Well it's Cup Final weekend so I'll be naughty!
Alan Shearer on Newcastle United, Wembley and trophies: ‘One day soon it will be our day’
Alan Shearer
Feb 24, 2023
10
I’m sitting in my old spot in the dressing room and the first thing that comes to me is a jolt of adrenaline. I’m falling backwards in time and leaping forward from this bench, towards the showers, scrambling to get to David Ginola and shouting, “Any fucking danger of you putting a cross in?” and him screaming back at me, “Fuck you, Shearer,” and us coming together and being pulled apart in a furious quickstep of shoving and flailing limbs.
Kevin Keegan is grabbing at my shoulders, hauling me to one side, saying, “I knew what you were like when I signed you, Alan, I knew you had that streak in you and I’d never want to lose it, but Jesus Christ.” And I was raging, properly fuming, because we’d lost 2-1 to Arsenal’s 10 men and, fuck me, I hated losing so very much, but my breathing is settling now and the mist is clearing. My head drops, sweat pooling between my boots.
Newcastle United: just one big happy family since 1892.
For the record, David and I were absolutely fine after that little rumpus. For the record, he started crossing the ball a bit more! And although it’s funny what comes back to you, the journey home to family always stirs emotion, good and bad, and St James’ Park will always be mine, even if our lifelong relationship has occasionally been stretched to breaking point. Home is where the heart aches.
Newcastle, my club, are in the Carabao Cup final, and if you need a quick refresher, we have not won a trophy of any significance since the Fairs Cup in 1969, the year before I was born, and nothing domestically since the FA Cup in 1955, when Jackie Milburn scored against Manchester City after 45 seconds. The years afterwards have been long; a lot of yearning and trying, some near misses and then a horrible decline into fracture and scarcely bothering.
I’m thinking about my dad bringing me here as a kid, telling stories about ‘Wor’ Jackie, Len White and Malcolm Macdonald, and him being there for the first leg of the Fairs Cup final against Ujpest Dozsa. I’m thinking about watching Keegan light this place up as a player and knowing to my core it was all I wanted. And I’m thinking about being at Wembley this weekend with Will, my own son, and all those bonds and ties that reach down the decades.
I’ve always longed to know what it feels like when Newcastle finally win something, for our great obsession to be fulfilled, but whatever happens against Manchester United, a club that resonates with me for a multitude of reasons, not all of them uplifting, London will be ours. Geordies will descend there in droves, I can guarantee that, pulled towards the match and the promise of a generational occasion.
First though, I feel the pull of here; the dressing room, the dugout, the goalmouth, the Gallowgate End, the place where it started for me; scoring on the pitch for Newcastle Boys at half-time, a ball boy in Kevin’s final match in black-and-white, a fan and a player and captain, briefly a manager, and then effectively banished by the previous owner, skulking in to watch matches. Now, the circle is complete and I’m a supporter again, dreaming of what’s possible.
I needed to come home.
My old dressing room hasn’t changed too much, mostly because it’s used by away teams these days and luxuries are kept to a minimum. Wouldn’t want them getting too comfortable, would we? I’m not sure I’ve been in here since my testimonial match against Celtic in 2006 and it feels good to lean against these cool grey tiles and reflect for a while. This place holds happy and less happy memories, and secrets I’ll take to my grave.
It was 1996 when I walked in for the first time as a Newcastle player. Even the best teams need shaking up and Kevin’s response to that epic title chase with Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United, the agony of second place and a big lead slipping, was to buy me from Blackburn Rovers for £15million, a world record. I didn’t notice any hangover or lingering disappointment, but instead found a good group with great lads. If anything, they were too nice.
I’d signed for Newcastle, turning down Fergie amongst others, because I wanted to play for my hometown club and I wanted to play for Kevin, but I also felt we were ready to win something. In retrospect, they probably put all their eggs in my basket — it might have been sensible to address the defence and buy another centre-half, for instance — but the club was still pushing and straining.
In any case, Kevin’s way was different. Les Ferdinand and I scored 49 goals that season — the only one we had together — and we were a destructive partnership. I’d say to him before matches, “We’re going to smash this lot today,” and we had the unshakeable knowledge it was going to happen. It’s difficult to describe that feeling, but man, it’s bloody good. I’d feel unstoppable and untameable, not thinking but rather knowing I would score.
We put five goals past Manchester United that October; walking off the pitch, sitting in the bath for half an hour, holding a beer, wow, you’re buzzing and alive. And then it’s 10 years later and I’d broken Jackie’s goalscoring record for Newcastle, the best feeling and atmosphere I experienced as a footballer. The crowd that day was incredible and I came back in here with shivers, like I was conscious of every atom in my body.
There were afternoons full of noise and wonder and I’d gaze around this narrow space and share a look; you knew there was a bond that could never be shattered. Football is temporary, players are bought and sold and move on, but in the moment you play together and fight together you become brothers. I guess that’s the essence of a team. Some friendships were forever; Steve Harper, Rob Lee, Shay Given, Gary Speed, among them.
In between, there were some pretty grim times, too. Sunderland at home under Ruud Gullit, when I saw the starting team on the board and I wasn’t in it; at that point, I didn’t know if it was the end of me or the end of him, but I did know if he stayed I would have to go. I supported Paul Robinson, my young replacement, who was caught up in the wrong storm, as much as I could, even though I was blazing inside. Ruud played roulette that night and lost.
There was the day we played Aston Villa and Kieron Dyer and Lee Bowyer, Newcastle team-mates, exchanged punches on the pitch. That particular pot had been bubbling away for a while, but the explosion was memorable, with three red cards and a 3-0 defeat. It was horrible afterwards and I played my part in the postmortem, knocking over sports drinks, fuming and railing. Shit happens in football; on that occasion, it hit the fan.
By then, Kevin was long gone. My first, big disappointment at Newcastle was his resignation as manager a few months after I joined, soon after we stuck seven goals past Tottenham Hotspur. Nobody had an inkling, so it was a huge surprise and, in the process, the club lost some of its innocence. The climb to the Premier League, that headlong football, had been rapid and romantic and doomed. Beautiful, while it lasted.
Up and out, down into the tunnel, where Les and I would glance at one another and prepare to inflict carnage. I’ve never been superstitious, beyond being reluctant to change my boots when I was digging at a rich seam of goals and I had no elaborate routine before matches. I was sparing with shooting practice in the warm-up because I felt that scoring a 30-yarder then would lessen my chances about doing it later, but that was more a calculation of percentages.
I turn right and lean against the home dugout. For a long time, I thought this would be my domain; I’d seen Kevin and Kenny Dalglish transition from playing to managing and doing it successfully and I fancied a bit of it. For a short time, it was my domain and in those eight games in 2009 as Newcastle’s interim manager, I felt the stress and pressure of it, 100 times heavier than when I was playing. You feel like you’re carrying the club on your shoulders.
Newcastle was a basket case that season — Kevin’s second stint as manager ending sadly and abruptly, Joe Kinnear following him, Chris Hughton stepping in — and when I told a couple of pals I was taking over, their immediate response was, “You must be fucking mad.” It ended with relegation, but I worked as hard as I’ve ever worked and I loved it, in spite of what happened. I was very proud. It felt like an enormous honour and I wanted more of it.
As everyone knows, I talked to Mike Ashley and his underlings about my ideas for Newcastle’s recovery, those plans were approved and then the phone went dead. I never heard anything. For a couple of years, management was an itch and I spoke to other clubs, but eventually it drifted. I won’t lie, though. I still think about what might have been and what my Newcastle would have looked like, where I might have gone and if I’d come back.
I don’t blame Ashley for a premature end to that part of my career, but I did take the lack of respect personally. A statue was made of me — still a surreal thought — and although I grew fond of its positioning on Barrack Road, outside club property, the symbolism wasn’t subtle. The name of Shearer’s Bar was changed to Nine. After all those goals, all that work, I didn’t feel welcome. A lifetime of love was thrown back at me, although I was far from alone in that.
I walk down the touchline towards the Gallowgate. I’m pitch-side, close enough to smell the grass. I run my hand across the net, feeling it ripple beneath my fingers. By the time I finished playing, my body was failing me and I limped towards the finishing line, overhauling Jackie’s record inch by bloody inch. Too right, I wanted it, but I was content, at peace with the footballer and person I’d become.
I’m a ferocious competitor and always have been. “First is first. That’s the way I was brought up. Second or third are nowhere.” Yup, that’s one of mine and I stand by the principle in a sporting context. Nobody sets out for second. I didn’t win anything at Newcastle, but I know it wasn’t for the want of trying. Under Kevin and Kenny and Sir Bobby Robson, it was just beyond our fingertips, but every season began with hope until, finally, the seasons ran out.
Perhaps it would have felt different if I hadn’t won the title at Blackburn. Perhaps that took the bruising away. But here I am at the age of 52, looking at the goalmouth, where my instincts were a dagger and my hunger a vicious craving, and there isn’t a single molecule of me that feels defined by not winning a trophy here. I’ll let you in on a little secret; some pretty shit players have won the Premier League. There, I said it.
Maybe it’s a striker thing, simply because we’re a separate breed. Each goal we score is a celebration and each one is counted and chalked up. I have the same discussion about Harry Kane now. No, his Spurs side haven’t delivered silverware and yes, I’m sure that burns, but what he has done and got is beyond any price, a lasting place in the club’s pantheon. Would he change that? I doubt it. Would I? Hell, no.
But what would I give to be wheeling away from this goal towards the corner, right arm held skyward with a million volts powering my body, just one more time? It makes me sound like an old fart, but I’ve said this to Harry and to Erling Haaland; enjoy it and find some way of clutching that enjoyment, because nothing else in life comes close. Once you leave the pitch for the final time, it’s like something switches from technicolour to monochrome.
Not that there’s anything wrong with black and white, obviously.
Standing here, I think about Portsmouth again and breaking the record, all that emotion and energy bursting out of me. I think about my best goals, my favourite goals; Everton was at this end, Villa, Chelsea. And so, too, was my penalty miss against Sunderland and if I tell you that there are grisly nights when Thomas Sorensen’s save snakes its way into my mind, it isn’t hyperbole. So many memories …
My first home match for Newcastle was Wimbledon in midweek. I was fully aware of the expectation surrounding me, but I loved it, just as I adored being the world’s most expensive player. But loving it and revelling in it are two different things and I needed a goal, just to get up and running. David Batty had put us ahead early on, but it was becoming a frustrating evening as I stepped up to take a free kick in front of the Leazes End in the 88th minute.
I curled it in and in that frenzied moment, I was dreaming. I was a kid again, the snotty-nosed lad who stood here watching Keegan, whose house was Newcastle mad, who went away to come home, now doing what my heroes did, what my dad’s heroes did. All of those feelings crushed into my brain. Even now, I find it difficult to unpick, to compute. I promise you, though, I felt it. I felt everything.
I’m midway up the Gallowgate now. You can’t see the pitch’s slope from here, but you can certainly feel it when you’re chasing a game and kicking up that hill. I’m seeking an approximation of where I stood in the early 1980s, when I first came here with my mates, that rite of passage for a child of Newcastle, then and now; kicking a ball on the streets, and then here with your school pals or the lads who live on your estate.
It was Kevin’s stupefying arrival as a player — the twice European Footballer of the Year dropping down into the old Second Division and joining us — that truly fired my imagination. He was our Pied Piper. We were outside the ground at 8.30 or 9am, queuing up for his debut on August 28, 1982 and there were already thousands here before us. Thousands more would be locked out. It was wild, exciting, vivid.
He scored the only goal against QPR and he scored it at this end, and suddenly the whole place was bedlam. I was here and then I was there, pushed 10, 20 yards down the stand, away from my mates, losing all of them in the mighty swell of that black and white sea. It was unbelievable, the rush and the push of it, the atmosphere and everything else. I couldn’t wait for the next game. And more than that, I wanted to be Keegan.
From Gosforth High to the Gallowgate to record-goalscorer… I still pinch myself. And on the day I’m here, I bump into Dan Burn, interrupting one of his media interviews, and when I really think about it, it blows my mind that he watched Sir Bobby’s Newcastle and dreamt of being me. Not everybody gets to live the fantasy out like we have, but all of us have those umbilical connections to place and family and moments.
And Newcastle is dreaming again. Whatever you think about the takeover and the owners — we’ve written a lot about it and will continue to debate the questions — this is an occasion for our magnificent supporters. I hope that side of it is understood. Plenty of clubs go through challenging spells and those experiences are not always transferable, but I can’t think of any with our stature, history and fanbase which has waited so long for a trophy.
It is hard to explain to people outside why the Ashley era hurt so much. There were dreadful decisions in the early years. There was the way people were treated and fans ignored, there were two relegations and countless embarrassments. But the worse thing about it was a slow draining into grey. What does Newcastle stand for? Pride, passion, atmosphere. They were going, going or gone. There was almost nothing to invest in.
These days, you’ll struggle to find a better atmosphere than at St James’ and you’d struggle to find a more connected set of supporters. I was at Southampton to see the first leg of the League Cup semi-final (Will was in the away end), and I spent half the game just watching our fans, hypnotised by the bouncing and singing; Tuesday night, 330 miles down the country, 3,200 of them, home at god knows what time and then up and out for work. Wembley is for them.
Ah, Wembley. I had some decent games there with England, but I felt no twinge of sadness when they tore the old stadium down. It’s no place for losers — where second, truly, is nowhere — and Newcastle lost there too much. My competitive debut set the tone, a 4-0 humiliation in the Charity Shield to, yes, that’s right, Manchester United, which was followed by a 2-0 defeat at Everton. My overriding thought: “What the fuck have I done?”
At the end of my second season, we were back at Wembley for the FA Cup final under Kenny. Our third-round tie at Stevenage was my first start after seven months out with an ankle injury and I scored. That and the last game stay with me. There was excitement in the build-up, all the while spouting the lie that it isn’t on your mind. And then driving on the coach to the stadium and it’s just all Newcastle and a gorgeous madness.
Arsenal were going for a double (and they won it). We weren’t quite ourselves, but at 1-0 down we hit the woodwork twice, through Nikos Dabizas and then me, and I look back and wonder what might have happened if one of those had gone in. They didn’t and we lost 2-0. The following year, under Ruud, we were back again, against a Manchester United side (sigh) going for the treble (and they won it). That one was different. It was another 2-0, but they battered us.
After both of those finals, Newcastle fans lined our city to welcome us home. For the first one, in 1998, we squirmed on an open-top bus from Gosforth Park to the Civic Centre, waving at everyone, and I felt so embarrassed. I understood that you have to arrange a parade, but surely you can cancel it, too? “Why are we doing this crap?” I said. But there they all were, in their thousands and thousands, standing on lampposts, there for us, with us, cheering us. Us, full stop.
The next season; Wembley again, an FA semi-final against Chelsea and a 2-1 loss under Sir Bobby. The national stadium was familiar by then, but so was the gut ache that came with it. Wembley was pain and the more we tried the more it hurt and yet we craved it still. Since those days of mixed emotions, I haven’t been able to rid myself of the thought; just imagine what it would be like if we ever won. The lampposts would buckle.
I get up from my seat in the Gallowgate. Time to go, time for London, time for family and for mates and for mayhem. As I leave, I wander past my statue, which is now beside Sir Bobby’s on club land. Seeing my own image cast in bronze, celebrating a goal, is forever bizarre, but it was a big thing to have it moved here. Newcastle is home again, for me and for everyone, and so is this feeling we bear and nurture.
The teams I played in came close. Ultimately, we fell short. I wouldn’t swap it for how my career panned out, because it’s part of me and part of Newcastle. Who knows how the game on Sunday will finish, because football can hinge on a decision or the flash of a moment, but I do know we will go there with hope and ambition, with a fanatical desire and an old, piercing feeling that one day soon, it will be our day. Finally, I can say it and believe it again: this is who we are.
