GUEST BLOG - Howard Linskey

Lifelong Toon fan and best-selling crime novelist Howard Linskey talks about his experiences following his beloved club.

I don’t recall exactly how old I was when I became a Newcastle fan but I was definitely one by the age of six. That was back in 1973 and I remember being really narked when Sunderland won the FA Cup that year and even more upset when we lost the final in 1974.

I grew up idolising that seventies team, which included the legendary Supermac, Terry Hibbitt, John Tudor, Frank Clark, Willie McFaul and Bob Moncur and though they never won anything, they came close. Twice my uncle Neil went to Wembley to watch them lose in cup finals and both times he brought me back the match programmes. I have still got them.

Unfortunately for me, my dad was just about the only man in the north-east who didn’t like football. He was also completely convinced that if you went to watch a football match in the seventies you would be beaten up by hooligans, so taking me or letting me go to a game with Uncle Neil was a non-starter. It wasn’t until 1983, when I finally got my first glimpse of the hallowed pitch and experienced that unforgettable atmosphere at St James Park. My first game was against Bolton Wanderers and it was a typical Toon display. Trailing one-nil until the 89th minute, when Mick ‘Zico’ Martin equalised, we proceeded to throw away that hard fought equaliser in less than a minute when Bolton scored again. Thankfully, Chris Waddle managed to smash home a second equaliser (probably in frustration) just moments later and the place erupted. My first game saw three goals scored in just over ninety seconds. A perfect warning of the roller coaster experience of being a Newcastle fan from then on.

I was hooked and spent most of the next two years getting to as many home games as possible, culminating in that wonderful 3-1 defeat of Brighton when Keegan, Beardsley and Waddle all scored and we were promoted to the top division.

The doldrums of the eighties, where anyone with an ounce of flair; including Waddle and Beardsley, and Gazza too of course, were all sold to the highest bidder, predictably achieved nothing but relegation. I was living away from the north-east by then and watched Newcastle all over the country, becoming very familiar with grounds at Barnsley, Bradford, Oldham, Swindon, Oxford, Tranmere and Peterborough to name a few. I even went to non-league Bath’s City’s Twerton Park to see us play Bristol Rovers, because Bristol City fans had burned their ground down.

I spent four of those years writing for the Newcastle United fanzine ‘The Mag’, who were the first people to publish me. I doubt I would have gone on to write so many books if they hadn’t been around, to give me an early chance to write whatever was on my mind where Newcastle United was concerned. I still read ‘The Mag’ every day online and check the Chronicle too for transfer rumours. I also amuse myself by naming characters after Newcastle players who were sort-of-legends but who hardly anyone else has heard of outside of Tyneside, which is while you will find a Wharton and an Anderson in my books.

The recurring main character in my nineties-set crime fiction series for Penguin, is Tom Carney, in tribute to our late centre back Steve, an uncompromising battler who embodied the spirit of the terraces in the eighties.

In the nineties, we had the wonderful Keegan management era and, after the annoying Dalglish and arrogant Gullit had departed, the Robson years, which were almost as good. Watching Shearer, Ferdinand, Lee, Beardsley, Ginola, Given, Solano and Robert in those years almost made up for not winning anything, and yes I was at those two FA Cup Finals, the FA Cup semi Final and even the bloody Charity Shield at Wembley, when we all got drenched on the way out after a drubbing.

My all-time favourite games were of course the 5-0 stuffing of Man United and the 5-1 thumping of Sunderland. Bramble getting sent off for the Mackems was a Brucey-bonus and far and away my favourite memory of him to be honest.

As for the fourteen years of torture we endured under Mike Ashley, all I can say is my hatred for that bloke, who never understood the team, club, fans, city or region, or even bothered to try, knows no bounds. I have no time for Steve Bruce either, who seemed to be the polar opposite of Rafa, in terms of planning, training, match fitness and tactics (were any of those basic things evident while he was here?). He was always quick to snipe at the fans too, despite being such a ‘great guy’, according to all of his pundit mates.

Amanda and Mehrdad have been an absolute breath of fresh air. I get the human rights argument but I won’t stop supporting Newcastle United because of it. It is made nonsensical by Russian and Chinese club owners or sponsorship money from oligarchs and dodgy overseas companies, which has poured into the Premier League for years. Anyway, if

Newcastle fans could control who owned us or where the money came from, we’d have kicked Mike Ashley out years ago.

I had pretty high expectations of Eddie Howe and he has exceeded them, turning players that Bruce could get nothing out of into excellent Premier League footballers. He has transformed this team and it is a joy to watch us winning matches and going unbeaten for so long, as we clawed our way out of the relegation zone. He seems like a top man too and I can’t wait to see where he will take us.

It feels like a great time to be a Newcastle fan. Even writing that sentence would have seemed ridiculous a few months ago. The actions of other Premier League clubs, especially the self-styled Big-Six, in trying to stop us from getting sponsors or buying top players speaks volumes. They are scared of Newcastle United and they should be.