How Barca were beaten in 1997, with Asprilla, Gillespie, Albert, Barton and Watson | OneFootball

The sight of Tino Asprilla leaping not once, but twice, to head past Ruud Hesp. The sound of 36,000 packed into a concrete palace, roaring until voices were hoarse. For 60 minutes, the unmissable scent of fear. Catalan fear. Total, unadulterated discombobulation. Newcastle United 3. Barcelona 2.

Alongside Asprilla, Warren Barton, Philippe Albert, Keith Gillespie and Steve Watson all pulled on black and white that evening. Matthew Ketchell was just a young fan attending with his old man. Pilib Ó Loinn was a local boy who had moved away for work and nearly missed the game. Elsa Burns settled in at home to watch the match with her parents. These are their recollections.

***

It was United's first foray into the Champions League. Back-to-back second place Premier League finishes had been achieved, but never before had domestic runners-up qualified.

The ultimately failed title tilt of 1995/96 had merely landed United in the UEFA Cup where, for three rounds at least, things ticked along nicely. Then bang. A 4-0 two-legged defeat to Monaco, whose team included a youthful Thierry Henry, was a reality check. Brazilian Sonny Anderson scored the goal that defeated United 1-0 on Tyneside before subsequently joining Barcelona.

To reach the group stages, United had navigated a tricky qualifier against a Croatia Zagreb side containing future United players Mark Viduka and Silvio Maric. John Beresford scored a rare double at home, while, following a 2-1 defeat in the second leg to make it 3-3 on aggregate, a Temur Ketsbaia goal secured United's passage with penalties looming.

Asprilla scored United's other goal that night and giggles at the mention of Ketsbaia. "Keith (Gillespie) used to tell me to call him a ‘f***ing baldy’ and Ketsbaia wanted to kill me! He used to get really annoyed at me."

The 1997 summer had been dominated by change. While supporters soaked in the sun, Kenny Dalglish, who had succeeded Kevin Keegan that January, inked his mark on United's squad. David Ginola and Les Ferdinand were sold to Tottenham. Lee Clark joined Sunderland. Peter Beardsley and Robbie Elliott headed to Bolton. The quintet had shared 119 league appearances the previous campaign.

Incomings included several relative unknowns in Ketsbaia, Shay Given, and Jon Dahl Tomasson, plus veteran trio Stuart Pearce, John Barnes and Ian Rush.

"It was very difficult that summer," Barton admits. "The team lost some of the previous year's firepower - good people and good players who'd become friends, all of whom had come to Newcastle to play in the Champions League, to play for the titles, to try to win medals. We'd lost a lot of quality."

Ferdinand's departure was compounded when Alan Shearer ruptured ankle ligaments in a friendly against Everton. The goalscoring burden weighed heavily on the unproven Tomasson and Ketsbaia, plus Asprilla.

***

There are many sub-sets of match-going supporter, ranging from those religiously seat-bound pre-warm-up, to those whose first view of the pitch is at or around the time the players exit the tunnel. But some nights are brimming with so much anticipation that everyone arrives early. The excitement was such that even ardent Manchester City fan Liam Gallagher donned black and white on stage with Oasis during their gig a mile away.

Ketchell and his dad always headed in early, taking their spots in row BB of the Gallowgate to observe the warm-up. "That night there were so many more people in there," he says.

Ketchell was a junior goalkeeper and admirer of the late Pavel Srníček. "He was doing some skipping and this guy next to us was shouting 'gan on Pav. Have a good skip, son, have a good skip.' I thought that was very funny."

But the overarching memory for Ketchell was the purity of colour - never had he seen such clarity. "The white seemed whiter, the green seemed greener, and the black and white of the Champions League, all the stadium dressings, flowed," he recalls. "St. James' Park had a magical glint to it that night."

As Barton sauntered into the ground that Wednesday evening, his spine tingled. "Me and Rob Lee walked in together and saw the Champions League signs," he recalls. "They were rehearsing the music beforehand. The boys had said we wanted our first Champions League game against one of the big teams. They don't come any bigger than Barcelona."

Watson had a 557-game professional career, predominantly as a marauding right-back. An injury crisis forced him to centre half against Barcelona. "I didn't realise the magnitude of it until I got there," he admits. The instantly recognisable theme music was what brought it home.

Despite the occasion, Albert insists that nerves did not slip into the home dressing room. "No, no, no," he tells newcastleunited.com. "Excitement, of course. We were proud to face a team like this."

Asprilla agrees. "It was my first Champions League game, but I was very calm and confident. I never got nervous playing football. The only time I've been nervous is when I've been with a girl.

"We had a lot of respect for them, but we had no fear," Albert continues. "We knew we were capable of beating anybody. We used to do it under Keegan. Under Dalglish, the belief was the same, but the football was different. With Kevin, we were always going forward whereas it was more organised under Dalglish. Can you imagine? I had the chance to be managed by Kevin Keegan and Kenny Dalglish. Two of the best players in English history."

Albert was the only member of United's starting line-up that night with previous Champions League experience. He reached the quarter final of the European Cup in 1990 with KV Mechelen, where they lost to the eventual champions Milan, and later captained Anderlecht in the competition.

Against Barcelona, Albert partnered Watson, that pair flanked by Barton and John Beresford. Given stood behind them, with Lee and David Batty just in front. That pair formed a midfield with bite, ballast, and balance. Gillespie and Barnes provided width, while Asprilla led the line with a baby-faced Tomasson.

United's preparations had been far from ideal. Four days before Barcelona's visit, Wimbledon had won 3-1 on Tyneside. Despite starting the match bottom of the Premier League, the visitors nudged ahead via Carl Cort, whom the late Sir Bobby Robson signed for Newcastle in 2000, two minutes into his full debut.

In front of José Mourinho, appointed when Robson had joined Barcelona in 1996 and kept on by Louis van Gaal as an assistant, United slumped. "If I'm being honest, I think everybody had half an eye on the Barcelona match," Barton admits.

Having missed his Tyneside-bound flight from Columbia, Asprilla only arrived back on the morning of the Wimbledon game. Dalglish had asked if he was fit to start but Asprilla said he was tired. "I don't think he was very pleased," Asprilla says. Why did you miss your flight, Tino? That instantly recognisable grin returns. "I can't tell you!"

"There was talk he might not even play (against Barcelona)," Gillespie says. "Thankfully he did because he was outstanding!"

***

22’ Tino Asprilla (pen) - Newcastle 1 Barcelona 0

It was a transformed side that kicked off against Barcelona. A passion-fuelled United were on. Electric. Crisp. The opposition were clueless as to what had smashed them around the chops, as Tomasson dragged an early chance just wide of Hesp's near post.

Soon, Tomasson's redemption came, a perfect outside-of-the-boot through ball setting Asprilla away. He reached the pass a millisecond ahead of Hesp and Pierluigi Collina's right arm pointed to a small white painted circle twelve yards from goal. The collective bellow could be heard as far as South Shields.

"I didn't feel comfortable with the spot because it had a hole in it," Asprilla tells newcastleunited.com. He tried to shift the ball forward a few inches, but Hesp was alive to his actions. “He told the referee, and I had to move it back. Once I put it on the spot, it was a matter of concentrating on where I was going to hit the ball.”

Up Asprilla stepped, a long, slow approach. The net bulged, the euphoria swirled, most not even realising that Hesp’s right palm had almost kept it out.

Surely Asprilla’s heart temporarily ceased? “No way! He managed to touch it, but it was going with a lot of force. The goalie was the one who had to be worried!”

Across in County Durham, Burns and her dad, Les, celebrated wildly together. Her father had taken her and her brother – also Les – to their first game back in 1981. The siblings remember sitting on the railings in the corner between the Gallowgate and Milburn, Les senior carrying Elsa around “to avoid the mess made by those who didn’t quite make the toilet!”

***

31’ Tino Asprilla - Newcastle 2 Barcelona 0

Suddenly Watson took a sharp free kick, finding Gillespie on the right. “We were just ‘front foot’ that night, and I think that's just the way I was,” Watson explains when asked why he played that ball at that moment.

“I played most of my defensive career at Newcastle as a right-back, and I was quite forward-thinking. Me and Bez [Beresford] were amongst the first wave of attacking full backs. Keegan encouraged us.

“Even from centre-half I was trying to do things quickly. Keith was having loads of joy against the Spanish left-back, so I just thought to myself, ‘get him on the ball as many times as you can’.”

Gillespie’s control was perfect, taking him face-to-face with Barcelona’s number 12. One touch; two touches; knock it into space. He was away.

“I wasn't a winger with tricks, but I had pace,” Gillespie tells newcastleunited.com. “I knew if I was able to knock the ball past Sergi, I would get to it first. Fortunately, I did that for a couple of the goals.”

‘Sergi’ was Sergi Barjuán, a three-time La Liga winner who won 56 caps for Spain. Gillespie turned him like a steering wheel.

“I just knew as soon as it left my foot that it was in the area and I was just hoping that somebody would arrive on time,” Gillespie says. “There was plenty of pace on it, and it was a bullet header. The keeper had absolutely no chance.”

Amongst those dancing wildly in the stands was Ketchell. He vividly recalls Asprilla “hanging in the air. The leap he had on him was amazing.” The header was unstoppable.

At the opposite end of the ground was Loinn. His first United match, which his mother took him to, was the 1974 FA Cup quarter final against Nottingham Forest. With Newcastle trailing 3-1, a pitch invasion delayed the game for 10 minutes and, after the re-start, United’s 10 men were inspired, Bobby Moncur scoring the winner at the last. However, the FA later deemed the result void, with United requiring two further replays to progress.

By 1997, Loinn was working for the DVLA in Carlisle but had been seconded to Swansea. His seat was in danger of going unfilled and he had resigned himself to watching on from a Welsh ale house. Then a “sympathetic boss” intervened.

“Her son supported Newcastle,” Loinn says. “He was six at the time and the Entertainers had enthralled him. She knew I had a ticket and the day before the game told me that I had a meeting in Newcastle at four o'clock the next day, so I'd better leave early. She’d made a hire car available.”

When he arrived in Newcastle, Loinn found that there was no meeting. “I got to my mother’s house in Gosforth at about five o'clock, wolfed down some tea, and went to the match.” His pals at the back of the Leazes Stand were as surprised to see him as he was delighted to see them.

***

49’ Tino Asprilla - Newcastle 3 Barcelona 0

United were in dreamland at the interval but Dalglish had no intention of stopping the flow. “The message was, ‘just go out and play like it is 0-0’,” Albert says. “If you think, ‘ok, good, we're going to defend the 2-0 lead’, it's over.”

Soon after play resumed, Gillespie found himself one-on-one with Sergi. “I could see him in the distance, that long untucked shirt billowing – Gillespie roasted him that night,” Ketchell recalls.

This time the cross came from deeper, Gillespie level with the Barcelona penalty area when he swung his right leg. Again, Asprilla rose. Again, a whole region roared.

“The movement from Tino was fantastic,” Gillespie explains. “He feinted to go to the front post where the defenders then went, and just held back. I only had Tino in the middle to hit, so I had to get it right. It was another brilliant header.

“Tino's run is phenomenal as well. But the height that he generated… I've seen a lot of stills of the photograph of him and the height that he actually gets. Wow.”

“Alan Shearer was injured that game,” recalls Asprilla. “Keith’s cross would have been perfect for Alan. If he had been playing, he would have been the one that scored the goals. But I knew I had to try to do what Alan would have done.”

For 90 minutes at least, Asprilla did replace Newcastle’s record goal-scorer. And then some. “Are you watching Sunderland,” the Gallowgate bellowed. Perhaps not – they may have still been recovering from the previous night’s League Cup first-leg victory over Bury in front of 18,000.

“The game was tailor-made for him,” Barton says of Asprilla. “You could just sense the way he was walking around. Very relaxed, very confident in what he was going to do.

“It might sound surprising, but normally Tino was very quiet before a game. He didn’t say too much. He let his football do the talking, and then afterwards it starts.

“But he had an aura about him before the game that night. The occasion was made for Tino. That was his moment. Boy, he didn't let us down, did he?!”

“And Keith had his best game for the club that night,” Watson adds.

Shortly after completing his hat-trick, Asprilla nearly had four. Same combination, but this time Hesp made a smart save. But for that, the finish would have been far less tense.

***

The Asprilla-Gillespie double act has endured time’s battering, with the pair last crossing paths in February. “It was a surprise 50th birthday party for me in Northern Ireland,” Gillespie says. “When I walked into the room, the first person I saw was Tino. He’d flown in from Columbia for it. I was in absolute shock that he’d taken that time out.”

“All the women there were around 80 years old,” Asprilla says. “The family he invited were older than him!”

“We had a very good relationship,” Gillespie continues. “He was just absolutely mad. Great fun, great to have about the dressing room. The boys just loved him, and he was idolised by the fans. He spoke more English than he let on…when it suited!”

Asprilla first landed in England during a snowy February. Initially, he planned to buy a yacht, but he soon realised that was not particularly savvy. Instead, he discovered Metroland, then Europe’s largest indoor theme park, where he whittled away countless hours on the bumper cars. Gillespie, he says, helped him settle in.

“He was one of the youngest players on the team. I don't know why, but he always looked out for me. I think that's where a beautiful friendship was born. He also looked for me a lot on the pitch, because he knew that we understood each other very well.

“But off the pitch, I don't know why, he always came to my house without an invitation. In the club, in training, he was always by my side. Teaching me English. Words that he wanted me to learn. The ones that suited him!”

***

73’ Luis Enrique - Newcastle 3 Barcelona 1

There are few sure things in football, but that Barcelona will come at you at some point during 90 minutes is inevitable. They are an irrepressible force of football nature, a club that hangs its aura proudly around the neck. Luis Figo, Luis Enrique, Rivaldo, Anderson, Christophe Dugarry.

After an hour, United were spent. The energy expended had drained them, the intensity impossible to maintain. The time to dig in had finally arrived.

“With all the physical effort we gave for an hour, it's normal to be under pressure for the last 30 minutes,” Albert recalls. “It just felt like wave after wave. It came from anywhere, from everywhere. Their passing was pure class.”

From a corner, Miguel Nadal’s volley forced Given into tipping over. Eventually, Barcelona’s pressure told. Rivaldo was clattered by not one, but two, in black and white, but not before a deft touch had slipped Luis Figo in. His centre was met by Luis Enrique’s chest. Game on?

***

89’ Luis Figo - Newcastle 3 Barcelona 2

Barcelona were relentless, like a small child trying to grab something they cannot have. Given’s strong right hand denied Rivaldo from the edge of the area. Rivaldo hit the bar after Beresford had felled substitute Dragan Ciric.

“I've got absolutely no doubt that if I played against Rivaldo five times, he'd probably get the better of us four of them,” Watson tells newcastleunited.com. After the latest Champions League draw, the now Darlington manager “was joking with my staff – I said, ‘you know what, I probably had one of the games of my life against Rivaldo, but it never gets mentioned because there's so many other things that went on that night!’”

The early evening joy had long-since been replaced by tension. “It’s never easy with Newcastle United,” Loinn says grinning. “You think you're coasting, and yet it ends up being squeaky bum time. You've always got to go through that period of purgatory before you can relax and enjoy the moment.”

Batty cleared off the line after Rivaldo met a corner. The whistles rang around the ground as Sergi took a late corner. Given came; Given juggled; Given lost it. Barton only half cleared, and Figo squeezed a strike into the corner.

“It's my fault as well. I should have kicked it out of the f***ing stadium,” Barton says in Given’s defence.

“For me we had the best goalkeeper in the world,” Watson says. “I know that's exaggerating a bit, but that's how highly I thought of Shay. He’s the best goalkeeper I ever played with – he certainly played his part as well.

“It was part of the joy of the experience when the full-time whistle went. Knowing that we scored three goals against one of the powerhouses of Europe, but we've also been put under the cosh and came out with the points.”

***

As Collina peeped his whistle for the final time, the crowd was served a blend of relief and euphoria. Loinn left “on cloud nine, I took myself over to Carlisle, slept for four hours, and drove back to Swansea. I was back at my desk at half nine the next morning!”

Ketchell forgot himself for a moment, thinking that Barcelona’s away goals were a blow. Then he remembered it was a group stage game.

For Burns, the emotional vibrations are still felt almost three decades on. Her dad was “a very vocal supporter” who was “screaming at the TV” throughout the match. The cadence of Burns’ voice drops before she continues. “We got to the end of the game, and he turned to me, looked me dead in the eye, and said, ‘if I never see another game of football again in my life, I'll die a happy man.’ I was like, ‘oh, bloody hell, Dad.’”

A fortnight later, United travelled to Dynamo Kiev. Les had worked that day and promised his daughter that he would sort himself out and then follow her up to Chester-le-Street’s Newfield Inn. “It was normal for him to do that because he’d get me to buy him a pint that he wouldn’t have to pay for!” But the pint remained untouched. “I got a call partway through the first half to say that he had had a fatal heart attack, and the paramedics couldn't do anything. He didn't get to see another European game.”

After his death, Burns and her mum Jen bought season tickets in the Leazes End. They let them go when her son came along, before she and her husband treated themselves to three new tickets shortly before the takeover. On the eve of the second leg of United’s Carabao Cup semi-final win over Arsenal, her mum passed away.

“She played for Fenham Wednesday in a women's team back in the 60s, and she was coached by Frank Clark,” she says. “They used to play in kit borrowed from Newcastle United, and mum always used to say that she was the first women's centre forward for Newcastle.”

Both Les and Jen were present in spirit at Wembley in March.

***

Down on the pitch, Barton did not milk the post-match applause. Instead, having said his thank you to the fans, he headed down the tunnel. Matching his stride as he descended the steps was Enrique “and he's shaking his head. Because they felt like another five, ten minutes, they might have got back into it.

“We just looked at each other and said, ‘do you want to swap shirts?’ We never really said too much in the game. My Spanish is not great, and his English wasn’t what it is now.

“But we shrugged to ourselves and said, ‘what a game.’ We were involved in something special, a special night. That is a moment that I'm never going to forget. It was pretty cool.”

No notion of a half-time shirt swap back then, Warren? Barton laughs. “No, because I would have got a right hand off of someone! Thommo [Ray Thompson] the kit man would have killed us. We only had one shirt then, and we had to pay for it out of our wages [if we gave it away].”

Watson’s one regret is that he didn’t follow Barton’s lead. “I was just never a real enthusiastic shirt-swapper,” he says. “I won't embarrass them, but there are some players I played with who would have been making sure that, the minute the game finished, they were standing next to Rivaldo! It’s certainly a regret my son Danny reminds me of.” But you have the stories Steve, right? “Yeah, well, he’ll argue that you can’t put those stories on the wall!”

In the stadium’s bowels, United’s dressing room was not subdued, but sapped. The efforts had taken their toll. A few drinks in the Players’ Lounge and then it was back to the Gosforth Park Hotel. Just 72 hours later United had to go to West Ham.

“That was the problem with Kenny because we didn't manage to have a drink after the game,” Albert says through laughter. “After the European games, Kenny had the idea to go straight to the hotel to prepare for the next match.

“We trained the next morning and then we went home. There was no chance to have a party after such a very good result. That's a shame, but that was Kenny's way of working and we had to respect it.” Did the approach differ under Keegan? “Under Kevin it was a bit different, yes!”

Asprilla, by the way, says even he didn’t party.

***

United’s campaign thereafter did not go to plan. A draw in Kyiv was followed by back-to-back defeats against PSV Eindhoven. Injuries did not help. “I played centre-forward that night because we had no fit strikers,” Gillespie says. “Jaap Stam was marking me… I didn't get much change out of him!”

Defeat at the Nou Camp meant victory over group winners Kyiv in December was immaterial. United did, though, finish above Barcelona and that September evening will be forever theirs.

“That night was just something I'll never, ever forget. I'm proud to actually be a part of that,” Gillespie concludes. It was also, in hindsight, the end of the Entertainers. Until now, that is.

“It’s always emotional to come to Newcastle,” says Asprilla to finish. “On this particular night, it’s extra emotional to feel the love of the people again, to feel like part of the team. I’m very grateful to the whole city.”

Whereas camera phones appeared only in futuristic sci-fi shows during his playing days, chances are Asprilla will pose for thousands of selfies before United face Barcelona tonight. “As long as it’s 40,000 women and 10,000 men, that’s okay,” he says before disappearing. Some things never change.