Newcastle United Cult Heroes

Dylan Younger

Description

Newcastle United Cult Heroes is devoted to those players who, over the years, have won a special place in the hearts of the St James' Park faithful - not necessarily the greatest footballers, but a unique brotherhood of mavericks and stalwarts, local lads and exotic imports. The cast list alone is enough to stir up the memories and tug at the heartstrings of any United fan - Gallacher, Milburn and Mitchell, Keegan, Gascoigne and Shearer - recalling how these charismatic personalities used to ignite passion on the terraces. Find out which black-and-white icon broke a curfew to go out boozing two nights before winning the FA Cup. Whose shot was so fearsome it broke a goalkeeper's arm, and who was the insecure yet brutal number 9 of whom a team-mate confessed: "He petrified me!" Discover and delight in the magical qualities of these 20 mere mortals elevated to cult status on Tyneside.

Sujets

• Tyne and Wear
• Northumberland

Informations

• Publié par: Pitch Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781909178281
• Langue: English

Extrait

This edition first published by Pitch Publishing 2012
Pitch Publishing A2 Yeoman Gate Yeoman Way Durrington BN13 3QZ www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
© Dylan Younger 2012
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ISBN 978-1-909178-28-1
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Contents
Acknowledgements Foreword Introduction
1. Colin Veitch
2. Bill McCracken
3. Albert Shepherd
4. Hughie Gallacher
5. Albert Stubbins
6. Len Shackleton
7. Jackie Milburn
8. Joe Harvey129
9. Frank Brennan
10. George Robledo
11. Bobby Mitchell
12. Len White
13. Wyn Davies
14. Malcolm Macdonald
15. Tony Green
16. Kevin Keegan
17. Peter Beardsley
18. Paul Gascoigne
19. Andy Cole
20. Alan Shearer
Acknowledgements
THANKS FIRST OF all to my family - my mother Lorna for encouraging me to write, my partner Karen and my children Cai and Tegan for rescuing me from the study as and when necessary (even if it didn’t seem so at the time!).
Many thanks to my publisher Simon Lowe for giving me the opportunity to write the book, and giving me so much freedom to write what I wanted to write.
I remain grateful to Malcolm Macdonald - one of the most glittering stars in Newcastle’s history - for his foreword.
Thanks one and all to:
- The boys - or is that old men? - on the Sunday Sun sports and in particular Neil Farrington - a first-class journalist and a good friend.
- The Newcastle Chronicle & Journal Library staff - Ann Dixon, Keith Clark and Christine Dixon.
- All the fanatical supporters herein, young and old, who gladly shared their memories with me.
- All the friends, especially Nigel Good, Colin Mitcheson, David Quinn and Steve Hargraves, who have helped me debate the points in this book a touch too long and a bit too hard.
Finally, thanks to all the sportswriters past and present who have provided such a massive bibliography on Newcastle United.
Five men in particular have provided a huge backdrop of knowledge and research on past Magpies stars - official club historian Paul Joannou and lifetime sports journalists Ken McKenzie, John Gibson, Alan Oliver and Paul Tully.
This is not a facts-and-figures book, but without the work done by these men, and many others over the decades, the task of drawing comparisons between heroes from different eras would be all the more daunting.
Foreword
by Malcolm Macdonald
Whenever I am approached by a member of the Geordie public, it is invariably for that individual to regale me with their memory of a goal I scored many years back whilst wearing the famous black and white stripes of NUFC.
It would be easy to go, "Yeah, Yeah" and walk on, but, that would be to miss the very important nub of what has just happened. That recollection being spoken of is that very important moment of sharing a past memory together.
Never having met before, but, strangers no longer. For that person is saying to me, "I was there, I was scoring it with you", and few were the televised games then, so, I know they really were there.
That shared recollection becoming that most human of necessities, connection. How easy the conversation then starts to flow. To other goals, matches, to team mates, some still with us, some not.
On departing each is left with a rejuvenation from a long-past moment of thrill, even ecstasy. Certainly... excitement.
A million good memories in the sands of time are honed into one all-powerful memory encapsulated by one particular goal selected from hundreds.
That person before me is telling me how he saw my five years on Tyneside all in one strike.
What a wonderful honour it is to be remembered so, you see, nobody has ever come to me and said, "Do you remember that miss?"
Geordies, although appreciative of any silverware that might come their way, don’t make it the be-all-and-end-all of their lives, unlike many football supporters, and, perhaps, that’s not such a bad thing considering.
Instead, they are much happier to make their focal point the players, those striving to win silverware. You see, they are a peoples’people.
Introduction
Welcome to the refuge. Here, you can forget, for a while, that the club you love has relentlessly broken your heart for more than three decades.
No domestic trophy wins for 57 years, no major silverware of any kind for 43 and no league title for 85 years.
But forget your increasingly bitter hope for a while – within these pages are reminders aplenty why Newcastle United is still one of the greatest of all football clubs . . .
Some of the most captivating characters the game has ever known – some of the most outrageously talented players the world has seen – have worn the black and white shirt.
Indeed, heroes in black and white are writ larger on Tyneside than perhaps anywhere else on the British football map.
The £16m purchase of Michael Owen in late summer 2005 continued a long-held tradition of providing an idol for the Gallowgate crowd, at a time when more sober souls reflected on various weaknesses elsewhere in the squad.
Individual idolatry – and a slavish devotion to attacking football – always seem higher on the black and white agenda than all-round team-building.
Was it not ever thus?
Not in the days when Newcastle United really did rule the football world, winning three league titles and an FA Cup in the first decade of the last century.
That side, built on a tight defence and playing a possession football that was the very epitome of teamwork, was full of heroes too – and three of those epic Edwardian figures stand proudly in this book as proof positive that Newcastle‘s footballing gods CAN also be winners.
But there are so many different types herein . . .
Six Geordies, four Scots, four Yorkshiremen, an Irishman, a Welshman, a Midlander, a Cockney, a Lancastrian and a South American . . .
Eleven strikers (naturally), four central midfielders, two inside-forwards, two defenders and a winger . .
We have drinkers, womanisers, gamblers, brawlers, playboys, hermits and tee-totallers . . . wise-cracking egotists and painfully shy recluses, handsome braggarts and awkward introverts, model professionals and hot-to-handle rogues, on-pitch gentlemen and battle-hardened warriors.
There is the tormented genius of Hughie Gallacher and Paul Gascoigne and the mature, willed determination of Alan Shearer.
Some, such as charismatic self-publicists Malcolm Macdonald and Kevin Keegan, took to heroic status as if it was their birthright, natural stars on and off the pitch.
Others – quiet men like Len White, Tony Green and Andy Cole – never quite came to terms with the peculiar ferocity of hero worship on Tyneside.
A few – Gallacher, Shackleton, Gascoigne – can lay claim to the title of genius while others (Harvey, Brennan) have been celebrated for their tenacity or, like Colin Veitch and in particular, Bill McCracken, their tactical mind.
Two men – Harvey and Keegan – have earned their place in the pantheon at least partly because of their impressive achievements as Newcastle manager.
There are, of course, many omissions, among them:
Jock Peddie, Bill Appleyard, Jimmy Lawrence, Peter McWilliam, Tom McDonald, Andy Aitken, Frank Hudspeth, Neil Harris, Stan Seymour, Jack Hill, Roy Bentley, Tommy Pearson, Charlie Wayman, Ernie Taylor, Jack Fairbrother, Ronnie Simpson, George Eastham, Ivor Allchurch, Bobby Moncur, Terry Hibbit, David Craig, Frank Clark, Jimmy Smith, Chris Waddle, Micky Quinn, Robert Lee, Les Ferdinand, David Ginola, Tino Asprilla, Nolberto Solano and Shay Given – super players and to many, heroic figures, one and all. And none of them in this book. Sorry lads.
There may be names above who have contributed more to Newcastle United than some of my chosen 20 – and many of those names were on an original lengthy list, scribbled in pencil, crossed out, rewritten, crossed out again . . .
My final pick includes a man who played 444 games across 19 years of service – and another who completed not one full season before injury wrecked his career.
Eleven of these men have won major silverware at United, leaving nine who won nought but adulation.
And that is the very heart of the matter, reminding me to stress what this book is not.
It is not a book about the greatest players in Newcastle’s history, nor even the most influential men – chapters on ‘secretary’ Frank Watt, who won four league titles and two FA Cups and Stan Seymour, who served the club with distinction as a player, manager, director and chairman – would certainly be included if it were.
No, this is a book about heroes – and a look at why certain icons, across the ages, have been able to quicken the pulse.
To draw up the final list, I have had to address the thorny issue of comparing dusty figures such as Veitch and McCracken – whose epic achievements were sketched in the vaguest detail in the days when Press sports coverage was but a tiny fraction of its 21st century equivalent – with modern day icons.
The Shearer riddle is at the heart of this dilemma. We remain, just a few months after his retirement, in the eye of the Shearer storm with magazine, newspaper and TV specials, books and commemorative DVDs reminding us of his impact.
Yet is he a bigger icon now than his predecessor Colin Veitch was then – a Geordie who captained England and won four major honours with his hometown club?
Shearer is – like Veitch, McCracken, and Bobby Mitchell – one of the long-stayers, yet the relative cameos of Shackleton, Green and Cole