The last time Newcastle United reached a major semi-final we were just starting to get to grips with the digital age.
As fans head off for the next big semi-final, some 18 years later, many of them will be doing so with their adult kids and with the digital revolution in full swing - it's really been that long! Since then iPods have been and gone, The Pink stopped printing the year after 2005, Oasis split up and never reformed, Newcastle have had three different owners and it's been 16 years since smoking was banned in pubs.
OK, most of us had mobile phones by that time but by the turn of that year 2005 we were probably all still in the practice of sending "Happy New Year, just texting before it all goes mad" type messages at about 8.30pm on New Year's Eve because mobile phone networks couldn't cope with the demand!
