As a Newcastle fan, I have never had a problem identifying the worst of times. FA Cup final failures, hopeless home defeats and awful away days mean there is no shortage, although watching a 4-0 humiliation against Wimbledon at Plough Lane in our post-Gazza 1988-89 relegation season is the one I’ve never really been able to shake off.
But if they were the worst of times, there’s now no doubt about the best of times. Being at Wembley to see us beat Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final was something I was beginning to think I’d never experience. But here it was unfolding in front of me. How would it feel? What would this elusive moment be like?
I was more prepared for it than I realised. I’ve certainly been thinking about it for long enough and have pictured the moment a million times. I remember years ago reading an article in Newcastle Chronicle’s The Pink about how it had been 30 years without a domestic trophy. No matter, we’d win one soon enough, surely. After all, when we played Liverpool in the 1974 FA Cup final we had the same number of major trophies – 11 – so we were still a big club, or at least a club that could think big.
The trophy never came, though, and we endured the disappointments as 30 turned into 40, then 50, then 60, then the number 70 becoming a constant reference for Peter Drury and his like. As such, I went to Wembley on Sunday in a cautiously pessimistic frame of mind. Liverpool are good, but we’d beaten the other three teams in the top four to get there (Arsenal, Nottingham Forest and Chelsea) so let’s just give them a game. Maybe we could even score a goal.
Our Wembley aggregate since 1974 was 2-13, although one of those goals – Rob Lee’s headed equaliser against Chelsea in the 2000 FA Cup semi-final – had probably been my single happiest moment following Newcastle. After being at Wembley for the lame defeats against Arsenal in 1998 and then Manchester United in 1999, Lee’s goal gave a surge of hope that we might win a proper big game. It wasn’t to be, because six minutes later Gus Poyet spoiled the party. But it had been a very enjoyable six minutes. Another goal would, if nothing else, sustain me for my last couple of decades.
I managed to get a ticket through an Australian friend and ended up in the corporate area before kickoff. Doing the meet-and-greet for Newcastle was, weirdly, Lee, whose goal in 2000 had been the last scored by a Newcastle player at Wembley. I shook his hand and told him my story. He thanked me for the memory but added wearily that he hoped someone might take his unwanted record. I suggested the fan fantasy would be for Dan Burn to take Rob’s record with a last-minute header. We chuckled at the absurdity and went our separate ways.
On the pitch, fantasy somehow turned to reality. We looked determined and competitive while Liverpool didn’t look like they fancied it. Even before Sunday, I rated the Colossus of Blyth as one of the most heroic I’ve seen in black and white – a brilliantly rugged figure straight from the pages of Roy of the Rovers. So it was a Melchester moment when Burn rose to head in the opener. Not quite the last-minute drama I’d envisaged, but enough to get me jumping out of my posh seat and annoying the mostly scouse surrounds.
The final whistle was that final moment of fantasy, but also the realisation of something I’d pictured a million times. As the players cavorted around the pitch and the PA blasted out Going Home, the theme from Local Hero, I found myself welling up and leaving my Australian companion a bit bemused. He had asked during the game: what it is that we are supporting, what drives this passion?
But how can you sum up the decades of expectation, frustration, intense regional pride and sheer love of the game that brought me to that moment. Between suppressed sobs the best I could do was: “It just means so much.”
