Fifty-six years of pain: I have had enough of waiting for Newcastle to win a trophy
Wallace Wilson lets out a sigh when he remembers he was just 15 years old when Newcastle United last won a major trophy with the unexpected Fairs’ Cup success of 1969.
It is the realisation he is getting old – he will be 71 later this year – and has spent a lifetime since watching the Magpies fail to win another.
This weekend, Newcastle will play their sixth final since they last won one, against Liverpool in the Carabao Cup. Wilson has had enough anti-climaxes.
“I get tired and annoyed listening to people talk about it,” said Wilson, with the typical dark humour Newcastle fans wrap around them like a comfort blanket. “I’ve had enough of it. The longer it goes, the harder it gets to break, but we’ve been saying that since the 1990s…
“If they win I’ll allow myself a few drinks somewhere. I’ll be out to celebrate, there will be some tears shed. It will be incredibly emotional because I’ve been waiting for this my whole life.
“At some point we’ve got to win a final… I just hope I’m here to see it. I hope it is this one.”
Wilson’s story is one shared by countless Newcastle fans and it is his generation who have, arguably, endured the most because the team he supported as a boy were one of the most successful clubs in the country.
When Newcastle last played Liverpool in the FA Cup final back in 1974, Wilson points out they met as equals. They had won the exact same number of major trophies and, if anything, Newcastle were the better-supported club.
That final, won by Liverpool, with Kevin Keegan and John Toshack up front, proved to be a sliding doors moment. Liverpool went on to become the dominant force in English football for 20 years, Newcastle went into a gradual and then steep decline.
Regardless, Wilson loved it and the city it represents. He had no idea the celebrations at St James’ Park that welcomed the team home from Budapest in 1969 would be the end of the golden years.
“The last one had been the FA Cup in 55,” Wilson explained, the pride in his voice clear. “The club had been relegated and promoted again in that time, but we came up in 1965 and within four years we had won a European trophy.
“If anything, that 1969 win, it almost felt routine. It felt like we were where we should be. We believed Newcastle were a club that belonged at the top of English football.
“I don’t think there was any question about that at the time. Our gates were always huge. There was probably only Manchester United who were regularly getting more than us.”
The memories start to flow, Wilson, a retired Deputy Director at the Home Office, has an encyclopaedic knowledge of Newcastle’s history.
“The first season back, we struggled, escaping relegation by the skin of our teeth,” he continued. “But we improved quickly. Joe Harvey brought some players in, the likes of John McNamee, they sorted the defence out. Then the likes of Bryan Robson and Wyn Davies came through.
“We played a very British style of football, big centre-forward in Davies and a little nippy forward playing off him in Robson. Davies was amazing in the air, sometimes it felt like he could fly. And, Robson, what a player he was.
“When Newcastle played in Europe, the continental teams couldn’t cope with them, especially Davies. They hadn’t seen anything like it.”
Newcastle may not have won the league title since 1927, but the football landscape was different in Wilson’s formative years.
“The FA Cup wins of the 1950s, they didn’t seem long ago,” continued Wilson. “The young ones, like me, had grown up on those stories.
“My dad had been going to the match since the 1940s, he saw the likes of Jackie Milburn and Bobby Mitchell, he saw them win the FA Cup three times.
“You also have to remember the FA Cup then, it was by far the biggest trophy, it was far more prestigious than the league. The players would save themselves for the cup games.”
‘Being a cup team is woven into the Newcastle fabric’
There were, perhaps, bleaker times than the 14 years Mike Ashley owned Newcastle United, but for Wilson, nobody misunderstood the club more than the sport-shop billionaire.
“Being a cup team is woven into the fabric of Newcastle United,” Wilson explained. “Which is why the Ashley years were such torture.
“For a team that was, at best, scrambling around the mid-lower table of the Premier League, the only possibility of glory was in the cup. But Ashley decided that didn’t matter; he wanted to get out of them as quickly as possible. It ripped the soul out of Newcastle.”
Hearing Wilson talk at this point, the sadness in his voice is palpable. “It got so bad, I stopped going,” he said. “I’d had a season ticket since 1974 and gave it up in 2007. I decided he was taking the p---, frankly, and walked away.
“To have the club taken away from me… Newcastle United is part of my identity, it is who I am. I’m nearly 71 years old and I still think about them far too much on a daily basis, it probably isn’t healthy.”
So what does Wilson remember about 69. The memories after 56 years could be a little hazy. Instead they are crystal clear. “Nobody expected us to do anything, the supporters didn’t expect much…”
Wilson then reels off details of every game, from the 4-0 thrashing of Feyenoord at home, the same Dutch side who “were European champions the following season.”
Then details of the “Robson goal, from a Davies flick on” that knocked out Sporting Lisbon. Beating the Spanish club Real Zaragoza and the Portuguese side Vitória Setubal 5-1 “in a heavy blizzard” on Tyneside because “their players had never seen weather like it.”
What followed would be dubbed the “Rangers riot” after fans of the Scottish club invaded the pitch after Newcastle took a 2-0 lead in the second leg at St James’ Park. “Geordies being Geordies, didn’t take kindly to that,” Wilson added.
The final, played over two legs, against Hungarian side Ujpest FC, was tense. “They’d beaten Leeds United in the semi-final who were a very, very good side, the Leeds team that won the league.
“They were really dangerous, 0-0 at half-time, but Jimmy Scott scored the first from a Davies knockdown and Moncur scored a couple.
“Three-nil going into the second leg in Budapest. The sad thing is there weren’t many Newcastle supporters in Hungary.
“I remember there were highlights on the telly that evening and we all listened to BBC Newcastle on the radio. Ujpest were 2-0 up at half-time and people were thinking ‘we’re going to get bloody beat here’. Harvey’s half-time team talk was legendary. He said ‘get one goal here and they will fold’. And they did, we won 3-2 in the end.
“The team got back and the city stopped everything to welcome them, there wasn’t a parade, we went to St James’ Park, there were tens of thousands there.”
Should Newcastle return with the Carabao Cup next week, the celebrations would be extreme even by this party city’s standards.
And although they are underdogs, Wilson still believes the man who has guided them to a second final in three years can pull off something remarkable.
“Eddie Howe has turned Newcastle back into a cup team,” he explained. “For 15 years we didn’t try a hapeth in the cup under Ashley, but Howe has made it a priority again. Keegan didn’t get to two cup finals, [Bobby] Robson didn’t get to two cup finals.
“For me, Eddie Howe is the best manager this club has had in all my time watching them. If anyone deserves to win this first trophy it is him, absolutely.”
And if anyone deserves to see it, it is Wilson.
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