Japanese Newcastle fan explains why he fell in love with the club – & it’s the best reason ever | OneFootball

A Japanese supporter of Newcastle United has explained why he fell for the club – and it might just be the best reason possible.

The Magpies have had one Japan international. But Yoshinori Muto’s eminently forgettable two goals in 28 appearances didn’t exactly do for the club what Son Heung-min’s impact did for Tottenham in South Korea.

A clip, originally posted by Shields Gazette following Newcastle United on their pre-season tour of Japan a couple of years back, seems to perennially do the rounds on social media.

Thankfully, we’ve only just discovered it — and this interview with Tokyo-based fan Ucha is one of the best things we’ve seen in a long time.

Ucha explains his undying love for the club, despite living over 5,000 miles away from Tyneside.

The interviewer asks the reason he chose Newcastle and got far more than he bargained for with a brilliant response.

“About 10 years ago, I watched a game against Hull City,” he explained.

“The game was crazy and Alan Pardew had a headbutt. That was the game I watched first and that made me fall in love with this team.”

Superb. That’s what football’s really about, isn’t it?

The Premier League is the most-watched sporting competition in the world. Clubs have made great strides in building ardent fanbases across the globe over the past 20 or 30 years.

It’s almost impossible for said marketing not to feel cynical. By definition, it’s manufactured. “Global fan engagement”, “brand affinity”, “clippable social content”. Among that consultant jargon written somewhere on a whiteboard in Tyneside, you don’t imagine the words ‘Pards’ or ‘Headbutt’ feature anywhere.

Ucha’s fandom is beautifully, genuinely, organic. It couldn’t be purer. Middle of the night. Screen on. Bedlam in Humberside, David Meylar shoving past Pardew and him completely losing his head. A love affair is born.

Choosing a club because they win trophies or can guarantee you glory is boring. Choosing a club because their manager planted one on a Barclays-era sh*thouse? *David Lynch/John Ford voice* That’s interesting.

Ucha might not have known it at the time, but that moment was unfiltered Newcastle. The very essence of the club. Complete, beautiful – often hapless – chaos in the Mike Ashley era.

It might only be behind Steven Taylor pretending he’d been shot by a sniper as the most Newcastle moment of the 21st century.