Two decades of a slow decline at Magpies show no sign of ending
WE are fast approaching the 20-year mark since Newcastle United clashed with Stevenage in the FA Cup.
It was at that stage the stardust Kevin Keegan had sprinkled around the club was starting to wear off and, under the guidance of Kenny Dalglish, the Magpies had long lost their tag as some people’s “second team” after the Entertainers era.
The Geordie fans had watched on as Les Ferdinand had been replaced by Ian Rush and David Ginola had swapped places with John Barnes.
Low-key signings from the Scot, like Garry Brady, Des Hamilton and Brian Pinas, also had fans wondering what was going on!
Rewind to 1998 and the FA Cup fourth-round draw had paired Newcastle with Stevenage Borough at Broadhall Way.
It felt like some football observers had gone from wanting the Magpies to dethrone Manchester United as the country’s top dogs to wanting to see them dumped out the cup by the Hertfordshire minnows – all in the space of around 18 months!
There was ill-feeling in the air going into this game as Stevenage protested against Newcastle’s concerns over holding the game at Broadhall Way, which at that stage had resulted in Paul Fairclough’s side arranging temporary seating to host the game.
Fairclough encouraged his players to: “Do a Ronnie Radford” and copy Hereford to earn a famous FA Cup scalp.
National newspaper the Sun had also jumped in to sponsor Stevenage and all of a sudden it felt like there was a bit of campaign going on to see Newcastle pushed out of the cup.
Or at least that was how the Toon Army believed it was going at the time - and with big headlines against them it was easy to see why.
As it turned out Newcastle – by this stage a pale imitation of the Entertainers – managed to get out of Stevenage with a replay in round four and beat them 2-1 to progress to round five.
The Magpies made it to the final that year and – up until this week’s draw for the fourth round – hopes were high on Tyneside again that Rafa Benitez could at least lead Newcastle to another cup run.
Fast forward to 2018 and United fans are not even disappointed their team is not classed as one of the top sides anymore.
Any type of ambition has been allowed to drain away at St James’ Park and even though the Magpies somehow managed to land a topclass manager – who would be capable of taking them back to the top – they have opted against backing him with financial clout.
Benitez is not close to calling it a day with United but he has had to narrow his horizons as manager of the club.
That is why Joselu and Javier Manquillo were signed as bargain buys in the summer and it is why Benitez is pushing for a loan deal for Kenedy of Chelsea and the club are being linked with some lesser-known names.
It is a sad state of affairs Newcastle are still regarded as a big club in terms of their manager, stadium and fan base but are classed as relegation battlers in terms of ambition.
Under Ashley that is all Newcastle are ever likely to be – at best.
It does not get much more frustrating than having Benitez as man-
ager but watching him struggle to even squeeze a loan deal out of his board.
The United faithful have often been accused of demanding too much, by pundits and rival fans, but anybody who knows the club well will tell you all they want is something to at least hang their hat on.
A fan banner once summed it up when it stated all they wanted was: “A club that tries.”
Do Newcastle looking like a club who are trying at the moment?
Or one that is waiting for the next instalment of TV money in the summer?
The only problem with that approach is they could be relegated by that time if they are not careful.
It probably will not happen under Benitez, but it would be nice to see him have the best chance of success in the second half of the campaign. In the last 20 years the only time they have witnessed that has been for a few years under Sir Bobby Robson and the couple of episodes in Europe when Glenn Roeder and Alan Pardew led their respective squads into Europe. Even then Sir Bobby was not backed properly and eventually SACKED for the crime of finishing fifth! Pardew and Roeder both punched above their weight with inferior teams compared to the rest of the Premier League. Basically, it has been a slow and painful decline for two decades on Tyneside – and that will not change under the current ownership’s stance on life in the top flight. Certainly, the stardust whch disappeared two decades ago at Stevenage has never really returned for the Toon Army.