Banners are not always that easy to unfurl. Particularly on the sort of capriciously breezy March nights when sheeting emblazoned with the message “Budapest awaits me” refuses to be pulled taut and simply sags in the middle.
For a while before kick‑off it was easy to interpret the ongoing struggles of that banner’s owners to successfully hoist it in the Gallowgate End as emblematic of the travails awaiting Newcastle.
