Robert Exley
Few teams in England called ‘United’ have a literal meaning to their title, however one of the few that do are Newcastle United. In the early 1880s Newcastle had two sides - Newcastle East End who formed in 1881 after a local Cricket side called Stanley Cricket Club decided to form a Football Club to keep them amused during the winter and another local Cricket club called Newcastle West End who did likewise, who played their home games at St James’s Park. West End were originally the premier side in Newcastle under the managerial reign of Tom Watson – who later enjoyed title-winning success with Sunderland and Liverpool – until Watson was lured across town to Newcastle East End, building a side made up of Scottish talent lured south of the border.
West End hit trouble as a result and in the spring of 1892 approached East End with a view to a take-over, though were officially wound up that year with most of their best players and backroom staff joining Newcastle East End, who took over the lease at St James’s Park that year and became Newcastle United. The club joined the Football League the following year, winning their first title in 1904/05. From that year, this is footage of a Newcastle fixture with Liverpool. The Magpies also reached the FA Cup that season, but were prevented from achieving the first double of the twentieth century after losing to the last team to carry out that feat – Aston Villa – at Crystal Palace, 2-0 (the Villa side that day actually contained the Great-Great Grandfather of Jack Grealish from the current day Villa side!).
Two further titles followed for Newcastle in 1906/07 and 1908/09, as well as an FA Cup win in 1910 against Barnsley. The last league title winning Newcastle side came in 1927, the star of which had been Hughie Gallacher who was Alex James’s fellow ‘Wembley Wizard’ from the Scotland side which trounced England 5-1 in 1928 (Gallacher’s strike rate for Newcastle had been 133 goals in just 160 appearances, however he took his own life by jumping in front of a train in 1957). Also, the Newcastle side of the 1920s would have a pivotal role in Arsenal’s history, after defeating the Gunners 7-0 at home in early October 1925.
As explained in one of my previous articles, Arsenal’s star man Charles Buchan had threatened Herbert Chapman with retirement after the St. James’s Park debacle. After discussion between the two, they both agreed that Arsenal would experiment with Buchan’s suggested ‘W-M’ formation which transformed Arsenal’s fortunes and even led to the club’s first title challenge – though finishing second to Huddersfield Town, who had completed their hat-trick of titles that season. Huddersfield’s run of titles however would be brought to a close by Newcastle’s title win the following season.
For Newcastle United in the inter-war period there would be one further FA Cup triumph in 1932, which became known as the ‘over the line’ final against Arsenal in 1932 on account of the Magpies’ controversial equaliser. However by the end of the 1933/34 season Newcastle were relegated to the second tier, despite beating Liverpool 9-2 and Everton 7-3 within a week of playing either side. The Magpies were to remain there until after the Second World War, however in 1936 were drawn at home in the fifth round of the FA Cup to an Arsenal side that would eventually go on to lift the Cup that April. A huge crowd of 65,000 success starved Tynesiders turned out for the tie, which ended in a 3-3 draw. Arsenal however would win the replay 3-0 back at Highbury the following Wednesday.
The Magpies’ stayed in the second tier until rising back up with a new batch of stars such as ‘Wor Jackie’ Milburn (the second Cousin of Jack and Bobby Charlton), Joe Harvey and George Robledo in 1947/48. In the early fifties, the Geordies would go on to win the FA Cup three times in five years. In 1951, two Jackie Milburn goals against the Blackpool side of Mortensen and Matthews sealed the Cup for the Tynesiders. The following year, Newcastle became the first team in the twentieth century to retain the trophy with a 1-0 win over an Arsenal side who for the most part had played with ten men due to an injury to Walley Barnes (as with 1932, Newcastle had thwarted an Arsenal double attempt, as is covered by a previous article I had wrote in 2013). Newcastle’s winning goal was scored by Chilean-born George Robledo, pre-dating his compatriot Alexis Sanchez by 63 years as the first player from that South American nation to score in the FA Cup Final.
A further FA Cup triumph for Newcastle came in 1955 with a 3-1 win over Bert Trautman and Manchester City, (the latter however would triumph the following year by the same score line against Birmingham City with the aforementioned German goalkeeper heroically playing on with a broken neck). One year on from their FA Cup triumph, Newcastle United signed a young twenty year old from Northern Irish club Ards called George Eastham. By 1959 however, Eastham had wanted out of St. James’s Park due to grievances about the uninhabitable club house that was provided for by his family, Newcastle preventing him travelling with the England Under-23 squad and the second job which the club provided him with, due to the maximum wage which was in place.
Eastham however was unable to leave Newcastle due to the ‘retain and transfer’ system, which effectively bound a player to a club, until that club said otherwise. Ironically, his manager at Newcastle had been Charlie Mitten who had been tagged with the nickname of the ‘Bogota Bandit’ after defying Matt Busby at Old Trafford in 1950 in deserting Manchester United to join Independiente Santa Fe in a Columbian League not affiliated to FIFA and hence not recognising the contractual obligations which English footballers were bound to observe. Sadly for Mitten, after just one year in Columbia, the South American nation had re-joined FIFA, meaning that he was forced to return to England and received a fine of six months’ wages and a ban on playing for the same duration.
Mitten declined from mounting a legal challenge against the ‘retain and transfer’ system, George Eastham however decided to go on strike, even seeking employment outside of Football, until Newcastle relented and allowed Eastham to sign for Arsenal in 1960. The PFA however financially backed Eastham to pursue the matter through the courts as a restraint of trade, in which Eastham had successfully challenged the ‘retain and transfer’ system which was consigned to history in 1963. While pursuing the matter through the courts, Eastham returned to St. James’s Park with Arsenal in February 1961, during which Eastham had scored a late equaliser in a 3-3 draw after being barracked by the St. James’s Park crowd throughout with taunts of ‘Judas’ and pelted with apples for having the audacity to take their club to court.
At the end of 1960/61, their first season without Eastham ended in relegation to the second tier, though the Magpies returned as Champions of the old Second Division in 1964/65 under former captain Joe Harvey and had won the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1969 against Ujpest Dozsa of Hungary in 1968/69 winning the first leg 3-0 at home and the second leg 3-2 away. Arsenal would win the Fairs Cup the following season, however on meeting the holders in the League at St. James’s Park in August 1969 would suffer a 1-3 defeat. In the late 1960s and early 1970s Newcastle developed a credible side which included stars such as Malcolm McDonald, Frank Clark, Terry Hibbitt and John Tudor who inflicted a 1-2 defeat on Arsenal in front of the cameras in September 1972.
Earlier on that calendar year however Newcastle would suffer a famous humiliating defeat at non-league Hereford in the fourth round of the FA Cup, as well as a comprehensive 3-0 defeat in the 1974 FA Cup Final against Liverpool. This Newcastle side had to make do with winning lesser trophies such as the Anglo-Italian Cup in 1973 and the Texaco Cup back to back in 1974 and 1975. A turning point for Newcastle came in 1976, when their star man Malcolm McDonald was transferred to Arsenal for a third of a million pounds (legend has it that so protracted were the negotiations with the Tynesiders that Arsenal chairman Denis Hill-Wood insisted on paying Newcastle a cheque for £333,333.34, as he didn’t want them haggling over a third of a penny!).
Within two seasons of losing Supermac, Newcastle were relegated to the second tier again and remained there for six years. In between, the shining hope for a Geordie Nation also incurring the wrath of Thatcherism was England Captain Kevin Keegan signing for Newcastle in 1982. Kev was still a huge star at the time, as seen here from his co-hosting of Top of the Pops with the now infamous DLT and interviewing of Sir Cliff Richard @03.21 (if you didn’t find the TOTP footage hideous enough, try this papier mache model of Kev on Blue Peter!)
Though he had to endure an embrace from a male streaker, Keegan marked his Newcastle debut against QPR with a goal. Kev remained on Tyneside for just two seasons, retiring at the end of the 1983/84 season and securing promotion in his final game at St. James’s Park with a goal against Brighton and treated to an extravagant farewell against his old side Liverpool. Keegan never featured against Arsenal for the Tynesiders by virtue of Newcastle being outside of the top flight during his time there. On Kev’s retirement, Newcastle’s looked for a new striker in some unusual places, however still had the talents of Chris Waddle, Peter Beardsley and in 1985 won the FA Youth Cup with a side which included a seventeen year old Paul Gascoigne.
Their first fixture against Arsenal at St. James’s Park on returning to the top flight occurred between Christmas and New Year of 1984 with a comprehensive 3-1 victory for North London’s finest with two goals from Charlie Nicholas and one from Brian Talbot. Newcastle’s only defeat of Arsenal over a twenty year period came the following season in March 1986 with a Glenn Roeder goal, which ended a run of seven league games without defeat and came at the start of a calendar month which ended with the resignation of Don Howe. The following season, the fixture between the two sides at St. James’s in October that same calendar year saw a 2-1 victory for Arsenal with goals from Viv Anderson and Steve Williams, which had been the third game of a seventeen match unbeaten run which embedded the reign of George Graham, and stretched until February the following year.
The following season, Arsenal’s visit to St. James’s Park occurred on Halloween of 1987. Arsenal were actually outplayed but a John Lukic penalty save and a late Alan Smith winner averted a horror show for North London’s finest. This footage also shows the very first ever Brazilian to play in the English top flight – Mirandinha – signing autographs for the Arsenal fans at the away end. In this article, Mirandinha explains that on arrival on Tyneside Gazza had made him welcome by teaching him all of the English swear words. After English coaching from Paul Gascoigne one wonders whether the result must have sounded something akin to this famous Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse sketch.
On the subject of Harry Enfield, around 1988 on the popular alternative comedy show ‘Friday Night Live’, the comedian had depicted the chasm of the North-South divide with the crass Spurs-supporting Loadsamoney representing southern aspiration and his Geordie alter-ego B*gger All Money representing Northern industrial decline. Over the four years in which Newcastle returned to the top flight they had lost Chris Waddle to Spurs, Peter Beardsley to Liverpool, with Paul Gascoigne the last remaining home-grown talent on Tyneside. This Football Focus feature showed how Gazza had started to attract the attention of the top sides and Gazza succumbed to temptation, moving to Spurs in the summer of 1988. However, as seen from this feature on Saint & Greavsie on his return to Tyneside, according to Geordie long-distance runner and founder of the Great North Run - Brendan Foster (@01.00), Gazza's transfer was harder for the Geordie Nation to take because Tottenham Hotspur’s standing in the Football world lacked credibility in the eyes of most of most of the Geordie fans).
Gazza's departure however, as with Supermac and George Eastham would see another decline in fortunate for the Tynesiders until, as will be seen tomorrow, Newcastle would experience an early to mid-1990s renaissance after the return of their prodigal son in 1992.
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