to be out, it's going to be a dead game and a long night.'
"So then Newcastle win match day four, and I'm thinking 'well, maybe it's not so bad,' then they win match day five, and suddenly, you've got the game of the group stage of the entire competition on your hands. So a trip to Rotterdam, whilst always pleasant, suddenly took on a whole new meaning because there was a real edge to it.
"I do remember in the couple of weeks building up to that game there was a sense that Newcastle could actually achieve the apparently unachievable."
Newcastle find themselves two-goals up within 50 minutes thanks to Bellamy and Hugo Viana and the second round beckoned. But Feyenoord pulled one back before the hour mark and with 15 minutes remaining, equalised. I tell Champion that for me, it's his words after the Dutch side's first - through Mariano Bombarda - that are etched in my memory.
As the Feyenoord players picked the ball up from the net and ran back to the centre circle, Champion sent out a warning of 'oh, Newcastle be careful.'
"I am quite satisfied with that bit. It's another illustration of how important it is to be in the stadium and be in the midst of it and to feel it.
"The two-goal lead that Newcastle had felt very fragile for whatever reason, and there was also the thought that if Newcastle actually did this they would make history. It was significantly odds against but when they go two goals up, you're thinking 'this is going to happen,' although it was never a totally convincing lead.
"So when it went 2-1, my thought was 'they're on the brink of making history but they might not so hence the line of 'be careful.' It was the sort of thing you can just about get away with on a UK versus non-UK team broadcast.
"Think of Liverpool winning the Champions League against AC Milan, coming from three down, Liverpool scored their first and Clive [Tyldesley] said on ITV that night to the nation only 'hello, hello,' as if this could be something special. The Newcastle 'be careful' is in that same category of it's unlikely to upset the applecart but it just might.
"I'm quietly quite happy with that. I don't think it was too biased. Hopefully, it sort of touched a nerve with a few anxious Newcastle fans. I'm probably happier with that than I am with the commentary on Bellamy."
But it is for most the Bellamy commentary that stands out. Dyer racing through to see his effort blocked by Patrick Lodewijks and thousands of Newcastle hearts breaking only to be stitched back together a second later as Bellamy bundles the ball home and races over to the crowd.
"Looking at the clip again, you can hear in my voice that I kind of thought the chance had gone when it didn't go in the first time," Champions admits, "and then Bellamy to score from the angle came as a surprise. I did it just because you know tight angle.
"It takes a millisecond to process, the emotional impact of what's just happened. You're dealing with the disappointment of the goal not being scored then suddenly it is. That added to the general air of slight chaos about my commentary.
"For a dramatic sporting narrative, you need the expectation of what's going to happen to be entirely overturned. Then you need it to swing back the other way in remarkable circumstances then you need a bit of doubt over the outcome, and then you need a final twist.
"That game had all of those and more. Newcastle is such a heart-on-the-sleeve club.
"A moment like that is amplified because the reaction of the fans is just extraordinary. However many or however few there are, depending on the circumstances in the venue, the soundtrack that they provide, the roar that they provide is unlike anything else.
"For a TV broadcast, it helps you because we trade off the emotion that those fans produce, and it can make our job easier because, quite honestly, if you commentate on a big goal, particularly at St. James, you don't have to say a lot.
"The first thing you are conscious of, and you're taught as a very young broadcaster, is not to get in the way. The power of pictures is so much more powerful than the power of words ordinarily.
"The mark of an experienced broadcaster in the big moments is just to be unafraid to shut up and let the pictures tell the story and let the crowd do their thing. Yes, you shout and you holla when Bellamy does what he does but hopefully, you don't just continue talking, talking and talking because for me that would ruin it. You need to let it soak in.
"I didn't need to tell the viewer how wonderful or significant the Bellamy moment was - they knew. Anyone watching the game knew so I didn't need to go into granular detail about what it means. I just needed to shout his name - and then the chaos of it all unfolded in front of our eyes, and that's job done."
Newcastle 4-4 Arsenal - February, 5th 2011
''Three minutes left, here comes Barton's delivery - it's a teasing one. It's headed away by Arsenal. Cheick Tiote, ohhhhh! Boom! Boom! Cheick! Cheick! The Room! What a strike! What a goal! What a comeback! What a game! There are no words to describe it, Cheick Tiote lifts the roof off St James' Park!" - Justin Lockwood, Real Radio
"As soon as Arsenal headed it away, I just thought 'oh, crikey - that's the chance gone.," Justin Lockwood recalls. The very fact that in that brief moment there was disappointment that the chance had supposedly gone summed up what remains one of the craziest games in Premier League history.
Newcastle, with just 26 minutes on the clock, were four-nil down. Some fans left but most hung around due to that blind faith that comes with supporting the club but even the most optimistic supporter could never have predicted what was to come next.
Arsenal's Abou Diaby was sent off just five minutes into the second half and Newcastle began to work on their comeback - scoring their first on 68 minutes, a second on 75 and another on 83. Then with minutes remaining Barton won a free-kick midway in the Newcastle half.
"I couldn't really work out if the position of the kick meant it was a good chance or not," says Lockwood, "I do remember Joey being so instrumental in just winding Arsenal up. He puts that ball in, it's cleared and I've not caught sight of Cheick until he's just about to pull the trigger and I'm just thinking 'crikey, he's gone for this, and he's volleyed it.
"In the blink of an eye, it's curled and it could not have gone any better into that bottom corner. It's at that point the magnitude of the moment dawns on everybody. I'm just like any other fan - I wanted to jump up and down with everyone and celebrate the goal then I had a moment where I think 'actually, I've got to relay this to everybody listening,' but how do you relay that moment?"
Lockwood relayed it in a fashion that has never been forgotten by most fans who were tuning into the now off-air Real Radio. Wrapped up in the emotion of the goal from Tiote, Lockwood bellowed 'Boom! Boom! Cheick! Cheick The Room!''
Lockwood reflects on the now famous line of commentary: "Every now and again, you'd have kind of moments where you'd be doing a bit of homework or some research for a game and you'd think, what if, what if, what if? And I kind of always thought if Cheick scored a goal, what will I say? What could we do? And obviously, the magnitude of the goal and the manner in which it came and the way the game was shaping up for it to arrive like that, wow.
"It was a bit of a play on words, obviously, I probably thought about it, but never in a million years did I ever expect it to arrive like that in those circumstances. It was just the first thing that came into my head right at that moment in time, if you could have shouted 'boom', and just left it at that I probably would have done but it just went on and obviously became that little bit of commentary that people keep reminding me about."
Lockwood, now the half-time announcer at St James' Park, is a big fan of talking about the draw against Arsenal but concedes that every time the subject and in particular the goal scored by Tiote is brought up, it is in many ways a sad moment due to the death of the midfielder at the age of 30 back in 2017.
The pair became good friends off the pitch as Lockwood explains: "When there's an anniversary, people will often mention it or they'll drop me a message on Twitter or copy me into a tweet and stuff like that, which is always nice but I think first and foremost my attention is always just on what a massive miss Cheick is.
"For anyone who didn't know, he was a phenomenal character. He always had a smile on his face and I was kind of lucky enough to work with him behind the scenes at St. James' and you couldn't have met a nicer kid. So firstly, it's always tinged with a little bit of sadness because he's not with us anymore."
Lockwood recalls a moment in which someone played Tiote a clip of the commentary which left the midfielder laughing, as well as a story about his own dad working with a complete strange who had the clip as his ringtone because 'he couldn't find anything louder.'
"He went from being a hero to zero in the space of about 30 seconds," Lockwood laughs, "but yeah for me, I still look back with fondness but maybe I just need to turn the volume down."
And that is something that Lockwood continues to point out - he fears he was maybe too excitable in the moment.
"I feel a little bit cringey," he adds, "maybe I needed to have taken a breath but the other side of if it is I don't think even if the most professional of commentators can ever kind of know how they're going to react in that exact moment but if I could have my time again I'd tell myself to stop shouting.
"I think in terms of the strike, given the circumstances, I probably overreact just a little bit but I would caveat that with the fact that because of where we were at in the game, and we were four-nil down, and that makes it 4-4, then I would probably say it's one of the greatest strikes you'll ever see purely on circumstance rather than technical ability, even though it was, it was an unbelievable hit.
"And I'm sure people have said when they're going off the bar and top corners and all that makes it look a little bit better but in terms of circumstance, I will probably still argue it's the greatest goal I've ever seen at St. James' Park."
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