Fifty years ago today, ...that’s a real source of pride & embarrassment to me O’Neill’s carrot is fab four
FRANK CLARK ON THE FAIRS CUP TRIUMPH OF 1969 AND HIS DISBELIEF THAT TOON HAVE WON NOTHING SINCE: IT’S A MONKEY ON CLUB’S BACK
FRANK CLARK was part of the last trophy celebration at St James’ Park but he won’t be toasting its 50th anniversary today.
Clark looks back on Newcastle’s shock win over crack Hungarian side Ujpest Dozsa in the 1969 Fairs Cup Final with immense satisfaction. But his overriding emotion these days is one of bemusement.
“I feel a lot of pride but also a fair bit of embarrassment,” said the Toon stalwart, who went on to win the European Cup with Brian Clough’s Nottingham Forest before managing at the City Ground and then taking charge of Manchester City.
“If someone had told me that night in Budapest that Newcastle wouldn’t win a thing for the next five decades, I’d have found it hard to fathom. I still keep in touch with a lot of those lads and, trust me, none of us wants to be known as the last team to win a major trophy.
“It’s been a monkey on the club’s back for far too long.”
Clark (left) grew up in the 1950s when the FA Cup almost became Newcastle’s private property.
He won the FA Amateur Cup with Crook Town in 1962 before joining Newcastle a few months later, going on to make almost 400 appearances for the club.
Back then, European glory seemed a distant dream.
“The club had been chasing me since I was 15 but my parents wanted me to do my A levels,” he said. “And anyway, Dad wouldn’t have let me go there at the time.
“Newcastle was a club in steep decline after those Cup wins with a poor reputation for the way it looked after its youngsters. When Joe Harvey came in as manager, they were in the old Second Division with a poor playing staff and a big debt. He had a hell of a job on his hands but managed to win promotion and turn the club around.”
Fast forward seven years and in their first-ever European campaign, Newcastle reached the Fairs Cup Final, beating the likes of Feyenoord and Rangers along the way.
They won the first leg at St James’ Park 3-0, with skipper Bob Moncur proving the
unlikely two-goal hero. But it was all going wrong in the return when the Hungarians raced into a two-goal lead.
“We were sitting in the dressing room at half-time, shellshocked, heads on the floor. They’d run us ragged and it would have been a cricket score but for our keeper Willie McFaul,” recalls Clark. “Then Joe walked in, looked at us, and said, ‘Score one goal and they’ll crumble’.
“Those words have gone into Geordie folklore. What’s less well known is Monc’s response. ‘Score a goal, boss? We can’t even get a kick!’
“And do you know what? Joe was spot on. We scored within a couple of minutes and, just as he predicted, one of the best teams in Europe collapsed like a deck of cards.
“That win should have been the springboard but it never really happened for us.
“We reached the FA Cup Final in 1974 when a certain Kevin Keegan made himself Public Enemy No.1 on Tyneside with two goals in Liverpool’s 3-0 win.”
When Clark was controversially handed a free transfer 12 months later, he looked to be heading for Doncaster or Hartlepool until he took a call from Clough. “He persuaded me to sign for Forest but I thought I’d just be seeing out my career there,” he said.
“Instead, I finished on a massive high with my lastever game the European Cup win over Malmo in 1979 before I accepted the assistant manager’s job at Sunderland.
“I eventually bowed out of management at Man City after a tough 14 months at a club which was unrecognisable to what it is today.
“I found that period very difficult to deal with but overall it wasn’t a bad career, was it? It’s just a pity Newcastle couldn’t have enjoyed some of the success I did after leaving them.” A Kevin Keegan-inspired Liverpool (above) thrashed the Magpies 3-0 in the FA Cup Final – the club’s first-ever defeat at Wembley. And Newcastle were lucky to get nil that afternoon!
Geordie Dennis Tueart’s overhead kick condemned his hometown club to a 2-1 defeat in the League Cup Final as Man City won. Alan Gowling got the Toon’s first goal under the Twin Towers since 1955. Keegan’s Entertainers looked on course to win the title for the first time in 69 years but blew a 12-point lead, allowing Manchester United to overhaul them.
The season kicked off with Newcastle breaking the world transfer record to bring Alan Shearer home. It was a second successive second-placed finish with Keegan (above) walking out midway through the season to be replaced by Kenny Dalglish. A first FA Cup Final appearance in 24 years but what a damp squib it proved to be for the Toon Army who saw Arsenal cruise to a 2-0 win and complete the League and Cup double.
This time Manchester United shattered Geordie dreams with a 2-0 win on their way to the Treble. Ruud Gullit was the manager now, but couldn’t repeat what he had achieved with Chelsea two years earlier.
Sir Bobby Robson would dearly have loved to end his boyhood club’s trophy drought but a Didier Drogba double for Marseilles in the UEFA Cup semi-final second leg (below), after a goalless draw at St James’ Park, meant there was no fairytale finale for the ex-England boss.
vGroup C, 7.45pm
MICHAEL O’NEILL has urged his Northern Ireland battlers to create history by beating Belarus tonight.
A win for O’Neill’s men in Borisov would see the Ulstermen start a qualifying campaign with four straight victories for the first time.
With Euro 2020 double headers against big-hitters Germany and Holland still to come, O’Neill said: “The carrot is huge for us.
“The ability to have 12 points after four games would be a big achievement for us and put us in a strong position.
“That’s all the motivation the players need.
“A win means that all those next four games have huge significance.
“It really means you go into the last two games still with a chance regardless of what happens in between.
“We give ourselves the best chance possible.
“The nice thing for us is we can put pressure on Germany and the Dutch.”