Hope, nerves and crushing inevitability: Watching Manchester United ruin Newcastle's season (2024)

We meet at Shearer’s Bar, because we have to really, charging our glasses and clutching our one-upmanship.

It is Saturday at 2.30pm and, for the first time in a quarter of a century, Newcastle United have an active stake in an FA Cup final, albeit not quite the one we dream of. We are 272 miles (437km) from Wembley Stadium, the merest of metres from the centre-circle at St James’ Park and this season of extremes, this season of lingering, has one more act to play out.

Today, we recoil from the word “United”. Today, we are on loan to Manchester City, black and white and black and blue (in more ways than one, it turns out). We share an antipathy for Manchester United and if City’s is based on geography and history and eminently understandable, ours… well… ours is slightly less easy to define. Put simply, we owe them one. Put swearily, we owe them f***ing millions, the b*****ds.

There are specifics, too. Newcastle have finished above Manchester United this season, unparalleled in the Premier League, seventh to their eighth. In the grand scheme of things, this may not read like a towering achievement but symbolically, it means something (to us). And after a season scarred by injury (for both clubs), seventh is worth a place in the Europa Conference League, unless — and here is the stinger — Manchester United beat their local rivals today in north-west London.

On form, this outcome is unlikely. On fate, it is inevitable. City are supreme, unbeaten in 35 fixtures in all competitions, if you include the draw against Real Madrid in the Champions League (when they went out on penalties). Over two league games against Manchester United in the Premier League this season, the aggregate score is 6-1 to City. On the other hand, if Newcastle become City, then they become us. And we are Newcastle United, and we know how this ends.

Charlotte Robson is here, a podcaster with true faith. So, too, is @NUFCThreatLevel, a human man — not the man “who punched the horse”, as he says on his bio on X — but more than that we are not permitted to say, for reasons of national security and international mystery. We are having a co*ke Zero and a beer and a plate of chips in this shrine to Alan Shearer, the man who famously turned down Manchester United. Nothing can go wrong. Nothing, apart from everything.

We start with a few generalities about the season: “Injuries, chaos, highs and lows,” Charlotte says; “injuries and learning,” says ThreatLevel. “Just finding out what Newcastle can actually be.” “Hopefully Man U will lose spectacularly today and we do have European football — I don’t think you could say we haven’t enjoyed that,” says Charlotte. “There’s been no real regression,” ThreatLevel says. “I’ve enjoyed us acting and being a big club again.”

To recap those highs: smashing Aston Villa 5-1 on the opening day, a return to the Champions League after 20 years, 4-1 at home to Paris Saint-Germain and a vertiginous peak, wins over both Manchester clubs in the Carabao Cup, Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea and Sunderland in the FA Cup. The lows: awful defeats at Bournemouth and Brighton, at Luton and Everton, to Nottingham Forest at home. Late concessions. Those 11 blasted league losses away from home.

Our feelings towards Manchester United are not neutral. “Una-dult-erated loath-ing,” Charlotte sings with some feeling. “My dad will only refer to them as ‘The Red Sc*m’ and that’s been ingrained in me, even though we haven’t been any kind of competition for them in decades. I just don’t like them. It’s really disappointing that, although we’ve finished above them this season, it’s only on goal difference, because they’ve been so s**t and so messy. They’re so annoying.”

“Manchester United just always seem to turn up,” ThreatLevel says. “They’re like Newcastle United’s end-of-level boss. Somehow, they’re always the final hurdle that we have to overcome. I feel optimistic today only because it’s a cup final Newcastle have an interest in and Newcastle aren’t playing. We’ve sent a proxy team out, and it’s one hell of a team. If you’re going to send any team out to get Newcastle a victory in a cup final, it’s Man City.”

Shearer’s is now rammed, punters staring at the screens where the actual Shearer is doing punditry and co-commentary for the BBC, which is quite a meta experience. The referee blows. ThreatLevel, who tells us he is wearing sky blue socks, shouts: “Howay, Newcastle! Howay, Finland on a Thursday night!”

Why always them? Right from the start (the start, in this instance, being the inception of the Premier League), Manchester United have just been there, the team to beat and, more often than not, be beaten by.

When Newcastle were promoted in 1993, Kevin Keegan immediately set his sights on Sir Alex Ferguson, writing in his programme notes, “we will be after your title”. They came pretty close.

Decades removed, Keegan’s ambition still feels audacious, although Manchester United were in everybody’s sights back then. They were so bloody good, so bloody dominant, so adept at winning and then shape-shifting, constantly reinventing themselves under Ferguson. But we were good, too. Newcastle came up and then finished third and then finished sixth and then in 1995-96, that b******, beautiful heartbreaker, we led and then bled.

Manchester United scented our blood. They were pitiless. We had Les Ferdinand and David Ginola, Philippe Albert and Rob Lee, we won or lost with reckless adventure. We were The Entertainers, but they were The Snipers, Eric Cantona and Peter Schmeichel picking us off. They had mastery and Ferguson’s mind games, we had Keegan’s addled, doomed, “Love it if we beat them,” diatribe on Sky Sports and even as we lost, we loved with ferocity.

Rolling into that summer, Keegan beat Ferguson to Shearer, whose £15million transfer from Blackburn Rovers was a world record and a moment which, even now, both sets of supporters sing about; “Shearer turned you down,” and “Cheer up, Alan Shearer.” In the Charity (now Community) Shield at the start of the following season, Newcastle lost 4-0 and Shearer was wondering “What the f*** have I done?”, but there was a glorious response that October at a giddy St James’: Newcastle 5 Manchester United 0. Or Howay 5-Oh as the commemorative DVD was titled.

“They were our nemesis, our rival,” Shearer tells The Athletic. “It was because of ’95-96 and Newcastle throwing that lead away, Kevin’s rant, Manchester United coming back from the dead and then me coming home instead of to them, as it was perceived; then the Charity Shield; beating them by five. When you put all that into the pot, hate isn’t the right word, but there was everything else in there. Jealousy, dislike. All for the right reasons.”

Truth be told, it was always a one-way rivalry — they had other clubs and grudges to worry about: Leeds United, Arsenal and Liverpool — but Manchester United became lodged in our psyche and have never really been removed. “Their fans would probably laugh at the idea of us being rivals because of Newcastle’s lack of success, and I totally get that,” says Shearer. “They’ve got a million other rivals.”

Within another few months, Keegan was gone and Newcastle again finished second and something was ending. There was the FA Cup final in 1999, a 2-0 mismatch, a 4-3 Newcastle victory on Tyneside in 2001 when Roy Keane was sent off for flailing an arm in Shearer’s direction, a chastening 4-1 defeat in an FA Cup semi-final four years later.

And then, during the Mike Ashley years, Newcastle challenged nobody aside from themselves. No more top-four, no more last-four, just that buried sense of yearning and a ceaseless, niggling rage every time anybody, anywhere referred to that bloody side as just “United.” On fruitless journeys and in countless away ends, we sang and still sing, “Who’s that team we call United? Who’s that team we all adore?”, and then answer our own questions. Not them.

In the Carabao Cup final last February, it was Manchester United again. It had to be. Newcastle supporters won the weekend, planting our flag at Trafalgar Square, but the team didn’t turn up, weighed down and lifeless. There was a measure of retribution two months later, when Newcastle won 2-0 in the league. Eddie Howe had been (unusually) riled by criticism from Erik ten Hag, telling his players in the dressing room, “If they want a quick game coming here, let’s f***ing give it to them.”

And then onwards to this season. In November, Newcastle travelled to Old Trafford in the Carabao Cup, Howe fielded a team of all his full-backs and we won 3-0, our biggest victory there for 93 years. There was another win at St James’ and then Newcastle returned to the red bit of Manchester earlier this month seeking their first league double over them since 1930-31, chasing down Europe. Naturally, Newcastle lost. Newcastle have still won there only once in the league since 1972.

Before that match, Dan Burn, the Newcastle captain, remarked “being brought up a Newcastle United fan, we’ve never liked Man United”, and that feeling has been recharged. “For a long time we’ve been miles away, albeit we still went into games with that sense of dislike and half-buried memories, with the desire to beat them still intact,” says Shearer. “But we were on completely different playing fields. Now, it’s more even and more balanced.”

Wembley is proving more even, more balanced, too. In the eighth minute, Manchester United’s Alejandro Garnacho shoots straight at Stefan Ortega, but it has the air of a tone-setter. “Nervous yet?,” asks ThreatLevel. “This is disappointing,” Charlotte says. “Surely City should be 2-0 up by now.” We shift in our seats, fetch another drink and laugh this start off. “There’s only one thing that can stop Man City, and that’s Newcastle,” says ThreatLevel.

When the first goal is scored, it is a well-worn comedy of errors and the audience at Shearer’s goes up; present are a hefty quota of Manchester United fans, in here of all places. We look around, astonished. Charlotte fumes. “F***ing league winners? Best f***ing team in the world? They can’t even do this one f***ing thing for us,” she says. City are doing a Newcastle. Or they are doing a pre-takeover City, when they were every bit as hapless as we were. F***.

When the second goal is scored, it is with the raging inevitably of tomorrow’s hangover. ThreatLevel puts a hand to his brow. “It’s us, man. It’s us,” he says. Charlotte is going out tonight, meeting some pals down at the coast. She stares off into the distance. “I’m going to walk straight into the sea,” she says. Shearer’s is bouncing now, and not in a good way. We need to go. “Come on,” says ThreatLevel. “Change of pub, change of luck.”

As we cross the road to The Strawberry, Charlotte is contemplating her life choices, her father’s decision to take her to St James’ as a kid, the ties that bind us. “I’m just wondering if it’s me,” she says, but this is Newcastle and it is all of us. It will always feel like this until we exorcise our fatalistic longing with a trophy of our own. Until we get the better of Manchester effing United. Until we beat the final boss. “What a mood-killer this game is,” Charlotte adds.

The Strawberry is different. It is all City, all Newcastle. We are surrounded by memorabilia and signed photos and caricatures of Keegan and Sir Bobby Robson, and we rally and City rally. Erling Haaland hits the crossbar, Kyle Walker is rebuffed, Julian Alvarez scuffs one wide. If the moment is to arrive, the moment needs to get a s***ting move on, but look at all these red bodies in defence. “It’s a big ask now,” says ThreatLevel. “I feel really sick and gutted,” says Charlotte. You have to admit it: Man United have been decent.

On the clock: 87 minutes. Jeremy Doku, electric since coming on at half-time, pulls one back and the place erupts. Briefly, we rise to our feet and ThreatLevel is shouting again: “HOWAY, NEWCASTLE!” “IT’S BACK ON,” screams Charlotte. “PLEASE, JUST ONE MORE.” And, oh yes, here it comes, waddling into the pub, the cruel b*****d. Here it comes, the vicious, sad*stic b*****d, to taunt and point and make a mockery of us. Here comes the hope.

Edgy now.

“Pllleeaaaasssse,” says Charlotte. “It would be good, for example, if City, for example, scored another goal, for example.”

Abruptly, ThreatLevel stands.

“I’m going to the toilet,” he says. “I’ve been to the toilet once and Man City have scored once. These little things …” But the clock is ticking down and impetus is draining and our thoughts are retreating to Newcastle’s final home game, that draw with Brighton, and that loss at Old Trafford four days later. Those away defeats.

Game over, season over, Europe over. After all that. All that work and hurt and straining and recovery and lapses and waiting.

“I’m just drinking the courage I need to throw myself from Tynemouth Priory later,” Charlotte says, and we smile at that. We smile again when ThreatLevel talks about no Europe maybe being a strange kind of blessing that might endow Newcastle with more energy. And then he catches himself and then he pauses and then he says, “Thirty-odd years of finding positives …” All this smiling through.

Can’t imagine this changes the transfer budget, but it will knock the pull of the club this summer alone.
Not the end of the world by any means, but Europe and consistent years in Europe is important for any club hoping to be one of the best in the country. We’ll crack on. #NUFC

— NUFCThreatLevel (@NUFCThreatLevel) May 25, 2024

Because we wanted those trips, for the travel and the giggle, to show the players we have and the players we want to have that Europe is Newcastle’s natural home. Our smiles are camouflage.

As Howe has said, “We need to be there as a football club.” As Peter Silverstone, the chief commercial officer, said recently “just keeping the club at that European level is really important. It makes a big difference in terms of marketing and sponsorship deals when you can keep talking about us as a European side”.

We sigh and empty our glasses. Manchester United are the end-of-level boss who bring a death loop for Newcastle United.

Be real; it was always going to end like this.

(Top photo: Stu Forster/Getty Images)