Time for a stroll down memory lane – There’s a few potholes | OneFootball

Newcastle United in a cup final. Blimey.

Time for a stroll down memory lane. There’s a few potholes.

I was born five and a bit years after Newcastle lost the 1974 FA Cup Final to Liverpool, three and a bit years after the 1976 League Cup defeat at the hands of Man City.

Newcastle then didn’t reach any ‘proper’ cup finals until I was 18, vs recently crowned Premier League Champions Arsenal in 1998.

My older cousins Andy and Mick [and their mates] had always been the ones to take me to the match [me Da played Saturday afternoons so had got out of the habit of going himself] and a load of us got tickets together for Wembley.

One of our mates, Stevie, lived in Watford at the time, and a load of us descended on his place for the weekend. Arrived late on Friday, with the plan being to travel back up on Sunday.

Stevie’s mates were all sound. Watford-based Watford, Spurs, Chelsea and QPR fans, and including a few lasses that played football for teams in the burgeoning late-90s women’s leagues. We had a smashing time in his local on the Friday night, spoiled only by the local Man Utd fan getting a bit lairy, obviously upset at the mini-invasion. Silly billy.

We headed into London the next day, on the way almost causing trouble when asking a local Watfordianite ‘When’s the next bus due?’, which he misheard as someone calling him ‘A posh jew’. Language/accent barrier crossed, we had a good laugh when he finally understood us.

Making it into London without any further mishaps, we headed towards the old stadium to soak up a bit of atmosphere. We spotted Kirsty Gallagher interviewing fans for Sky Sports, I don’t think they broadcast the bit where I told her I loved her. Oh well.

Let’s skip over the match and on to a more pleasant memory [I hope this is a memory. It’s definitely how I remember things, but that counts for little these days. Hopefully commenters will be able to confirm/deny this].

We’d started singing and chanting a few minutes after the final whistle, showing that our support wasn’t wavering even after such a non-performance. Chanting as if it was a minute before kick-off, not a minute after a Cup Final defeat. Lovely stuff.

It was Ian Wright’s last match before leaving Arsenal and he was on the bench after an injury-hit second half of the season. Wenger didn’t bring him on, despite Arsenal cruising to victory. He trudged off, obviously disappointed, towards the tunnel. As he approached our end, we switched from our Toon-based chant to singing ‘Ian Wright Wright Wright’. He applauded us as he got nearer, then hoyed his t-shirt into the Newcastle end. A lovely moment with a player we’d always had a grudging respect for, despite his full-blooded performances over the years that took him close to being a dangerous forward in more ways than one [It’s my theory that this moment is the reason he is always fair to Newcastle United as a pundit. We earned it].

We had tickets for a post-match session at a local cricket club, that involved a weird impromptu karaoke session with no karaoke machine and a broken microphone. Highlights include a rendition of an 80s classic by a Philippe Albert lookalike, and my cousin Mick and our pal Darby duetting on Harry Belafonte’s Banana Boat Song [‘Darby, man The microphone doesn’t work’]. Um, I guess you had to be there.

I’ll end by mentioning The Mag’s FA Cup Final issue 112, the 1998 Summer Special [I’ve still got it somewhere].

The front and back cover was a brilliant shot of the Newcastle end, and on the back cover me Uncle John, Stevie, me cousins Andy and Mick and our pal Darby are clearly visible….as is the top of my head.

Issue 112 – June 1998

They’d obviously taken the shot during ‘Abide With Me’, to which I didn’t know the words, and they’ve got me just as I looked down to read the next line from the match programme. Cheers, The Mag.

Here’s hoping that everyone who travels to Wembley in March ends up with lots of fond memories that actually include the match itself, rather than just the before-and-after.