'The Ginger Merlot': The Newcastle 'scapegoat' who aged like a fine wine at Nottingham Forest | OneFootball

There is a snap of Colback, a second in time immortalised in picture form, taken after a Tyne-Wear derby victory. Colback, a Newcastle fan, had scored at St. James' Park to secure three points. It was his last derby in Sunderland's red and white and his hands are indicating the 0-3 scoreline.

"My cousin Andrew is a die-hard Newcastle fan," Colback begins. "We used to have banter quite a lot, obviously, me being at Sunderland. He was always supportive, but not in those games.

"I just took it to send to him privately and then I think Jozy Altidore put it on his social media, just as a bit of banter. You know what it's like now with social media - it spreads and looks like I'm really taking the p*ss."

128 days later, Colback signed for Newcastle.

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Colback grew up in Killingworth, a Nick Pope overarm throw from Newcastle city centre. His family were black and white, albeit his dad was not a fanatic. He attended the odd game but largely followed the Kevin Keegan and Sir Bobby Robson days remotely.

"I remember having the Man U 5-0 on VHS, though. I used to watch it over and over again. That Philippe Albert chip... just the feel to it." There is a pause as Colback replays the strike in his mind's eye.

He was, though, a football fanatic, soaking in any footage he could possibly lay eyes on. There was never one particular hero, although Zinedine Zidane gets a namecheck. Before he can catch himself Colback laughs and, unprompted, adds: "But if I was trying to emulate him, I fell quite a bit short, didn't I?!".

Colback's formative football was played on pavements, a bunch of youths doubtless terrorising the neighbours and smashing the odd window. He often played with his older brother and pals. "I think he maybe takes credit a little bit for that," Colback admits when asked if those games toughened him up. The words hang heavy with reluctance. Brotherly love, eh?

Then there were the hours spent solo. Ball. Wall. Ball. Wall. Repeat. "I think that sort of thing is missing with younger players now, really," Colback says. "My boy is always asking me to play. I tell him, 'sometimes I can't. Sometimes you'll just have to go out by yourself.'"

The North East's scouting fraternity were onto Colback's talent from when he was young, and he spent time at Middlesbrough, Newcastle and Sunderland. He wanted to join the Teessiders, but the logistics didn't work. Initial advances from Tyneside and Wearside were spurned. "I just didn't feel ready to sign, really," Colback explains. "I just wanted to play for Crammy (Cramlington Juniors). Dad was really good because he was never forceful. He never put any pressure on me to sign up. Had he been an avid Newcastle or Sunderland fan, he might have been a bit pushier. But he just said, 'you do what you think is right'."

Eventually, Colback joined the Academy of Light aged 11. "I was too young to understand all that as well, really," he says of the rivalry. "I'd never been to a derby game and felt that intensity and rivalry, really. I based it on where I felt more comfortable."

Colback's maiden derby experience came in the blue of Ipswich, where he spent the 2009/10 season on loan as a teenager. "At the time, I probably thought, 'wow, this is crazy, the fans are going nuts,'" he says of a clash with Norwich. "In hindsight, it was probably quite tame!'"

But on 16th January 2011, he stepped onto the pitch during a North East derby. "We were losing 1-0 and I came on for the last five minutes," he recalls. "I would have been sh*tting me jocks coming on in a game like that. But Asamoah Gyan equalised at the end. I didn't influence it at all, but I got to feel that euphoria, that reaction and that celebration for the first time.

"The build-up would be from Monday morning when you arrived for training. There would be a buzz around the place. The volatility, the nervousness, the excitement, the jeopardy - it was all on winning or losing the game.

"It took me back to being a child and playing against your rival school. There was always something extra on those games. I got to experience both sides of it. It gives me goosebumps now thinking about turning up with St James' on the Sunderland bus. You'd have thousands of Newcastle fans in the tunnel shouting 'scum'. There'd be fans jumping up and cans bouncing of the bus window. Just an amazing experience."

By his early 20s, Colback was a Premier League regular. Across 2011/12 and 2012/13 he featured in 70 of Sunderland's 76 matches, starting 59 of them. Then he entered the final year of his deal.

He made it known that he wanted to stay but was also clear that he needed recognition for his efforts. That didn't mean being the highest paid player, but it did mean a structural change to his contact. Whereas his initial agreement reflected his apprentice status (i.e. it was incentive heavy), he now wanted, and deserved, something more fitting of his status as a first team regular. It didn't come.

"I felt I was contributing well, and being influential," he explains. "I don't feel like I was ever asking for terms that were out of what was deserved, in my opinion. I wanted to feel appreciated by the club but the offer I got was treating me more as an apprentice.

"So, I said, 'okay, I'll just sit where I am at the minute.' I stayed professional and I kept playing games. There was a time I dropped out the side, which I believe was more to do with the contract situation than the way I was playing. But I still just kept my head down.

"It just got to the point where it was like, 'right, I'll assess my options at the end of my deal.' I got some very good offers, Newcastle being one of them. My hand was almost forced, really. But what came out from (Sunderland) was that I led the club on, and that I'd told them I would sign a contract all along, blah, blah, blah. But that is not exactly how it went."

As the 2014 summer approached, Colback finally received an offer from Sunderland that matched his expectations. He decided to mull over his options in the sunshine. Switching to Newcastle was not a 'no-brainer' because Colback "understood the move, the rivalry, and what that could bring.

"It ended up between Newcastle and West Ham. West Ham were actually offering me a better deal. But I thought Newcastle is the one that would be special to me. It's the city I grew up in, a huge club in terms of the fan base and the history. I realised I would never have wondered what West Ham might have been like, whereas if I didn't go to Newcastle, I would have always thought, 'what if?'

"It was a really hard decision. I essentially picked the hard one. I could have gone to West Ham, lived in London, gone unnoticed. But I decided to pick the one that had the most risk. I was glad I did it."

Sunderland were less glad, going so far as issuing a statement expressing their disappointment. "Obviously, I understand the frustration from Sunderland, bringing me through as a boy and then losing me to their arch-rivals. But I feel like their statement was more of a PR face-saving operation, really. I think if I hadn't gone to Newcastle, I don't think they would have come out with the same sort of thing."

Fortunately, Colback's online presence is minimal and so he was spared the echo chamber of abuse, while living in Newcastle meant face-to-face barbs were rare. But he still felt a burden.

"I felt I had to play well otherwise I was going to get slaughtered by the Newcastle fans. That was what I was most bothered about. It wasn't so much the anger from the Sunderland fans, it was more the pressure I was putting myself under playing for Newcastle.

"You get scapegoats in the game quite quickly and I knew that as soon as I wasn't doing well, I could potentially become that scapegoat. But that's what the game's all about. Since I've not played, I've realised that pressure, that stress, that is all something you end up missing."

During the first international break after joining Newcastle, Colback earned an England call-up. Roy Hodgson wanted him for a pair of Euro 2016 qualifiers against Switzerland and Norway, but a dead leg forced him to miss the initial chunk of training and ultimately withdraw.

"Fabian Delph and I got called up for the first time together. I think he played a little bit and ended up getting called up again and then moved to Man City. You could look at it and think, 'what if?' but I was still honoured to be called up.

"It was a good confidence boost for me to realise that I was at the level I should be at in terms of playing in the Premier League for Newcastle. I did think, to be honest, if I'd played well enough for Newcastle for the first few games of the season to be called up, I'd probably played well enough for Sunderland at the time. I know there's a lot of debate about that club bias and stuff... I do feel like being at Newcastle probably helped me get the call up."

Colback does not sound like a man submerged in a self-pity pool. Instead, he is a realist. "I think my call-up came on the back of quite a few injuries," he says. "I imagine for the next squad a few of them might have been back and you're talking some top, top players."

Did his versatility count against him? "Maybe, yeah. I think you do see that argument now when players get moved about a bit. They don't really get focused on their main position, but I wouldn't blame that. I'd say it's probably more on me. I didn't do enough to be called up and considered more at England level."

Newcastle started Colback's first season poorly, propping up the table with just four points from seven games. Having lost seven of their final eight league games in 2013/14, the calls for Pardew's removal grew louder, grumpier, angrier. United's form turned but by December 2014 Pardew had resigned to join Crystal Palace.

From the turn of 2015 until May, United won just three of 19 league games under John Carver. Amongst a dozen losses was one at the Stadium of Light. "I don't know," Colback admits when asked what changed. "It can be a mixture of a lot of things. JC was probably trying different things to Pardew. Maybe he tried things that didn't work. Was the respect level there for him that it should have been from certain players? I don't know. This is me assuming and not saying that that was the case.

"It's natural, isn't it? It's almost like when your teacher wasn't at school, and you got a supply. It was like, 'okay, we're going to down tools today.' Maybe a bit of that sort of feeling, I don't know.

"It was strange, really, because there was a lot of negativity around Pardew, but we were actually doing quite well. If anything, it should have brought a more positive, more relaxed feel to the team because of the pressure that was on Pardew. But it did the opposite. We ended up in free-fall after that."

What Colback did notice, though, was a divided dressing room. Despite the departures of Yohan Cabaye and Hatem Ben Arfa, there were still up to ten French speakers and, rather than unite, cliques developed.

"I felt that straight away, to be honest. I'd talk to close friends about it. I could see why we used to win every derby game at Sunderland. It wasn't about talent or ability.

"I remember the first week or two of training at Newcastle, I felt a bit behind the level. The standard was a step up from where I'd come from in terms of the pace and the speed of thought in sessions. It took me a bit of time to get up to speed.

"But what we lacked was character, fight, determination. That's why the biggest glaring thought when I first went was, 'I can see exactly why we used to beat them.' I think when the going got tough, there were too many who went missing."

Survival in 2014/15 came down to the season's final day. West Ham at home. Win or bust. "Leading up to that game was most nervous I've ever been," Colback says. "There was so much riding on it."

Then Jonás Gutiérrez, having battled testicular cancer, had his day in the sun's warm glow. "It was a fairytale really. It was nice for him to maybe show (the club) what he maybe wasn't getting back in terms of respect. I don't know. It was an unbelievable moment. Unfortunately for my time in Newcastle, there weren't many more after that."

The following season began under Steve McClaren. It went poorly. It ended under Rafa Benítez. That went a little better, but the 13 points collected in his ten games left United two (realistically three, given the goal difference situation) shy of the team in 17th. Yep, Sunderland.

Relegation and a season in the Championship beckoned. Colback was amongst those who stayed, fought for and ultimately won, promotion at a canter. He admits feeling "ashamed" of the relegation and "felt a debt to the fans.

"In the majority of game, we were the 'big dogs' you could say in the division. It was a very different experience to what I'd been used to in terms of struggling in the Premier League, where you might go weeks without a win. That season felt like victory after victory."

Until hamstrung in January, the goals flowed freely for Dwight Gayle - "all he wanted to do was score. He didn't really get involved in the build-up too much, but he'd be off the shoulder, in the right areas" - fed, more often than not, by Colback's close pal Jonjo Shelvey.

"He was a pleasure to play with," Colback explains. "We complemented each other quite well. He would do the Hollywood stuff and I'd be there to support him. He used to joke that I was his legs! It was probably true that I did his running for him."

Colback started United's final Championship game against Barnsley, his 29th league appearance of the 2016/17 season. But late that summer things turned sour. Colback was not amongst those initially told their services were not required for the upcoming Premier League campaign and so worked diligently in pre-season. Shortly before the games began, though, he was unexpectedly called in to see Benitez. "It came really out of the blue," Colback begins.

"About a week before the season he pulled me into his office and said, 'you're not going to be involved'. He told me that if I didn't leave, I'd be with the reserves.

"I made the point to him that he hadn't given me much time to find a club, but I said, 'that’s fine, I respect the decision.' There's been a lot better players than me told they're not involved."

Colback tried, with his agent, to hastily arrange a move but the right opportunity did not arrive. He therefore stayed and was not included in the squad photo, nor was he allowed to do "the hospital visits with the kids, which I actually quite enjoyed doing, because you see a different side of life and something that can really make you appreciate things."

Colback issue is the way footballing decisions are handled. He cites various examples of current players in the "bomb squad" which has, he says, "been a thing for years, but I think now we are seeing more players being made to train in small groups and not to be allowed to use the same facilities as the first team.

"I think that's when it's not right. Unless there's been some sort of discipline issue where they've done something where they're a real negative to the first team and to the group, then I think you should still be treated like a human and given that decency and respect, because at some point you were good for the club.

"People normally come back and say, 'well, you're on X amount a week, you just get on with it.' But I don't think as many would accept just being treated in a different way to anyone else on a human level, really."

Colback's escape route came at Nottingham Forest. A pair of initial loan spells were followed by a permanent transfer in August 2020. For the first three years of his time there, Forest bumbled along, never really hinting at promotion. Then Steve Cooper arrived and the ended up winning the 2023 play-off final.

"They're the moments in football that really matter," he says of that day. "They're what you dream of as a kid. In terms of my career, that was the season I look back on with the fondest memories and to then get promoted stay up as well was brilliant."

After Forest, Colback spent two years at QPR. At 34, he is not yet retired but has started UEFA B licence coaching course. If he were to finish now, Colback would have 190 Premier League appearances, 241 in the Championship and the nickname the 'Ginger Pirlo'.

"It came when I was called up for England," he recalls. "I think a journalist had nicknamed me it and Roy went along with it. It then got reported as if Roy was calling me that, which wasn't entirely true! If I had half the talent of Pirlo, then I would have had an even better career than I did. It was tongue-in-cheek and lads used to banter it. I'd say I'd be more suited to being called the Ginger Merlot for my love of red wine!"