Keeping The (True) Faith

Keeping The (True) Faith
By Michael Martin of "True Faith", a Newcastle United fanzine
 
In three years time, it will be a cool 50 years since Newcastle United last won a domestic honour, beating Manchester City in the 1955 FA Cup Final. Our last Championship was in 1927, which incidentally was the first year Newcastle Brown Ale (the local beer and club shirt sponsor) was released on an unsuspecting Newcastle area. No one will tell me the events were unconnected.
 
In those intervening years more than a few false dawns have set over St. James' Park and it remains the subject of some head-shaking despair that the currently second best supported club in the country (behind only Manchester United) should not have somehow even fluked a League Cup somewhere along the way. Sadly, that's not been the case.
 
Mind you we've been close a few times. We have been in three FA Cup Finals since we last won the competition in 1955. It's fairly typical that when we get to a Final we always meet one of the best sides in the land - Liverpool 1974, Arsenal 1998 and Manchester United 1999. Wembley was never a friend of ours and we somehow managed to conspire to lose the FA Cup semi-final to Chelsea (eventual winners) in 2000. Throw in the 1976 League Cup Final defeat to Manchester City and the 1996 Charity Shield and you can pretty much find a squad of volunteers from Tyneside (the Newcastle area) who are ready, able and willing to swing a huge wrecking ball into the twin towers of Wembley Stadium and cast the old place into dust.
 
However, in the mind-set of the younger generation of supporters, the "year we blew the league" in 1996 stands out pretty much as our finest hour in avoiding silverware. 12 points clear at Christmas, playing some of the best football this country has ever seen and then we get an attack of the collywobbles (nerves), Cantona is playing like a beast, Man Utd are scoring goals in the 103rd minute of injury-time to win games 1-0 and we are back in the bar, telling the blackest of jokes and developing a nervous tic (twitch).
 
That desperate disappointment without question hastened the resignation of Kevin Keegan from his spiritual home. Well, that and the club floating itself on the stock market and giving KK the kind of ultimatums he was never going to accept. Exit stage left and one of the best football managers the country has had - not the in-thing to say at the moment but ask the fans of NUFC and Man City what he has done for their clubs and you will likely get a ringing endorsement.
 
But as one manager left so Newcastle United somehow conspired to appoint two big-name managers who quite simply were a disgrace. Kenny Dalgleish? I don't really care what he did at other clubs (his achievements were never really scrutinised); at St. James' Park the man was an utter shambles. He did however, make some decent signings - Given, Solano and Hamann were top drawer. But the rest, Perez (the keeper from Sunderland), was at the club three years and never made a first team appearance. Rather than play him in the teeth of an injury crisis, the club preferred to take Man City's 3rd reserve 'keeper on loan. There was the geriatric squad of Pearce, Rush and Barnes - this was our big preparation for the Champions League. Pistone, Andersson, Guivarc'h, Charvet, Brady, Glass, Hamilton, Serrant, Georgiados and many many more. Even the young players he brought to the club (Kelly, Keidel and Gudjonnssen) were crap. A certain Paul Dalgleish (son) arrived, made a few cameo appearances but was simply never good enough. The style of play was desperate and so Dalglish was on his way. He even had the cheek to take us to court for damages! He then went to Celtic with Barnes and did the same all over again.
 
But if we'd thought Dalgish was desperate, then Ruud Gullit was in a class of his own. Team spirit collapsed, the club fell into dressing room schisms (divisions) and we lost 2-1 to the our local rivals Sunderland on a desperate night at St. James' Park with Alan Shearer and Duncan Ferguson on the bench. Gullit had to leave Newcastle for his own safety. Unfortunately, he left a selection of the most useless footballers ever to draw money from a football club - Maric, Domi, Goma, Dumas and of course, Marcelino. We were on the way down.
 
Enter Bobby Robson. Everyone's favourite Grandad had been lined up for the job as a successor to Keegan. It is my sincerest belief that had Bobby inherited that side, we'd have won the Championship by now. Unfortunately, Bobby honoured his contract at Barcelona - a decision he was later to regret as the Catalan club brought in Van Gaal over the top of him. But, eventually, Bobby returned to the club he used to travel to watch with his Dad as a lad. He kept us up.
 
If Bobby's first season had survival as its target, his second was screwed up with an injury crisis - most worryingly, to Alan Shearer, who a gleeful metropolitan media were ready to write off for good. A year later, they'd be calling for his return to the England team but that just proves what they are - thick. Bobby's main task had been to move on some of the garbage brought to the club by the two previous incumbents of the manager's chair. Miraculously, the permanently injured Steve Howey and Duncan Ferguson left the club and Newcastle began to put itself back on its feet.
 
This last season has been a revelation. Bobby has brought in Laurent Robert and despite not actually having the Anglo-Saxon work ethic is a star by any stretch of the imagination. But the real surprise package is Craig Bellamy! The belligerent young Welshman has been invaluable this season. Scorned at Coventry City and it has to be said by many on Tyneside when he arrived from Highfield Road, he has been fantastic.
 
The return to fitness of Alan Shearer allied to his retirement from all of that England nonsense has done wonders for him. The emergence of Shay Given as the best keeper in the world and the balance we have down the flanks from Solano and Robert has given us an attacking edge we have lacked in previous seasons. When Dyer has played he has been incredible but injuries have bogged him down.
 
And now we have a great chance of playing Champions League football this season. Things could be on the up but then, we'll probably hit our own Golden Jubilee of 50 years without a domestic trophy in 2005. And we've got the cheek to call our fanzine true faith!
 
Adapted and reproduced courtesy of www.footie51.co.uk.

By Michael Martin of "True Faith", a Newcastle United fanzine