Woodman wants to stay with Swans
NEWCASTLE United’s Freddie Woodman wants another season at Swansea,
The England under-21 goalkeeper is one of the club’s top prospects and signed a contract extension last summer which will keep him at the club until June 2021.
But with Martin Dubravka also committing long-term, Woodman will know he faces a battle to get first-team football at St James’ Park next season.
It will also be a dilemma for whoever controls United in the coming months. Woodman has an excellent reputation and as a young English goalkeeper will not be short of suitors in the final year of his deal.
But if Newcastle could convince him a path to the first team is there for him at United, he would be keen to remain at the club.
As he prepares for the resumption of the Championship this week, Woodman has been speaking about life under lockdown and his immediate future.
“I think the club know and the fans know that I absolutely love it here,” Woodman told the BBC.
“I would love to carry on next season. When you are enjoying your footy and enjoying where you live, it makes life so much easier.
“But in football it’s not really up to the player’s choice, it’s about the clubs.”
Newcastle’s goalkeeper situation will become clearer in the off-season. United want to retain Karl Darlow – who is an able deputy – but Rob Elliot, who is out of contract in the summer, will depart when the season ends.
United won’t want a repeat of the Fraser Forster situation, where the player left St James’ Park to become an England international.
KEN Harvey and his dad enter a pub having spent the afternoon on a scouting mission.
Ken heads to the bar to order a couple of pints, while Harvey senior finds a table.
In the short time it takes his son to be served, Joe Harvey is swamped by 30 people wanting to hear tales of Wembley or Budapest.
Handing his dad his pint through the crowd would be the last conversation between the pair for an hour.
“That would be it until he’d say, ‘That’s it, I’m going home lads’ – they left him alone, we got in the car and came home,” Ken remembers.
“He ate, breathed and slept Newcastle United.”
In the week in which Joe would have turned 102, it’s also another year gone by without silverware at Newcastle – 51 long years since that famous Fairs Cup triumph.
Even if the Premier League had been lifted in 1996 or the FA Cup in 1998 or 2000, Harvey’s achievements would still live on.
There are the three FA Cup triumphs – two as captain and one as a coach. As manager he won the Second Division title, the Fairs Cup and an Anglo-Italian Cup, making him United’s most successful boss.
The affection towards him is clear from posts on Twitter and Facebook, most by fans who never saw him play in the flesh but who know of this great custodian of Newcastle.
I read Ken some of the tweets – “I don’t get involved in anything like that [social media] but it is amazing that it’s 30-odd years ago [since he died] and he’s still remembered in that way.
“But let’s be fair, the reason is that he’s still the most successful manager they’ve ever