If most of us don't know too much about Qatar, we will do in four or five weeks' time.
Starting next weekend, for the following month, the Middle Eastern nation is hosting the FIFA World Cup, and will never be far away from the headlines. The intense heat and humidity in Qatar means that for the first time, the tournament will take place in the cooler months of November and December, rather than during the summer as is custom.
As the 2022 event progresses, we’ll take a day-by-look at the past tournaments, recall what else was happening in the world, and the involvement of any Newcastle United players. In total, 33 Magpies have been called up by their nations for World Cup finals duty. We'll be naming them all in due course.
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That number includes five players who have helped United go into the winter break sitting third in the Premier League - Kieran Trippier, Nick Pope and Callum Wilson of England, Bruno Guimaraes of Brazil, and Fabian Schar of Switzerland, as a well as recent signing, Garang Kuol of Australia.
The tournament begins next Sunday, November 20, when the host nation plays Ecuador. For Trippier, Pope and Wilson, England's first game - against Iran - kicks off at 1pm the following day at the Khalifa International Stadium in Qatar's capital city, Doha. The match will be screened live on BBC. Even for those fans who will always put club before country, the involvement of three Newcastle United players should provide a spark of interest.
As anyone with the slightest knowledge of the England national team's history knows, it’s 56 long years since they lifted the World Cup for the one and only time on a historic July afternoon at Wembley Stadium. That was 1966. The first World Cup took place in 1930. England first competed in 1950 when the tournament took place in Brazil.
It was a time when an exhausted Britain was still recovering from the demands of World War II, Labour’s Clement Attlee was resident in number 10, and the country was still subject to the queues and scarcities of post-war rationing. Popular movies included Annie Get Your Gun and Samson And Delilah , while crowds flocked to watch actors Trevor Howard and Jean Simmons shooting scenes for the film The Clouded Yellow in Newcastle.
On the football front in 1950, Newcastle United had finished their domestic season a respectable fifth in the First Division under the managership of George Martin. And it was United’s formidable striking duo from that era who were the first of our World Cup Magpies.
Ashington-born Jackie Milburn was part of an England squad that included star names such as Tom Finney and Stanley Matthews. His Newcastle strike partner, George Robledo - the first South American to play in English football - was selected for Chile. In a very different age, Robledo was the only player among the 286 from 13 nations playing for a club outside his own country.
In the event, the Three Lions crashed out of the Brazil 1950 tournament, losing 1-0 to an amateur team from the United States - one of the most shocking results in English football history. Wor Jackie didn’t play in that game, but was centre-forward when England lost 1-0 to Spain in Rio de Janeiro.
For the record, Uruguay won the 1950 World Cup, beating the host nation in the final, while Milburn would go on to win another five caps, and the small matter of three FA Cup winner’s medals with Newcastle United over the next five years.
NEXT TIME: World Cup, Switzerland, 1954.
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