Shearer fires Champions League win

IT was a good time to be a Newcastle United fan in the early 2000s.

Take this night 15 years ago ... the 40,508 fans who turned up at a bitterly cold St James’ Park were treated to another rousing Champions’ League performance.

Sir Bobby Robson’s United were going great guns in the upper reaches of the Premier League, and their latest European exploit was sandwiched in between superb domestic wins over Leeds and Chelsea.

As for the 2002-03 Champions’ League run, Gallowgate had already played host to the likes of Feyenoord, Juventus, Dynamo Kiev and Inter Milan.

Now it was Bayer Leverkusen who were in Toon as United graced the second stage of the competition for the first time.

A week earlier, a Shola Ameobi brace and a Lomana LuaLua strike had earned the Magpies a brilliant 3-1 win in Germany.

The visitors were dispatched by the same score at St James’ as Alan Shearer - back from injury - struck a memorable first-half hat-trick.

This was the same Bayer Leverkusen who’d reached the previous season’s Champions’ League final only to be undone by mighty Real Madrid and that wonder goal by Zinedine Zidane.

After the match, three-goal Shearer, pictured, told the Chronicle: “We won and I scored so it was a very, very enjoyable night.

“Obviously I am happy to have scored but happier that we won, because if we hadn’t then perhaps we would have been out of the competition.”

Ever the perfectionist, Shearer added: “Yes, it’s always nice to get a hat-trick, but to tell the truth I could have scored four as I missed an easy chance in the second half.”

The victory, and results elsewhere in Europe, meant United were heading to Inter Milan’s imposing San Siro stadium needing a win to stay in the competition.

But, in hindsight, what a marvellous position to be in, and how we’d all crave to be in the same situation in 2018. ■■Newcastle United line-up: Given, Griffin, Bernard, Bramble, Caldwell, Speed, Dyer (Solano), Robert, Kerr (Viana), Shearer (Lua Lua), Ameobi.