The elation is near universal, as Newcastle United supporters continue to bask in the glory of a first domestic trophy in 70 years.
But every fan has a unique relationship with the club, and each has their own response to the Carabao Cup win. Ahead of Saturday’s victory parade, Chris Waugh spoke to five supporters, whose first games ranged from the 1950s to the 2010s, about their cup-final experience.
The cast is Dave (the veteran), George (the 50-something senior writer for The Athletic), Taylor (the 40-something host of Pod on the Tyne), Ellie (the Gen Z representative) and Pete (the overseas-based supporter with no previous connection).
An audio version is available on Pod on the Tyne, our weekly Newcastle United podcast.
Why did you come to support Newcastle United?
Dave: I’m 75 and I’ve been watching this lot since the late ’50s with my father. One of my grandfathers went to the 1932 FA Cup final (when Newcastle beat Arsenal) on a boat from the Tyne. My mother and father went to the ‘50s cup finals. (Newcastle won the FA Cup three times between 1951 and 1955). My first recollections of watching Newcastle would be the late ’50s. I saw Bobby Mitchell, Ivor Allchurch, Len White and George Eastham play.
I’m one of the very few fortunate people to have seen Newcastle win something.
George: We’ve all seen them win something, Dave! You didn’t get the memo. You’re not special anymore.
Dave: Ha! In 1969, I saw them win the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. That was quite an experience. The Rangers match was gobsmacking. You couldn’t walk along the ground at the Gallowgate End — it was just lined with bottles and cans. Then I followed the team all over Europe in the ‘90s.
George: I’m 55 and I’ve just seen Newcastle United win something for the first time in my life. I was born the year after the Fairs Cup. At that point, Newcastle had a reputation as a cup team, which is remarkable to think of now.
My stepdad, Gordon, took me to St James’ Park for the first time in 1978. He’s basically responsible for this life of mine. Growing up in County Durham, going to Newcastle in the first place felt quite scary. I remember him bolting a pint at 2.50pm outside The Strawberry (the pub next to St James’). I was leaning against the wall with a squash, watching this sea of people, and the city did feel very black and white.
Gordon’s motto was: “I never expect Newcastle to win, I always expect them to lose. And when I come out and they’ve won, it’s just that beautiful, special feeling.” I’ve held that very close.
Taylor: I’m 42 and my first experience was in 1984. Not that I remember it, but my dad took me as a two-year-old to see Kevin Keegan’s farewell game against Liverpool, when he flew off into the night in a helicopter. We still have the ticket stub and programme.
My dad just loved football. One week he’d go to Newcastle, then Middlesbrough, then Sunderland. So I didn’t go back to Newcastle until I was 10 with my uncle, when we saw the first game of 1992-93 against Southend United. With it being August, of course it absolutely p***ed it down. We won 3-2, Paul Bracewell scored a rocket and it’s still burned into my memory like it was yesterday. That was the day I fell in love.
I’ve been going back hopeful ever since that I would see something incredible. And then last week I did.
Newcastle captain Bobby Moncur lifting the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1969 (Peter Robinson/EMPICS via Getty Images)
Ellie: So I actually grew up within a family of Sunderland supporters. It wasn’t until my mum got with my stepdad 10 years ago that he really introduced me. I was at university when he took me to my first game. I remember getting to the top of Level Seven (the top tier of St James’) and the noise, the atmosphere — it was incredible. Seeing people of all ages and generations coming together.
Before the Arsenal match (in May 2022), I was in Shearer’s Bar, surrounded by people chanting and singing. You don’t know these people, but you feel like you’re related to everyone. I’m 23 now, but that’s when I really fell in love with Newcastle.
Pete: I’m 53 and I live in Denver, Colorado (in the US), so pretty far away, and I have no previous link to Newcastle. It’s a confluence of four things which happened at the same time as to why I support Newcastle. In the mid-90s, Newcastle Brown Ale was popular in the U.S. and I loved it. They also started showing English football on Mondays in the middle of the day here when I was a grad student. One Monday, Newcastle was playing and Newcastle Brown Ale were the shirt sponsors, they wore black-and-white stripes and I’m like, “That is my team”.
Thirdly, they were actually good then, especially when Alan Shearer signed, and in 1995-96 they’d challenged at the top of the table. In March 1996, I went to London and Newcastle had a massive game against Manchester United (they lost 1-0) and it was on every TV in every pub. So I got a little bit of a flavour for the community, how passionate it was — and I was totally hooked.
How was the 56-year trophy famine for you?
Dave: It’s weird because I felt confident for the first time going to Wembley. Don’t ask me why, I just did. Having been there for the ‘74 FA Cup run, seeing them play well all the way through — and then you get to the final and they were dreadful (losing 3-0 to Liverpool). They didn’t turn up in ‘76 (losing 2-1 to Manchester City in the League Cup final), or ‘98 and ‘99 (losing 2-0 to Arsenal and Manchester United in the FA Cup final in successive seasons), when they were terrible. And a couple of years ago, they were rotten (when they lost 2-0 to Manchester United in the 2023 League Cup final).
My wife and I have had season tickets for 50 years, so it’s ingrained into us. I never gave up hope, but you do just come to expect them to lose.
Ellie: I’ve followed Newcastle more closely since just before the takeover. So I only experienced the back end of the (Mike) Ashley days and the endless doom and gloom. There has actually been hope and that sense of, “It’s finally happening”, during much of the time I’ve been closely following. But the transformation in terms of mood and belief, it feels like a completely different Newcastle — different, but better.
George: In my formative years, I was always really excited about FA Cup third-round day. Every season started with hope, even if there was a lot of mediocrity as well.
Taylor mentioned ‘92 and that was hugely important to me because I’d just come back from university and the whole city came alive under Keegan. It was an extraordinary time. That was my first experience of Newcastle being really good. It was important for the whole city and, from there, to finishing second (in 1995-96), the cup finals under (Kenny) Dalglish and (Ruud) Gullit, then Bobby (Robson) coming back — always trying, always thinking that you had a hope, always thinking, “You know, this year will be our year”. Then, before you know it, the years run out.
Newcastle lost at Wembley under Ruud Gullit in 1999 (Clive Brunskill/Allsport/Getty Images)
Having seen Newcastle be like that, the Ashley years were even more difficult. Having seen how powerful the club could be when everybody was together, I would get very upset and angry around cup games. The third round would just meekly go by and then for the club to actually have the arrogance, the great betrayal, of saying out loud that cups “weren’t a priority”… I just could never understand why Ashley wouldn’t want to experience what I had.
Taylor: He didn’t care, George. That’s why — because he wasn’t bothered. He was probably worried about the additional expense of a bus parade if it actually went right.
George: Under Ashley, I told myself that Newcastle wouldn’t win anything in my lifetime and, albeit I can’t say that made my life better, it made me less angry. I had a sort of acceptance that it just wouldn’t happen. So the last few years have been so special, that sort of rediscovery of a Newcastle together; everybody on the same page, but also trying again. It’s so powerful, so beautiful.
Pete: Without making this too much about me, I felt like maybe I brought my curse to Newcastle… The lack of winning fitted in with everything else that I had personally experienced.
When I first started following Newcastle, they were a high-flying team with a really entertaining style (under Keegan), the fanbase was unbelievable and the atmosphere appeared to be off the charts at St James’. That all brought me in and then I gained the knowledge that we haven’t won anything since 1969. That was mentioned on every broadcast, every single time.
At first, I felt like I’d got plugged in at this really good period and maybe this will finally be the time. Of course, that’s not how it happened… Along with you guys, I feel I’ve earned it.
You mentioned Ashley, even coming out of that was harder than it had to be. The takeover was on-off for years, then (the Premier League clubs are) putting all sorts of rules in place to make it really difficult for Newcastle to spend their money. It was fitting that we were never going to get it the ‘easy way’.
I actually came into this cup final completely convinced we were going to lose, especially when (Anthony) Gordon got suspended. I feared it was the same as two years ago (when Nick Pope was banned for the final). It was an unbelievable surprise when they finally won.
Taylor: Like George, I made my peace a long time ago that I was supporting a club who would trundle along and occasionally something exciting might happen. But I didn’t ever think we would actually win anything or challenge at the top of the league again. I thought those days had gone. When the takeover happened, I thought, “Finally, maybe now somebody will come in who gets this and who understands how much it means to us.”
I love the cup competitions — that’s where you see football at its purest. The romance is a cliche, but it also makes it brilliant. I always had this feeling in the back of my mind that one day I’d love to see Newcastle win a cup at Wembley and it’d be incredible, but I’d kind of let that dream go. Then, when the takeover happened, the mentality shifted a bit and I was more excited: “Maybe now is the time.”
I look at everything now through the eyes of my boy, who’s 13. He’s been going to Newcastle since he was five and he’s only waited a few years to see us win something. For the most part, he’s never known anything except a decent Newcastle. When we had massive wins, like the 6-1 over Tottenham (in April 2023), I used to say to him, “Don’t get used to this because it’s normally rubbish.”
But then you start to win games and get into the Champions League and win a cup, and he’s now looking at me thinking, “You said this was rubbish, but actually this is the best thing in the world” — and that’s how it feels now.
What was your cup-final weekend like?
Ellie: On Saturday, we went to Covent Garden. We literally got off the Tube, there’s who knows how many stairs up, yet you could hear Newcastle fans before the train doors opened. Trying to squeeze through thousands and thousands of people, it felt like a matchday, like everyone who fills St James’ was stood in this one tiny area. There were fireworks going off, people brought boom boxes to play Newcastle songs and there was chanting. Just a massive sea of black and white everywhere and I instantly got goosebumps. It felt like, “This is finally happening now.”
Newcastle fans took over Covent Garden in London the day before the final (Henry Nicholls/AFP/Getty Images)
On Sunday, we had a table booked in a sports bar in London and we got there about 10am. Everyone was dressed in black and white and you could have heard a pin drop while the match was on. When Dan Burn scored, everyone erupted. Outside, locals were walking past taking videos of all of us celebrating because I don’t think they’d seen it before. We’re just a different breed, aren’t we?
It’s hard to put into words how special the whole weekend was.
Taylor: I was lucky enough to watch it with my boy and my partner’s family. There were 15 of us in a house with food — and lots of alcohol. We entertained ourselves with dart tournaments during the build-up, while swearing at the TV every time somebody from Liverpool came on it.
I’ve been lucky enough to go to lots of big matches. I was at the last final, I was at PSG (when Newcastle beat Paris Saint-Germain 4-1 in the Champions League in October 2023), I went to Dortmund (in November 2023). The atmosphere is always fantastic at live games, but I genuinely said to my partner, “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”
I was with people that I love and you could feel how much it meant to everybody in that room. A lot of them don’t go now, or can’t get tickets. Some have been season-ticket holders in the past. But it didn’t mean any less to them than it does to anybody else. There were grown men crying, people lying on the floor wailing — it was just astonishing.
When that final whistle went, I didn’t know what to do. Nobody had prepared me for this. You don’t get a little handy pullout guide from The Chronicle (the local newspaper) which says, “When you win a cup, employ the brace position, put your head between your knees and sob uncontrollably in the sitting room until you feel alive again.” It was just ridiculous.
Yes, I cried. Bruno (Guimaraes) crying finished me off — I was fine until I saw him bawling his eyes out. I hugged everybody and jumped around like a maniac. I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else. It was perfect. I was so lucky that I got to experience that with my lad. I hope he remembers that for the rest of his life, because it was an honour to share that day with him and my family.
It was a release, an absolutely massive release of so much bottled-up emotion.
Dave: One of my daughters and I drove across to Wembley and met up with my son and nephew. The four of us were there and it was phenomenal. I was quite confident and I didn’t have any butterflies. Whereas in the past I was a bag of nerves, for some reason I was fairly calm.
I’ve seen them lose at Wembley so many times, so to be there and see them win was wonderful. I’m 75 and I was crying at a football match; I’d not done that since I was a kid. The older guy sitting beside me, I had no idea who he was, but he was hugging and kissing me. Everybody was grabbing hold of everybody else. It was manic. The whole place was jumping. Gary Neville said he’d never felt the place vibrate before and he’s right — you could feel it jumping.
The only thing I can criticise is that I had to stand and I’ve got dodgy knees, so I had to take a lot of painkillers to get home. But it was worth putting up with it.
Full-time at Wembley (Henry Nicholls/AFP/Getty Images)
Pete: My wife and I were in Texas to see a concert on Willie Nelson’s ranch. A pretty cool weekend, but the problem was I had to get a plane right as the game was ending.
I swear this is true. I’m watching on my phone as I’m boarding and when (Alexander) Isak’s goal goes in, I go nuts. Then I’m trying to work out times in my head; the plane is supposed to leave at this time, usually you taxi for this many minutes, I think, “I’m just going to have enough time before I lose connectivity.” When they put up eight minutes (of added time), I’m like, “You’ve got to be kidding me?”
The plane starts to lift off, I know I’m about to lose connectivity, then the final whistle blows, you get the obligatory immediate shot of Eddie (Howe) and that’s when I lose signal. So I saw it right to the moment that I needed to see it, and no more. Then I tried not to yell while I was sitting on the plane, because that would have freaked everybody out, obviously.
George: My little brother came over from Oregon (USA). That was the highlight for me. We went into Covent Garden with Chris and his family, and it was beautiful sharing that.
What stood out for me was there was no sign of Liverpool fans until the Tube to Wembley. We know it’s a day trip for them, whereas Tyneside comes to a halt; it’s a massive holiday for us. Before kick-off, the noise when the players came out and You’ll Never Walk Alone (Liverpool’s anthem) being drowned out — I thought, “It’s different this time.”
People have said what should have been a 4-0 victory ended up being a 2-1, but I couldn’t accept that Newcastle had played well until the end, because I was just waiting for the bad stuff to happen. It was the occasion we all dreamt of — and mainly because Newcastle turned up. That was the best thing about it.
Afterwards, meeting up with my brother again was special. But I had to work until late, so I’ve got this sense of greed that I still haven’t really experienced it. I think we need to do it again — maybe then I’ll know what it feels like.
Dave: I got home on Monday and watched the whole match again.
Taylor: George, you need a release. You’ve kept this all bottled up. It’s got to come out at some point.
George: It came out in tears, it absolutely did, when Dan scored and again at the final whistle. But how do you process it? That’s the word a lot of people are using and they’re right. Not having known what it feels like, I don’t quite know what to do with it. It changes the club’s whole ethos. For all my lifetime, they’ve been — I don’t want to say losers, because they’ve tried and got very close — but Newcastle United as winners is something that takes a lot of getting used to.
The team with a long-awaited trophy after beating Liverpool (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
Has it sunk in yet? And what does it mean to you?
Dave: I don’t think I have digested it yet. I’d describe it as an achievement; after all those years of getting very close, but to actually win it… Just brilliant. And long may it go on. I hope they kick on and it doesn’t get to their heads.
Taylor: It still hasn’t sunk in and it won’t for a while. For me, it means validation of sorts for all of those trips and all of those times we saw Newcastle lose. Standing at all those away grounds in the Championship (in 2009-10 and 2016-17) and just feeling miserable. It kind of makes it all worth it, doesn’t it? It means that none of it was wasted. Eventually, we got there and won something.
It’s anybody’s guess what happens now, but this could be the start of something beautiful.
Pete: I hope this marks the beginning of an era with a lot more of these great moments. But it validates all the time spent watching them. When I put it within this grand narrative of all these other teams I’ve been following and who haven’t won, no, I haven’t processed it — and it’s cool that it’ll take a while. Every time I think about it, it’s going to make me smile.
Ellie: No matter how many times you watch the highlights, it’s like experiencing the game all over again. It doesn’t feel like winning is going to be the outcome. But the result shows we’re here to stay, to compete. This is the start of something very special and it’s only up from here.
George: It definitely hasn’t sunk in.
What it means? Validation is an interesting word. I could flip that and say, “What are we all about?” Historically we’ve been about turning up regardless. It’s often been painful, but we’ve carried on going. We’ve supported or some of us have had to walk away because it was so painful. That’s part of our history.
The reason why everyone was crying at Wembley was because you remember; you remember the people who aren’t with you anymore, you remember you’re happy about the people who are with you. You carry all those people with you at all times and to celebrate it together is a phenomenal, emotional thing.
For me, it stands for love; it stands for, “At last.” The yearning stops. It’s part of our history, part of who we are and I don’t ever want to forget those feelings — but now Newcastle United are something else.
Quite what we are and where we go next, I’ve got no idea. And what an amazing thing that is.
(Top photo: Alexander Isak celebrates with fans after scoring the second goal during the Carabao Cup final; by Stu Forster via Getty Images)
