What if...? Biggest Sliding Doors Moments for NUFC

[mighty__mag]

16 hours ago, Rafalove said:

 

 

Hamman, Solano? Even Barnes was good for a season. Not to mention he brought the academy back. Among NUFC managers I rank him comfortably in the middle( maybe sixth?). Going off wiki, he sold

for more than he bought so maybe the cash was starting to dry up.

 

Destroyed everything for me, even when Keegan sold Cole he had a replacement lined up, Hamman and Solano came late, but he was buying all kinds of crap, he could simply have consolidated all the poor purchases into one or two solid ones at the time, and held onto everything we had. We were nearly there in terms of quality, he did a total demolition job on Keegans era.

 

Never was a fan, and unlike you,  I didn't rate him.

 

Each to their own though.

[mighty__mag]

15 hours ago, Collage said:

I thought the club was in financial trouble and that Les and Ginola were sold by the club, Dalglish had little to do with it? No one in their right mind replace David Ginola with Temuri Ketsbaia. Of course he later signed Nobby.

 

Edit: Make no mistake, Dalglish destroyed a classic team. Just thought his hands were tied, just a little bit.

 

 

 

 

As above, without knowledge or the Hall's/Shepherd, Dalglish himself to clarify, many thought he was envious of what Keegan was doing and basically said were doing it my way. He didn't want Keegans side, and he wanted it all his way.

 

Only the casual gossip at the time.

 

[Kanj]

Kenny Gets rid of Ginola, who then promptly lights it up at Spurs. 

[timeEd32]

12 hours ago, Jonas said:

95/96 is littered with them. 

Hislop getting injured at Chelsea and them scoring immediately, think a quickly taken freekick or something was afoot. December and our second defeat in all comps.

 

Think it'll be that season for me because even with a good replacement for Sir Bobby we weren't breaking past Man U or Arsenal or even newly minted Chelsea then but could have prevented Man U dominating and Arsenals foothold if we take their CL money in 96.

 

Then any appointment bar Keegan and none of that would matter.

 

 

 

 

Yup, changing anything in the SBR years may have kept NUFC above Spurs, Ashley out, etc. But the Keegan years and immediately following is a crossroads that could have led to NUFC being one of the giants.

[Paully]

5 hours ago, Pancrate1892 said:

People might not remember this one, but Phillip Neville's horrendous tackle on Gillespie at old trafford during the 1995/96 season when we were unstoppable at the time. 

Gillespie went off and was injured for most of the season. 

We lost the game and the balance in the team. Not only did we blow the league after then, Gillespie, who looked like one of the most promising youngsters in the world then, turned to gambling and although flash moments like Barca, was never the same 

 

Great shout this - blatant red that was - twat!

[Yorkie]

Was Graham Fenton's late goals a big one or had the league already slipped by then?

[Paully]

11 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

Was Graham Fenton's late goals a big one or had the league already slipped by then?

 

If we'd won, we'd have been two points behind not five so more pressure plus they lost the following week so we'd have gone top as we won but obvs everything changes - they might have took their foot off the gas slightly with being five points ahead with three games left but who knows!

[Jackie Broon]

On the pitch, definitely Fenton. Off the pitch, the decision to float the club on the stock market.

[Pancrate1892]

1 hour ago, Yorkie said:

Was Graham Fenton's late goals a big one or had the league already slipped by then?

It would have swung back our way if we'd won. What's worse, against forest away ferdinand crashed a header against the bar just before woan scored 

[TRon]

13 hours ago, Pata said:

I say Souness. Didn't take him long to erase all the progress we made during SBR's reign, fucking brain dead appointment. Last season was the first one where I felt we had finally recovered from that but what's 20 years anyway.

 

 

 

 

Souness was everything that was wrong with football owners at the time. To have gone from a proven world class manager in SBR to a glorified former footballer who had no idea wasn't unusual back then. It was all done on a whim, or if you were Shepherd, after a hard night partying.

[Menace]

I have genuinely no recollection of Joe Kinnear's time at the club, all I can remember is him saying he has a contract extension on his table waiting to be signed, and the infamous radio interview... what an era we have been through

[Yorkie]

18 minutes ago, Menace said:

I have genuinely no recollection of Joe Kinnear's time at the club, all I can remember is him saying he has a contract extension on his table waiting to be signed, and the infamous radio interview... what an era we have been through

 

Cameras picking up that he was asleep during the Stoke 5-1 game was another highlight. He was the Director of Football at the time. 

[HaydnNUFC]

Going down in 2016. Do often wonder what the Ashley-Benitez dynamic would've been had we not gone down. Would Townsend, Wijnaldum, Sissoko et al all left had we stayed up and had Benitez in charge when his stock was considerably higher than it is now? Much of the Championship squad in 2016-17 wouldn't have been signed either, so we wouldn't have been/still be lumped with them as long as we were.

 

 

Edited March 1 by HaydnNUFC

[Hovagod]

1 hour ago, Pancrate1892 said:

It would have swung back our way if we'd won. What's worse, against forest away ferdinand crashed a header against the bar just before woan scored 

If we had beaten Forest, we would have still needed Boro to get something on the Sunday wouldn’t we? That was never happening 

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Yorkie said:

Was Graham Fenton's late goals a big one or had the league already slipped by then?

 

Lost the league by 4, so if we'd won we'd have been playing Spurs to win the title rather than needing a Man U slip-up at Boro.

[geordiesteve710]

Castle Leazes stadium being turned down feels like a big one, back in an era when gates receipts from non-corporate seats made up a much bigger proportion of a football club's overall revenue. But as someone has said above, there is the likelihood that it would already be outdated now.

 

The biggest sliding door moment for me was Abramovich buying Chelsea. That doesn't happen and Newcastle would finish top 4 in 2003/4 at the point when the four teams that did were able to pull the ladder up and put distance between themselves for a good 8 years. Would also mean no Souness fucking us up financially and maybe no Ashley, who knows.

 

Chelsea would have been absolutely fucked for a long time as well, their finances were a complete mess at the time.

 

 

Edited March 1 by geordiesteve710

[bigfella]

13 minutes ago, Optimistic Nut said:

 

Lost the league by 4, so if we'd won we'd have been playing Spurs to win the title rather than needing a Man U slip-up at Boro.

 

Yep. And IIRC, Man U went two up in the first quarter of an hour against Boro and the news went round our game instantly, completely flattening the atmosphere and the team.

We would have murdered Spurs if we'd just have needed to win our game to take the title.

[TheBrownBottle]

3 hours ago, Yorkie said:

Was Graham Fenton's late goals a big one or had the league already slipped by then?

 

20 minutes ago, Optimistic Nut said:

 

Lost the league by 4, so if we'd won we'd have been playing Spurs to win the title rather than needing a Man U slip-up at Boro.

 

3 minutes ago, bigfella said:

 

Yep. And IIRC, Man U went two up in the first quarter of an hour against Boro and the news went round our game instantly, completely flattening the atmosphere and the team.

We would have murdered Spurs if we'd just have needed to win our game to take the title.

We win the title if we hang on at Blackburn.  We would’ve smashed a mid table Spurs side last day.  The atmosphere at SJP when Man Utd scored at Boro was the most surreal I’ve experienced in a stadium; you could feel the waves of nausea - like being on a packed ferry in choppy seas

[Jonas]

3 hours ago, Yorkie said:

Was Graham Fenton's late goals a big one or had the league already slipped by then?

I thought we were going to win the league when we lead, certainly Sung as much, so must have been on.

Can't remember what the actual standings were at that time.

Guess it was because it was our hardest game imho of the time.

 

Alan Hansen said that night we played "probably the best football' he'd ever seen in this country "but" and it made me feel so peculiar.

 

 

Edited March 1 by Jonas

[Shays Given Tim Flowers]

Beating City in the FA Cup might be a big sliding doors moment. 

[Jonas]

49 minutes ago, Hovagod said:

If we had beaten Forest, we would have still needed Boro to get something on the Sunday wouldn’t we? That was never happening 

Think it was goals difference, if we beat Leeds and Forest by enough it was in our hands, possibly hence the equaliser - ironically because Man U fan and Forest keeper chucked them in the previous Sunday.

 

Scars are still fresh at my end apparently.

[Beth]

On 29/02/2024 at 14:25, TwoForJoy said:

Beating Man Utd on the 4th March 1996

This, easily. We should have been at least 2 up at H/T but it just wasn't meant to be. If we had won that game we undoubtedly would have went on to win the title and probably several more due to the momentum/prestige factor attracting the best players that summer (other than Shearer of course).

[Pancrate1892]

1 hour ago, Hovagod said:

If we had beaten Forest, we would have still needed Boro to get something on the Sunday wouldn’t we? That was never happening 

They won by 4 points in the end, if we assume we'd had our tails up and beat spurs (Newcastle could have scored about ten seconds half) it would have went to goal difference which I'd assume theirs was better?

Even so, it might have put them under pressure instead of all the pressure on us 

[Wolfcastle]

Dalglish made a net loss of 11m in transfers and spent 33m in 19month.

 

Not sure about money drying up.

 

Keegan paid for Ginola, Huckerby, Hislop, Barton and Ferdinand with Cole, Nielson, Mathie, Venison, Fox, Sellars and others and moved us forward.

 

In 97/98 Wenger took Arsenal past us (and everybody else) spending the same amount as Dalglish (17m)

[TheBrownBottle]

10 hours ago, Wolfcastle said:

Dalglish made a net loss of 11m in transfers and spent 33m in 19month.

 

Not sure about money drying up.

 

Keegan paid for Ginola, Huckerby, Hislop, Barton and Ferdinand with Cole, Nielson, Mathie, Venison, Fox, Sellars and others and moved us forward.

 

In 97/98 Wenger took Arsenal past us (and everybody else) spending the same amount as Dalglish (17m)

Some of Wenger’s buys changed English football mind.  Anelka for £500k was unreal.  So was paying 10% of what we paid for Bramble for Kolo Toure in the same summer (the big money we wasted in that period is piss-boiling tbh)