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James

by James
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Tsunami

Tsunami

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RIP, got us into Europe and a League Cup Final but he sold Super Mac and walked out on us. Didn’t like him as our manager, got a tune out of some average players and set us up for relegation a couple of years later.

 

Steve Hardwick was a terrible keeper and John Bird and Graeme Oates were woeful. Gowling was a plodder but I did like Micky Burns. 

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Wild Geese

Wild Geese

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I remember someone in the crowd shouting at Gowling and telling him he was useless….

 

Another supporter telt him to shut up, Gowling is good in the air……

 

The first supporter replied ………So was Douglas Bader but he was no fucking good on the ground ;D

 

 

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Thiago

Thiago

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50 minutes ago, Wild Geese said:

I remember someone in the crowd shouting at Gowling and telling him he was useless….

 

Another supporter telt him to shut up, Gowling is good in the air……

 

The first supporter replied ………So was Douglas Bader but he was no fucking good on the ground ;D

 

 

:lol:

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Cronky

Cronky

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12 hours ago, wyn davies said:

Walked out on us prior to an FA Cup match , to go to Everton , Dinnis took over and was given the job properly the following season, then all went pearshaped

 

Yeah, those were bad times. It ushered in those 6 seasons in Division 2, which were the poorest in my time of supporting the club.

 

I've never read a clear, inside account about what happened with Dinnis. When Lee went, the players insisted that Dinnis should stay and went in open revolt against the Board. They won the battle, and Dinnis took us to 5th place. I think there was then further discontent in the ranks,  we ended up in a relegation fight, Dinnis got sacked and we went down. It was a very costly period of turmoil. 

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Guest

Guest

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1 hour ago, Cronky said:

 

Yeah, those were bad times. It ushered in those 6 seasons in Division 2, which were the poorest in my time of supporting the club.

 

I've never read a clear, inside account about what happened with Dinnis. When Lee went, the players insisted that Dinnis should stay and went in open revolt against the Board. They won the battle, and Dinnis took us to 5th place. I think there was then further discontent in the ranks,  we ended up in a relegation fight, Dinnis got sacked and we went down. It was a very costly period of turmoil. 

I hope to have a diary of the 1977/78 season ready soon - not an inside story , but one based on the reports of the time

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Guest HTT II

Guest HTT II

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From Gavin Webster:

 

Quote

Former NUFC manager Gordon Lee passed away today aged 87. He was the replacement for Joe Harvey in 1975 after Joe was moved upstairs by the board and chief coach Keth Burkinshaw was sacked. This was after a bit of an anti climactic season where 1974 FA Cup finalists Newcastle finished 15th in the First Division for the second season running, hit no sort of league form at all and had been dumped out of the League Cup by lowly Chester and in the FA Cup at Walsall.
 

There was an appetite for change especially with some sections of the fans chanting 'Harvey Out' and a general mood of discontenment in the air. It was between Lee and Plymouth manager Tony Waiters to get the big job on Barrack Road as the board wanted to go down the route of the 'track suit' manager which was becoming very popular at the time, basically someone who would work with the team all week as a coach then the manager on the Saturday. 

 

Lee, a former defender and League Cup winner with Aston Villa had tasted a bit of success with Port Vale getting them promoted out of the 4th Division and Blackburn Rovers in 74-75 where they won the 3rd Division title. He was welcomed by former manager Harvey in June 1975 and set about putting his own stamp on the team.

 

It was clear though that his style was in marked contrast to Harvey's latter years in the hot seat, the well publicised dislike of stars and oddly flair in his own team and while some managers like Kevin Keegan and Bobby Robson liked to get the players unified and avoid cliques emerging within the first team squad, Lee according to legendary Chronicle journalist John Gibson 'positively encouraged them with the likes of Macdonald, Howard, Hibbitt etc. at the back of the team bus with the Sun and the Mirror and the playing cards and Burns, Nulty, Gowling and Craig (Tommy) at the front alongside Lee with the Guardian and The Times Crossword'.

 

From early on Lee was on a collision course with Terry Hibbitt and sold him to Birmingham after a midweek game at Derby County, as Terry McDermott had already been sold by Harvey and Jinky Jimmy Smith also ending his career with injury the new United were looking very different to the old one not only in personnel but in the style of football. The new efficient style ushered in wasn't seen as exciting by supporters and times were changing at NE1.  

 

However in his first season the team began scoring lots more goals and Lee's only addition to the front line Alan Gowling, after a bad start began weighing in with lots of notches not least his 14 in the League Cup, to date the Mags' only good run in the competition which took them all the way to the final. After a narrow 1-0 defeat at White Hart Lane in the January in the semi final first leg, a week later at a highly charged St James's Park the Toon battered Tottenham into submission and got to the final 3-2 on aggregate. It's still regarded as one of the great nights at Gallowgate.

 

Typical bastard luck came the way of Newcastle as is always the thing, a flu bug and injury crisis swept through the team on the week of the final and there was a doubt that the game would actually be played however it was and United made a better fist of a Wembley final than they ever have in almost 70 years going down 2-1, only losing to a celebrated second half bicycle kick by Walker born, Newcastle fan and former Sunderland FA Cup winner Dennis Tuert! There was also an FA Cup run to the quarter final at the same time but injuries saw to it that The Mags fell at The Baseball Ground 4-2.

 

That summer Malcolm Macdonald was sold for £333,333.33 and it appears that history and Geordie folklore has decided that Gordon Lee was solely to blame for that not the board of directors through their lack of ambition or Malcolm himself wanting to leave the club and return to London. Lee has said in interviews afterwards that if the board wanted to sell him to do it now because he felt that he didn't have long left in the game due to his nagging knee injuries. As it happens Supermac played two full seasons for Arsenal scoring freely but hardly played at all in the 78-79 season and ended his career due to his long term knee complaint aged just 29.

 

There was a lot of talk as to who Lee would buy as a replacement or indeed in what part of the team Lee would spend the third of a million pound windfall from the Macdonald sale he was promised. As it turned out there was no money put aside for him and this surely had something to do with his sudden departure to Everton on 30th January 1977 just before an FA Cup match against Manchester City.

 

By this point the Toon were sitting in the top 5 and looking like dark horses for the league title, Gowling was joined up front by Paul Cannell, previously a habitual fringe player and Micky Burns converted from a winger to a centre forward and he became as much of a legendary number 9 as there ever had been. In the 76-77 season that unlikely holy trinity of strikers scored 45 between them and despite a slump at the very end of the season Newcastle finished 5th and qualified for the UEFA Cup. Lee by that time was at Everton and had lead them to a League Cup final that they lost after a replay to Aston Villa. Although he took the Toffees to some high league placings and two more Cup semi finals, he wasn't able to bring a trophy to Goodison Park either despite coming close as he did at NUFC.

 

He later worked in Iceland and returned to the UK to take temporary charge of Leicester City and anyone that was at the game in 1991 between Newcastle and Leicester can testify that with time running out on the clock and Newcastle winning 2-1, a quick throw in was needed to be taken, Lee dashed out of the dug out to throw it to his player whereupon he was greeted with pantomime dogs abuse from the crowd! To be fair he waved back .

 

Gordon Francis Lee 13th July 1934-8th March 2002

 

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Guest HTT II

Guest HTT II

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29 minutes ago, Unbelievable said:

 

Great player in an amazing Colombia squad in the nineties. Shame it all had to end so tragically. RIP

This, RIP!

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Conjo

Conjo

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"most caring and amazing football agent that ever was"

"Minos's mission of making football a better place for players"

 

Would rather he had retired obviously, but can't help but feel football is better off without him.

 

 

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Guest HTT II

Guest HTT II

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To be fair, his job is looking out for his clients and maximising their earning potential and he did that and was handsomely paid himself for his role. I despise agents or rather the practice of agents and agencies and how much money gets taken out of the game, but if that’s his shtick, he was very good at it…

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