Hutchinson The Toon

The Complete History of Newcastle United Football Club
1. Auflage 2013
ISBN: 978-0-85790-674-8
Verlag: Birlinn
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 240 Seiten

This is the full, unofficial and uncensored story of one of the greatest football clubs in the world. It brings to life the sensational early successes of the great Anglo-Scottish team before the First World War and follows the club's successes as Cup giants in the 1950s and European conquerors in the 60s, to the Macdonald and Keegan squads of the 1970s and '80s, to its rebirth in the 1990s and through its trials and tribulations of the first decade of the 21st century. Exploring and explaining the lean years as well as the successful decades, Roger Hutchinson brilliantly portrays the managers and players throughout the club's long history and brings the story right up to date as, after the relegation traumas of 2008/09, Newcastle United looks forward to a resurgence in their fortunes as they return to the Premiership in 2010.

Roger Hutchinson is an award-winning author and journalist. After working as an editor in London, in 1977 he joined the West Highland Free Press in Skye. Since then he has published thirteen books, including Polly: the True Story Behind Whisky Galore. He is still a columnist for the WHFP, and has written for BBC Radio, The Scotsman, The Guardian, The Herald and The Literary Review. His book The Soap Man (Birlinn 2003) was shortlisted for the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year (2004) and the bestselling Calum's Road (2007) was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hutchinson, Roger

Leseproben

Chapter One
Almost the Double: Fourteen Days in April 1905
Such an extraordinary seesaw of a fortnight, such a bittersweet 14 days: it might have been an omen of the century which lay ahead. It began at the low ebb. At 3.25 p.m. on 15 April 1905, 11 footballers of Newcastle United FC walked out into the great open shallow bowl of Crystal Palace stadium in Sydenham to the rumbling roar of 101,117 spectators. It was the second-biggest FA Cup final attendance to date (it would eventually prove to be the fourth-biggest in history). It was comfortably the largest crowd that any of those 11 footballers – who were representing Newcastle in the club’s first attempt at winning a major honour – would ever perform before. And it turned out to be the biggest gate ever attracted to watch Newcastle United Football Club in the whole of its long and distinguished life. The 11 footballers posed awkwardly for a photograph: arms crossed over their black-and-white chests, an inch of knee-flesh showing between the hem of their shorts and the white band at the top of their bulging padded stockings, their Manfield Hotspur boots carefully laced from ankle to instep, goalkeeper Jimmy Lawrence also in black and white stripes and distinguishable from his colleagues only by his gloves and flat cap. At 3.29 p.m. their opponents, three-time cup-winners Aston Villa, having lost the toss, kicked off with the sun in their faces. At 3.31 p.m. Newcastle were a goal behind. Harry Hampton, Villa’s centre-forward, collected a rebound to hit the ball low and hard to Lawrence’s left from six yards out. The Tynesiders fought back, of course – every side has its chances in an FA Cup final. But they failed to take them. Shortly before half-time United’s centre-forward Bill Appleyard, the scorer so far that season of a respectable 13 league and cup goals, collected the ball from a free-kick and unleashed a typically fierce shot. Villa’s keeper George was beaten, but it slammed against the square wooden post, leaving the upright – and 5,000 travelling Geordie fans – quivering. ‘That, in retrospect, was that. Newcastle’s half-backs continued to play well but their cautious balls upfield were met by a forward line which leaked confidence by the minute. Villa, on the other hand, could feel the cup in their grasp. Their defenders were hard and uncompromising and their forwards were fast and carefree, and with just eight minutes left Harry Hampton poached his and his side’s second goal. There was no return, and they knew it. Newcastle had lost their first cup final by 2-0. But they had discovered a ravenous appetite for the big event – which was as well, because 15 April 1905 would be by no means their last taste of sorrow in Sydenham. For days previous to the final, Euston, St Pancras and King’s Cross stations had disgorged hordes of laughing, singing men wearing black-and-white hats, umbrellas and rosettes (scarves were to be a later development). On the Friday evening before the final Newcastle Central Station played host to 4,240 travelling fans. A song had been composed for the occasion. (It was prophetic. ‘Wi’ colours wavin’, black and white, Thor gannin’ up to London strite, To gie th’ Cockney folks a fright,’ was the chorus, and the lines ‘When Appleyard bangs in the baall, He myeks th’ goalposts shivver’ featured in one of the verses.) The trains south were bedecked with black and white. At York the bar was beseiged, and Geordie fans staged races and wrestling matches on the platform. They decamped in London between four and half nine in the morning. Some headed off to see Buckingham Palace, some went straight to Crystal Palace, and others wandered about the ‘arid wastes’ of Grays Inn Road and Euston Road exchanging banter with the greater number of Villa supporters … ‘Aston Villa for a thousand’, challenged one Brummie. The Geordie stopped and gazed at him. ‘What d’ye say?’ ‘Aston Villa for a thousand.’ ‘Wey, aa hev nay mair a thousand than ye hev yersel. But aa’ll tell ye what aa’ll dee. Aa’ll lay six pounds t’ fower on Newcassel.’ There were no takers. United had already that season done the double over Villa, and on the morning of the final Newcastle were placed second in the league, five places and six points above Aston Villa, having scored seven more league goals and conceded 11 less. Newcastle United were the hot favourites. Six to four against Villa were, in fact, generous odds. The Brummie, in hindsight, should have taken them. Back in Newcastle, in those days before popular radio or television, the streets were unusually busy that Saturday afternoon. ‘A spirit of agitation’ was in the air, and crowds of men, boys and even women wearing black-and-white neckties gathered outside the offices of the Evening Chronicle. Rosemary Lane and St John’s Street filled with a small army of expectant souls as half past three approached. Minutes after Hampton’s first goal an edition of the Evening Chronicle bearing the dismal news issued from the office. ‘If it took,’ the paper reported later, ‘as much out of the team as it took out of those who watched its progress in the north it did more than can be expressed in a sentence.’ Rumours swept the streets of Newcastle as the afternoon wore on. United were pressing … Jim Howie had scored an equaliser … it seemed, said one observer, as if everybody had a telephone receiver at their ear, connected to a wild variety of different sources of information. People stood about town ignoring the Saturday afternoon shops, unfolding the latest editions of the evening press and frantically inquiring of all who passed for the latest news from the Crystal Palace. ‘In the last quarter,’ read the evening final, ‘the Villa scored another goal.’ On Wearside the newsboys bawled with evident joy: ‘Terrible defeat of Newcastle!’ On Tyneside, they pulled themselves together and prepared for the team’s Monday morning homecoming. It was naturally raucous: the players had to fight their way off the train, and wondered aloud what their reception would have been if they had won. They had not played well, the North-east’s first representatives at an FA Cup final. ‘The United men were disappointing in every department,’ said one commentator. ‘Whatever the reason, whether it was staleness as some say, or nervousness as others contend, not one man came up to expectation, and the side as a whole was slow and listless. ‘I am inclined to the theory of nervousness, because when they found the game going so much against them they persisted blindly in sticking to the ball and playing the short passing game without variation until the end of the match. Had they only given us a glimpse of their form in league matches the result might have been different … Having once found their way to the Crystal Palace, however, Newcastle United may be expected when next they get there to do themselves credit.’ That last comment would turn out to be a hostage to cruel fortune. But Newcastle’s ‘form in league matches’ was something else, as the remaining 13 days of that see-saw fortnight would prove. The season of 1904–05 was Newcastle United’s 12th in the Football League, and their seventh in the First Division. They had never finished higher than third in the league, but had developed a comfortable habit of winding up in the top quarter of their division – and St James’s Park had already achieved the reputation of a formidable ground to visit. The 1904–05 season had begun much like any other. It kicked off at home with a nice 3-0 win – Jackie Rutherford and Ronald Orr (2) – over newly promoted Woolwich Arsenal (who had entered the league with Newcastle 12 years before) in front of 21,897 fans. By 3 December, following straight away wins at Wolverhampton and Birmingham, and a home win over Blackburn Rovers, Newcastle were top of the First Division. Jackie Rutherford had scored six in 14 games, Colin Veitch five, and Orr, Howie and Appleyard four apiece. Newcastle United, the world agreed, had got there by playing ‘scientific’ football. This was nothing more or less than the possession and short-ball game to which they so stubbornly adhered throughout the losing cup final. It came from Scotland. It was in fact the basis of the Scottish national squad’s series of demolitions of their English opponents throughout the early years of that home international fixture. This system arrived at St James’s Park with a Scottish boss, Frank Watt; a Scottish trainer, James McPherson; and with a large sackful of extremely influential Scottish players. Throughout the late-Victorian and Edwardian period it seemed at times almost as though Newcastle United were a Scottish team playing in the English league. Out of the 11 cup finalists in 1905, six were Scots. Four of those were already internationals: the full-back Andrew McCombie, captain and centre-half Andy Aitken, left-half Peter McWilliam, and inside-right James Howie. Of the other two, Glaswegian goalkeeper Jimmy Lawrence (who set an all-time United appearance record of 496 games) would gain his Scottish caps at a later date, and right-half Alec Gardner would serve the club for no fewer than 313 matches. The number of Scots in the team would have been seven if the free-scoring Ronald Orr – another international – had not been out through injury. (Of the minority Englishmen, incidentally, three were Geordies.) So, the goalkeeper, one full-back, the trainer, the captain, the entire half-back line and half of the goalscoring forward line was Scottish. They played the thoughtful, steady, short passing game of their country; they rarely...