NUFC: The Premier League Years

[Guest BooBoo]

Didn't we have a significant pile-up of injuries for the Marseille game?

 

Bellamy, Dyer and Woogate in particular. Bellamy and Dyer both pulling up in the same league game.

 

Yeah, injuries had hit but it was a dreadful effort. I remember being so pissed off when I got home I purposely avoided any highlights. I don't think I've ever seen a re run of Drogba's two goals.

 

Team that night was ( I think):

 

Given, Hughes, Bernard, Bramble, O'Brien, Speed, Robert, Viana, Ambrose, Shearer, Shola

[WarrenBartonCentrePartin]

What was utterly infuriating about the beginning of it all as well was we'd done the hard work and got a result over in Belgrade.  Albeit only a 1 goal advantage but any form of draw would have been enough.

 

The penalties in the shootout were absolutely horrific as well.  Even Shearer missed.  .com were bitter, whinging in their post-match report that the Partizan goalkeeper had edged off his line for each one.

[Guest BooBoo]

What was utterly infuriating about the beginning of it all as well was we'd done the hard work and got a result over in Belgrade.  Albeit only a 1 goal advantage but any form of draw would have been enough.

 

The penalties in the shootout were absolutely horrific as well.  Even Shearer missed.  .com were bitter, whinging in their post-match report that the Partizan goalkeeper had edged off his line for each one.

 

Yep that nagging frustration built and built all year and just erupted at the Wolves game.

[Yorkie]

The last thing the club needed was a home game against already relegated Wolves some three days later. Wounds from Marseilles were still fresh and it was a highly frustrating game when nothing went right. Shearer missed that late penalty and people went apeshit. Most walked out, snubbing the lap of honour, some booed the team off and shamefully booed Viana onto the pitch. No nothing critics later used it as a stick to beat Newcastle fans with, "Ungrateful Geordies boo old man Robson." It was nothing of the sort, but rather a knee jerk to a mind bendingly frustrating conclusion to the season. Yet another close but no cigar in a cup and the CL qualification was slipping away.  For a lot of supporters we'd been tantalised by success for ten years and bottled it every time on the final few laps. This one, a lot of long standing fans just seemed to snap.

 

In the end we scraped 5th with draws at Southampton and Liverpool but the rot for Bobby had well and truly set in. Looking back, a firm decision had to be made that summer, back the fella or sack him. Shepherd did neither, keeping him on but seemingly removing any power decisions from him. He also told him that next year would be his last; excellent motivational man management there Fred. That summer, Bobby said one thing and the club did another. "We don't need Nicky Butt when we've already got Hugo" Bobby said. Two weeks later, Butt had signed. It was a calamitous piece of dithering by Shepherd that only resulted in further unrest, a dismal start to 04/05 and a chain of events that would end up in the nightmare of the Souness era.

 

:thup:

[WarrenBartonCentrePartin]

I had my paper round back then.  Throughout the summer I'd go along the shop to pick up my batch of Chronicles and have a flick through the back page.  So infuriating week in, week out, to see names linked but only Bowyer to come in.

 

Unbelievable that the board were so reluctant to spend and allow us to kick on.

 

Another random memory from that was also rushing back from school for the Valerenga away game.  I'm sure it kicked off at something like 4pm.

[Guest BooBoo]

I had my paper round back then.  Throughout the summer I'd go along the shop to pick up my batch of Chronicles and have a flick through the back page.  So infuriating week in, week out, to see names linked but only Bowyer to come in.

 

Unbelievable that the board were so reluctant to spend and allow us to kick on.

 

Another random memory from that was also rushing back from school for the Valerenga away game.  I'm sure it kicked off at something like 4pm.

 

Aye it did, I was getting my hair cut during the first half and the barber had the game on the radio.

[SEMTEX]

Missed the Ambrose goal in that Southampton match cos I fucking stormed out of the bar when we went 3-2 down. Absolute fucking nightmare.

 

[Yorkie]

Valerenga was only my second time at SJP. Pants game but a great night on a personal note.

 

Norweigan fans absolutely pissed all over ours, n'all. No surprise considering we had to put up with Michael Bridges on the right-wing.

 

One of the most absolutely gut-wrenching moments of the 03/04 season was in the UEFA Cup. Marseille, but the home game. We had a free-kick which rebounded back to Speed who, seemingly, had the goal at his mercy. He took it first time and spooned it over the bar, where it seemed impossible for him to miss. Drogba absolutely smacked the post a few minutes later iirc, and then it became likely it might all be over for that run.

[Guest BooBoo]

I recall Bridges put one just past the post in injury time of the first leg. He never scored for us, shame really how injuries ruined what was a really promising career.

[Skeletor]

That Lua Lua goal against us .

 

You have to love that Gary Speed goal against PSV though. Proper proud moment that .

[Yorkie]

You have to love that Gary Speed goal against PSV though. Proper proud moment that .

 

"Oh good header!!"

 

Jon Champion, Newcastle's best ever commentator.

[The College Dropout]

Marseille where simply the better side over the two legs, close but Didier was the difference. We had a lot of injuries in both matches and just about edged it the home game but only got the draw.

 

Marseille were very disciplined and when Drogba scored the first you knew we where in trouble. IMO the team that played them over the 2 legs deserbed to get beat by a very solid side. The next year, when we outclassed Sporting for most of the tie would hurt more.

 

The end of SBR's reign was littered with arrogance from the players AND fans.

[ponsaelius]

Agree that Sporting was far more crushing. Never have I been so gutted.

 

Home and fucking hosed we were. And we had chances to kill it even further.

[Guest]

Don't care what anyone says, 03-04 was a terrible season. We went from 3rd, to scrapping with DO'L's Villa, Charlton and Fulham for large parts. 2 away wins all season was horrible. Of course on paper it looks good in the history books, but for the team we had it was poor IMO.

[Yorkie]

Aye, i bang on about Sporting all the time. Just absolutely devastating, mainly because (for some reason), i thought we had a really genuine shot at winning the competition.

[Skeletor]

Agree that Sporting was far more crushing. Never have I been so gutted.

 

Home and f***ing hosed we were. And we had chances to kill it even further.

 

That was definitely the defeat that made me wonder if I'd ever see us win any thing of significance.

[Yorkie]

Don't care what anyone says, 03-04 was a terrible season. We went from 3rd, to scrapping with DO'L's Villa, Charlton and Fulham for large parts. 2 away wins all season was horrible. Of course on paper it looks good in the history books, but for the team we had it was poor IMO.

 

It was hardly terrible, we just had too many draws (and, other than that, Otter's summed it up perfectly). We didn't hold onto enough leads, particularly away from home, typified by three draws in the last three games where we were in front on every occasion.

[Disco]

Missed the Ambrose goal in that Southampton match cos I fucking stormed out of the bar when we went 3-2 down. Absolute fucking nightmare.

 

 

Alan fucking Blayney made some ridiculous saves in the game. Bald cunt. Was gutted after that IIRC that was when CL slipped from our hands, fairly certain I had an argument with someone in the pub after this game too, was not in a good mood.

 

Was my first year at uni and I remember always having to ask the pub to put the football on for me, remember having to drag any old fucker to come and watch the European games with me and the pub being totally empty when the Valerenga game was on.

 

Also RE: Partizan, their no.2 Nadj was absolutely fucking amazing that game, still one of the best opposing performances I've seen.

[WarrenBartonCentrePartin]

Right, I'm going to do the glorious season that was 2002/03 from my perspective.

 

We were in the Champions League, pending a two-legged qualifier against Željezničar from Bosnia.  We did the business over there, getting a 1-0 win courtesy of Kieron Dyer.  IIRC there was no coverage of the game on TV and we were left to some awful grainy Metro commentary.  We brought in Titus Bramble from Ipswich and also a youngster by the name of Hugo Viana from Sporting Lisbon.  We failed to agree terms with Sylvain Distin who we'd had on loan towards the end of the previous season.  In the second leg, we cruised to a comfortable 4-0 win.  Dyer and LuaLua scoring before a peach from Viana and Shearer getting the fourth late on.

 

In the opening game, whereby I was on a plane to Lanzarote and didn't find out the score until the following morning, we battered West Ham 4-nowt before losing 1-0 to Man City on our last trip to Maine Road.  In Lanzarote airport waiting for the plane home I watched us fight back from 2-0 at Anfield to earn a credible 2-2 draw.  It appeared that the spirit from the season before was still in the squad.  However we slipped up at home to Leeds and had the usual defeat at Chelsea.  After that was our opening CL group game away at Dynamo Kiev.  This was a time when ITV Digital was 'king'.  The game was shown on the ITV News Channel, which barely anybody had.  I watched the first half through a pub window before managing to actually get inside at HT when it emptied as peopole went for a tab.  We lost 2-0 and Shearer and Bellamy both got suspensions following 'altercations' with Kiev players.  We returned to league action to face the mackems who had had a shit start to the season under Monkey's Heed.  83 seconds in and we were 1-0 up thanks to Bellamy, with a bandaged Shearer adding a second later in the first half.  Our league form continued towards Christmas with us winning nearly all our home games but often coming unstuck away from home, conceding 5 at both  Blackburn and Man Utd.

 

During that time we also lost our opening home CL game against Feyenoord and were undone by my boyhood hero Del Piero at the delle Alpi.  However in the return game we got an unlikely win against Juventus thanks to the unlikely figure of Andy Griffin, although some called it a Buffon OG.  Griffin then followed it up with an absolute screamer at home to Charlton.  We went into the final round of games needing a win against Feyenoord to become the first team to qualify having lost our first three games.  We all know what happened so I won't go into too much detail.  I went mental, I'm guessing you went mental.

 

All the while the folks down the road were busy becoming the worst team the PL had seen.  Regularly we'd go into school following CL exploits the night before (especially after Feyenoord) grinning about where our club was going and how much fun it all was while the mackems at school whinged on about Tore Andre Flo and Kevin Kyle's inability to kick a football properly.

 

As the second group stage of the CL started (an utterly stupid concept which thankfully was scrapped) we faced the mighty Inter Milan at home.  Disaster.  We were 1-0 down after 2 minutes and Bellamy lashed out at serial wind-up merchant Marco Materazzi and was sent off 6 minutes in.  Shearer was later suspended for lashing out.  We'd again have to perform miracles with Shola and LuaLua up front.  We lost 3-1 in the Nou Camp, a game which was postponed for 24 hours due to a torrential downpour.  Shola scored for us.

 

We began 2003 with a 1-0 win over the bindippers, Robert smashing in a free kick at the Leazes End before crashing out to Division One side Wolves in the FA Cup 3-2.  We had fought back from 2-0 down to 2-2.  At the end of the game, a rather incensed Craig Bellamy pointed to the PL badge on his sleeve and mouthed 'thats what its all about' to the Sky cameras.  January passed with names being linked, one being the Brazilian Kleberson, who ended up at Manchester United.  However, we strengthened our defence with the signing of the classy Jonathan Woodgate.  A snip at £9m.  The unwashed attempted to save their season by bringing in world-renowned Talal El-Karkouri.

 

The unbelievable also happened in February.  We went to Germany and battered Leverkusen (who were battling relegation in the Bundesliga) 3-1 in their own back yard.  LuaLua and Ameobi were sublime with the latter getting a brace.  In the return fixture, we had Shearer back.  We won 3-1 again and he got a hat-trick.  Shay Given also saved a weak Oliver Neuville penalty.

 

Injuries meant that Woody didn't make his debut until a home game against Chelsea in early March.  It was then we saw the quality of player we had on our books.  Early on Jesper Gronkjaer tore down the right, approaching the edge of our 18 yard box.  Woody came over in front of the Gallowgate, quick as a flash taking both ball and man cleanly.  Everyone in SJP stood up to applause a superb piece of defending.

 

10,000 Geordies also make the trip over to Milan to see us twice take the lead thanks to Shearer in the San Siro.  We came back with our heads held high following a 2-2 draw before losing 2-0 at home to Barcelona.  An improvement on the 3-0 loss we suffered pre-season!  With sunderland somehow managing to get shitter by the week and under the guidance of 'Sargeant' Howard Wilkinson, the phrase "Have you ever seen a mackem in Milan?" was invented. 

 

We avenged the earlier 5-2 humping at Ewood Park by spanking Blackburn 5-1 at SJP, Bellamy in particular scoring a delightful goal, sweeping the ball in first time after a cross from the left.  We also lost 2-1 at Everton when a goal was scored following a horrific tackle by Thomas Gravesen which left Olly Bernard in a crumpled heap.  Useless wanker Neale Barry didn't do anything.

 

We were rather embarrassingly spanked 6-2 at home to Manchester United despite taking the lead through a Jermaine Jenas screamer.  Paul Scholes got a hat-trick.  We lost 2-1 at Fulham before beating the now-relegated mackems, led by Mick McCarthy 1-0 on their own patch.  Nobby scored a penalty and Craig Bellamy missed a tonne of chances.  They thought they'd got something late on, Kevin Kyle scoring, turning towards a mass of perma-gravy stained red and white shirts only to discover it had been disallowed.  We took "Lets all laugh at sunderland" cards and sung Vera Lynn's WWII classic while mocking their sorry slide into the First Division.

 

Hugo scored a peach of a free-kick at home to Birmingham in a 1-0 win before following it up at the Hawthorns as we finished the campaign with a 2-2 draw against already-relegated WBA.

 

We finished third, while Chelsea and Liverpool scrapped it out for fourth on the final day.  We had qualified for the Champions League for the second year running.  There was a buzz about the club as we anticipated a summer of further incomings and looking to strengthen further...

 

 

[SEMTEX]

Missed the Ambrose goal in that Southampton match cos I fucking stormed out of the bar when we went 3-2 down. Absolute fucking nightmare.

 

 

Alan fucking Blayney made some ridiculous saves in the game. Bald cunt. Was gutted after that IIRC that was when CL slipped from our hands, fairly certain I had an argument with someone in the pub after this game too, was not in a good mood.

 

Was my first year at uni and I remember always having to ask the pub to put the football on for me, remember having to drag any old fucker to come and watch the European games with me and the pub being totally empty when the Valerenga game was on.

 

Also RE: Partizan, their no.2 Nadj was absolutely fucking amazing that game, still one of the best opposing performances I've seen.

 

I was in a similar situation, forced mates to go watch the Southampton game in the Manchester Students Union (the ex UMIST one). One of the mates was a Liverpool fan too. If we had won that game, we'd still have a chance going into the last game vs Liverpool, who were our rivals for 4th. He wasn't a scouse, so he wasn't actually all that difficult to watch it with, thankfully.

 

That storming off moment though, just complete fucking red mist, walking back to my halls on my tod, wanting to kill everything in sight. Fucking Leandre Griffit, can't even get on the Toronto FC bench nowadays man.

[Guest BooBoo]

02/03 was class. Went to Juve, Leverkusen and Milan. All absolutely brilliant adventures.

[TheGuv]

 

 

We avenged the earlier 5-2 humping at Ewood Park by spanking Blackburn 5-1 at SJP, Bellamy in particular scoring a delightful goal, sweeping the ball in first time after a cross from the left.  We also lost 2-1 at Everton when a goal was scored following a horrific tackle by Thomas Gravesen which left Olly Bernard in a crumpled heap.  Useless w***** Neale Barry didn't do anything.

 

We were rather embarrassingly spanked 6-2 at home to Manchester United despite taking the lead through a Jermaine Jenas screamer.  Paul Scholes got a hat-trick.  We lost 2-1 at Fulham before beating the now-relegated mackems, led by Mick McCarthy 1-0 on their own patch.  Nobby scored a penalty and Craig Bellamy missed a tonne of chances.  They thought they'd got something late on, Kevin Kyle scoring, turning towards a mass of perma-gravy stained red and white shirts only to discover it had been disallowed.  We took "Lets all laugh at sunderland" cards and sung Vera Lynn's WWII classic while mocking their sorry slide into the First Division.

 

Hugo scored a peach of a free-kick at home to Birmingham in a 1-0 win before following it up at the Hawthorns as we finished the campaign with a 2-2 draw against already-relegated WBA.

 

We finished third, while Chelsea and Liverpool scrapped it out for fourth on the final day.  We had qualified for the Champions League for the second year running.  There was a buzz about the club as we anticipated a summer of further incomings and looking to strengthen further...

 

 

 

For me this was when the rot set in, NOT the Partizan game.

 

It all began going wrong from here, we were 1-0 up crusing, then Everton should have had a player sent off, and then they scored.

 

We never ever recovered from this game IMO, and it set the downward spiral for the following season, leading to Bpbby being sacked and the rest is history.

 

Remember we were still going for the title at this stage, and we just began to crumble. Annoying

 

[Tooj]

I keep on saying it but Billy Furious summed up the 03/04 season and the end of Robson's reign to perfection.

[WarrenBartonCentrePartin]

Nar Robert's goal was an equaliser.

[Guest BooBoo]

What compounded it was it was a clear foul and potential red card for Gravesen, Everton broke and were gifted the softest penalty. Just a horrible two minutes of refereeing.