Proud to be a geordie

I first saw Newcastle United play in 1966. I was 10 years old and it was a Christmas Eve match against Don Revie's Leeds. I was in the paddock at St James Park, popped up on the wall at the front with all the other kids. My dad was standing a few rows back with his mates. The crowd was probably close to 50,000. It was a savage match. The players who left an impression on me were Jack Charlton of Leeds and John Macnamee of Newcastle, both centre-halves, and both apparently bent on kicking opposition players further than they could kick the ball. A muddy, bloody match was won 2-1 by Leeds.

Up to that point I'd only seen live football at Hillheads Park, watching Whitley Bay in the Northern League. They were a decent amateur side, and well supported, but after that first match at St James, I knew where I had to go to get the ultimate football-watching experience. Which was ironic really, because although the crowd and the atmosphere at Newcastle were amazing, the football was often disappointing. It was best summed up by the fact that Newcastle's no. 9, Wyn Davies, went 15 months without scoring and he wasn't dropped.

I refused to be a Newcastle supporter, even though I went to as many matches as I could get to, graduating to standing at the back of the Gallowgate end. I was there in a crowd of about 60,000 when they beat the all star Man Utd of Charlton, Best, Law et al 5-1, and I still stubbornly refused to see myself as anything other than an interested neutral. It was some kind of teenage rebellion. I decided in 1967 that I was a Man City supporter, and followed them from afar, despite continuing to serve my time on the Gallowgate. When we got to the cup final in 1974 I cheered (oh, the shame) as we were demolished by Liverpool. I'd painted myself into a corner. I knew I was hooked, that I loved watching Supermac, but my obstinacy meant that I had to maintain, even underline, my detachment.

I gave up all that nonsense when I moved away from home to teacher training college in York. When I couldn't get to see them regularly, I realised how much I missed them. The football they played was still frustratingly inconsistent, a mash-up of the marvelous and the mediocre, but they were what I'd always, somewhere deep down, known them to be. My team. My club. NUFC.

And last Sunday I went with my son, his cousins and my brother-in-law to Loftus Road to see them beat QPR 1-0. They were true to form, playing sloppily for a good deal of the match and yet scoring a fine, well-crafted goal. The fans, as seen in the picture above, were as brilliant as ever. They (we) love football and all that it means. I feel proud when I look at the sea of black and white filling the away end. We're not unique in this, but we're a club who bring football to life, despite our comparative lack of achievement.

So now we're back in the premiership, and I'm already feeling that nervous mix of hope and trepidation. This season we've got used to winning, we've got a team with more English players than I can remember for many a year, including some home-grown, and we've scored a lot of goals and conceded relatively few. It can't carry on like this, not with our history. Or can it?