Get all your news in one place.
100’s of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Chronicle Live
Chronicle Live
Sport
John Gibson

Newcastle deserve to end 20 year Champions League wait at St James' Park amid Leicester history

The street parties are booked. The bunting and Broon Ale ordered. If it is not over until the Fat Lady sings then she has cleared her throat and is already hitting the high notes. Job done.

Champions League football is a certainty and the cathedral on the hill is about to be turned into a cauldron of celebration. I Don't Like Mondays, sang Bob Geldof and the Boomtown Rats. Geordies LOVE Mondays. This Monday anyway.

Theoretically a point is required against a doomed and desperate Leicester City but such is Newcastle United's superior goal difference it is likely all academic.

READ MORE: Jurgen Klopp insists he's 'not spoilt' as Liverpool boss sends 'deserved' message to Newcastle

Twenty years of waiting, since Sir Bobby Robson and Lord Shearer of Gosforth took us to the best footballing cities of continental Europe, is over, after constantly living in a world as pitch black as the Geordie mines which once dotted our boundaries.

How deserved it all is. How ruddy marvellous. How unbelievable given the short space of time for a conversion from hopeless to heroes.

Leicester cannot spoil a perfect occasion. Once the fairytale makers themselves, they are now down and out and likely heading for the Championship of Sunderland and Middlesbrough. They will not, cannot, win at St James' Park.

The Foxes have a history of being unable to deny magical Magpie moments. When faced with the awful prospect of third tier football for the first time in the club's history back in 1992 new manager Kevin Keegan manufactured a 2-1 victory over Leicester at Filbert Street to banish any such humiliation and exactly a year later with the Entertainers rising like a rocket promotion back into the top flight was celebrated with a 7-1 slaughtering of the innocent.

Now exactly 30 years later, 50,000 of the faithful who have suffered so much torture of recent years will wake the dead in triumphant voice throughout United's final home game and then spill into town for more of the same. Let the Bigg Market take the punishment!

St James Park's lap of honour - and it will be honour this year - will be our glorious goodbye to an extra special season and hello to the Champions League. This is today but tomorrow and beyond promises to be even better.

If Liverpool blew it at Anfield over the weekend then there are no crocodile tears from me. They will end up the only side to have taken six points from United this campaign but they fluked it with a 98th minute winner at home and repeated the pain against 10 men up here. Without those half a dozen points they would be nowhere.

To think Newcastle are in the Champions League while Chelsea, Spurs and almost certainly Liverpool are not is wonderfully satisfying. The Reds can only make it at the expense of the other Reds of Manchester United because of their goal difference. It is the remotest of hopes but frankly who cares one way or the other!

All those in black and white stood up to be counted when it mattered against Brighton in a match which confirmed United's overall superiority. There was Kieran Trippier whose deadly set piece deliveries produced the crucial first two goals. Miggy Almiron who ran like the wind to blow the opposition away. Joelinton who put his massive frame on the line. Bruno Guimaraes whose heart as big as a frying pan carries him beyond physical pain. And Callum Wilson who has now scored 18 Premier League goals which has only been better in modern times by Big Al himself.

While handing out personal accolades it must be stressed that Nick Pope has enjoyed a fabulous first season, although he will not be rewarded with the Premier League Golden Glove. That is going to David De Gea despite the Manchester United goalkeeper letting in six at Man City and seven at Liverpool for an overall total of 41 goals conceded compared to Pope's 32.

The reason is that the Golden Glove winner is not determined by letting in the fewest goals but keeping the most clean sheets and De Gea is untouchable with 17 while Pope is third with 13. Is it fair? At the very least it is debatable.

There will need to be a body count before Leicester arrive. Joe Willock looks doomed with a hamstring, Sean Longstaff and Jamaal Lascelles are out, Bruno will require more bandages than the Invisible Man, Joelinton will no doubt refuse to be felled like a great oak, and Jacob Murphy must undergo another physio check on his groin.

However adrenaline supplied by a delirious crowd will carry all who make it to the battlefield through yet another hour and a half.

++++

The last home game marks the end of a wondrous, emotional, uplifting, stimulating season like none before and, as the Chronicle man in residence at Pumphrey's in the Bigg Market on matchdays, I bring down the curtain tomorrow night, grateful to have addressed so many of you personally before every kick off.

My sidekick on this occasion will be Malcolm Macdonald at 5.45pm. Thank you to everyone. See you in Europe!

READ NEXT

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100’s of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.