It is two days after that extraordinary night at St James’ Park and my head is still pounding. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve been through social media watching clips of goals, interviews, flags, mini-docs, reading match reports, more flags, listening to TF Podcasts and whatever else you’ve got. I still haven’t finished. I should start trying to do something productive soon or even think about West Ham on Sunday. Or I could post endless drivel on twitter because this state of ecstasy can’t last forever and I want to milk it every bit as much as we all do.

How do you feel?

I had something of an out of body experience when Miggy placed his left foot shot so sweetly into the back of the Leazes End goal. Time froze. This has been a shit year personally. My health has been battered and at TF we all lost our very dear friend Glenn Ashcroft who passed away at the start of the season. How Glenn would have loved Wednesday night.

Without getting all Wuthering Heights on yo ass, there was something spiritual, metaphysical in that moment when we took the lead. I felt the love for our mad football club buried deep into the foundations of St James’ Park bubble up and sweep across the pitch. I thought about our mate Glenn but plenty others too ‘ my Dad’s pal who he nicknamed Mr Newcastle who I’d last seen at HT in that Portsmouth game in the East Stand, under treatment for cancer but remaining preoccupied with his beloved Magpies. Loads of others ‘ characters like Cliffy, the Undertaker and you will have others too who you have maybe thought of as our team, wor lads, downed the mighty Paris Saint Germain at a euphoric St James’ Park.

I thought for a split second of the generations of Geordies who stood on those terraces ‘ the miners, shipyard workers, those who walked up to Gallowgate from the Tyneside flats of Benwell, Byker, Bensham and the long demolished terraced houses of Scotswood Road, Big Lamp and those travelling in by trolley bus and charabanc from the pit villages of Northumberland and Durham ‘ the Jackie Milburns, Charltons and Robsons. The skins from the estates in the 70s who impressed me greatly, brooding on that old Leazes End under a low roof. The open terraces of the Popular Side and Gallowgate ‘ those throngs of humanity, our people.

I’m becoming mawkish. I apologise.

This was a moment for the modern age. No looking back to the gut wrenching recent lack of ambition of Ashley, the skimming and bluster of Hall-Shepherd and the McKeag ‘family silver‘ patriarchal, old school tie view of their ownership of Newcastle United.

Like it or not (and there is plenty to dislike) football has moved into a complete different paradigm and how this fixture highlighted all of that.

An elite of clubs by stealth created an architecture for the game which required any challenge to them to be funded by extraordinary wealth because they wished to insulate themselves from any prospect of failure. TV deals which have emasculated complete leagues and created leagues within leagues, financial cliff edges, carpet-baggers and Wild West capitalism. Middle Eastern petro dollars competing with corporate America, dodgy oligarch dough, sportswear spivs and hypocrisy doing somersaults.

Which brings us to Paris Saint Germain! ‘Insert smiling emoji here.

We’d had the palette cleanser in Milan. A return to visit to the magnificent San Siro and bona fide European royalty in AC Milan. We came home with a nils draw ‘ good result and not so great performance. But we’ll take it ‘ our first game in the competition in two decades with players and a manager who’d never kicked a ball or coached a team previously in European competition. We’d been nowhere near European football since Pardew’s team exited with honour to Benfica in 2012/13.

But as soon as the FT whistle blew on Saturday gone and Burnley had been defeated, everyone’s thoughts turned in lock-step to PSG at SJP.

This is the Group of Death we’d been told. PSG tipped as favourites to win the group and continue their longing to win the tournament to satisfy the ambitions of the Qataris who bankroll them. Someone mentioned something about this being an Oil Derby ‘ the recent frosty relationships between Saudi Arabia and Qatar played out in the dark, cold air of Tyneside. Mags shrugged their shoulders. This is Newcastle United and everything else can fuck itself for now.

In town, PSG fans are like us ‘ football devotees. Their club ‘ only formed in the early 70s and often a place where the likes of us, upholstered by PL telly money could go and take star players (e.g David Ginola) now has Kylian Mbappe, the world’s greatest player in its ranks before what seems his inevitable departure to Real Madrid. We are a year late to see Messi and Neymar in Parisian blue. J’regrette. Or something.

PSG’s fans had enjoyed the city ‘ there were loads of reports from all over NE1 of their fans in pubs enjoying themselves and getting on very well with the locals. They are very fond of Stella Artois (apparently they have it in France now ‘ cough). I smiled at the sight of Parisians in The Beehive and Black Garter. In the former they had bought shots for the locals. That is always going to endear them in this city.

Fashion conscious Mags of my acquaintance were of the view PSG’s fans were a bit scruff though having seen the clip of the same critics after 24-hour football benders, I think a lack of latitude for travelling supporters on le peeve on foreign shores was somewhat harsh.

Not that there wasn’t a bit of tension as PSG’s self styled ULTRAS (I always find it a bit wanky when fans carry flags with ULTRAS written on them ‘ it’s a bit try-hard isn’t it?). There was an exchange of bottles thrown at the top of the Bigg Market and I imagine as their corteo snaked through the city centre, hemmed in by buildings on unfamiliar streets with natives pressed up against them, variously friendly, curious and occasionally hostile then that might not have been what they expected.

There was a bit of pyro along the way. A lot of it from our side. I admit, I like it. The drum however was all Parisian and kept going all night ‘ well, not all night, they did lose heart when we started piling the ball into their net on a regular basis.

They hadn’t sold all of their tickets for the away end high on Level 7. That was baffling given the profile of the competition and the lack of intensity in Ligue 1. Then again, I recalled the lack of big numbers in NE1 when SJP hosted France in Euro 96. Maybe it’s not their thing? It will definitely be our thing in the return fixture.

PSG’s support was poor inside SJP. Again, I liked the pyro when they scored ‘ but that ULTRAS flag man? Something from a 15-year-old’s bedroom who’s watched too much You Tube.

I can’t criticise too much because no matter how much they might have tried, St James’ Park was a cauldron. I’d hoped we would we would make a mark, impressed by the displays a fortnight ago at San Siro when the Milanisti put on an impressive show. But ours was better, eclipsing anything witnessed in northern Italy.

It was accompanied by a deep, visceral longing and a roar to match. On the pitch United played the game of the round, off it our support, with the fantastic Wor Flags established St James’ Park as one of the great European venues. The SELA drone show above SJP on Tuesday night teed up Wednesday’s game. It ensured there were millions of eyeballs all on Newcastle United which will delight the club’s marketing team.

Goals from Almiron, Longstaff and Schar ‘ all players available to the fraud of a man and manager that is Steve Bruce, who he couldn’t be arsed to nurture and mentor their potential. Another goal from Dan Burn, from Brighton’s reserves and a man who surely couldn’t perform this way for any other club. You’ll never beat Dan Burn … you know the rest.

Although glory has been in short supply at Newcastle United in the decades I’ve followed the club there have been plenty of great games and goals down the years. Previous to this I’d have placed the wins over Barcelona in ’97 and Juventus in ’03 as my greatest moments. Swatting Liverpool 3-0 in ’93 and Man Utd 5-0 in ’96 are days I’ll take to my grave. Newcastle United 4 Paris Saint Germain 1 will be another.

In the stands friends and strangers embraced and all of us were aware of the historic event we’d been blessed to be a part. Again, this was a night for the people and let no snide, patronising prick in the media tell you otherwise.

This is a magnificent team, coached by a real man of substance in a stadium and city we all love.

This was a beautiful night. ‘Merci. Ta.

Michael Martin @TFMick1892 ””’