Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans… | OneFootball

Please note Newcastle United fans.

As the saying goes; “Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans…”

John Lennon used this now often used quote in the lyrics of his Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) song which was released on an album in 1980.

This quote though originally came from American writer Allen Saunders back in 1957.

Now I am no John Lennon, nor another Allen Saunders, however, I think this perfectly applies to Newcastle United fans in the present day.

Let me explain. How I think it applies to us.

I think there is a big danger that a lot of Newcastle United fans will miss living in this moment. In many cases NUFC supporters too busy ‘making plans’ for the future, in other words – too busy worrying about the future.

How this manifests itself, at least to me, is when time after time I read and hear Newcastle United fans only wanting to focus on the negative stuff.

We all know that the current Premier League position isn’t great after 11 matches of the season and that this has to improve, both for this current league campaign and how it then can impact on the future.

However, that shouldn’t stop us living and enjoying life, especially the huge positives, in this current moment.

We waited over two decades to get back into the Champions League, living through a decade and a half of Mike Ashley, Yet having now qualified for a second time in three years and doing brilliantly in this league stage, I find some Newcastle United fans almost refusing to accept that this is something we should drown ourselves in happiness about it.

So when the likes of myself and many others in the NUFC fanbase are so much looking forward to Marseille next week and how a win would guarantee at least a play-off spot and put us probably only one win and a draw away from guaranteeing an automatic last 16 knockout spot, you instead have other Newcastle United fans who only want to talk about how the Premier League will be looking if losing to Man City and/or Everton.

Of course the league matches are important.

The Champions League ones are as well, indeed, I would argue they are even more important.

After all, what is the point of us all going on and on for years about how brilliant it would be to get Champions League football again, then when we do get it, we don’t fully live in the moment?

Enjoy our life now, rather than only wanting to worry about how our current Premier League position might impact on the possibility of no Champions League in the future…

It is the same with the League Cup (Carabao Cup as it is known currently).

Newcastle United fans hadn’t had a cup final since 1999 and indeed, not a semi-final since 2005.

Under Eddie Howe we have had a semi-final and final in his first full season, a quarter-final in his second season, a semi-final and (winning!) final last season, now a home tie to look forward to against struggling Fulham that would seal a third semi-final in the space of four years AND every chance of another final.

This is all the stuff of dreams after such a long Mike Ashley nightmare.

The thing is as well, you never know when your dreams are going to end.

Who knows what is around the corner?

Imagine going back to 1955 and telling Newcastle United fans who across five seasons had just seen their club win their fourth, fifth and sixth FA Cups, what would happen in the decades ahead…

The same with Newcastle United fans celebrating the 1969 Fairs Cup win at that moment, imagine laying out to them what was going to happen in the years to come…

Now I know league positions do mean different things now in many ways BUT back in 1955, I don’t think many Newcastle United fans were wanting to fixate on how NUFC had only finished eighth in the league that season. The same when United finished only ninth in 1968/69 ahead of winning the Fairs Cup in the June.

Fair enough, in these days ahead we can all concentrate on Newcastle United needing to play well and get a result against Man City on Saturday. However, once the final whistle has gone in that match, no reason at all why we can’t all be just immersing ourselves in the build up to Marseille next Tuesday, where a fourth Champions League win in a row would be just stunning. Why wouldn’t you want to lose yourself in that moment, that joy?