YOUSEF HATEM has fond memories of a trip to Selhurst in October 2021. YouTube highlights (including Callum Wilson’s equaliser) are here…
A shabby 1-1 draw, this, between two sides who ended up finishing eleventh and twelfth that season. A match unlikely to be remembered by anyone who was not there. Unlikely, even, to reside within the memory of the home supporters who were.
It wasn’t great. I’ll get on to the football.
And yet, here they were. Baby steps, tentative, faltering, the first of the post-Bruce era. We knew not where we were going, but we were going somewhere, and that was something. Our cans had just been collected by the council, and here we were in deep South London, tossing more in bins. Off the pitch, we enjoyed our day. We enjoyed following our team. We had not, in so long.
This was my first game, home or away, in two and a half years. I took up writing for True Faith in January 2021: as much as anything else, in the absence of much else to do. Here, nine months on, was Matthew Philpotts in the flesh, along with other one-time scribes, and here were bottles of Grolsch at The Dolphin. Here were real people who, until then, had lived only in my phone. Here, too, was my Dad. Here were Adam and Rossy, off the train at King’s Cross and straight across Euston Road. Here, outside the Arthur Wait Stand turnstiles, was Sedge, whom I’d found myself next to in the same away end when we were just ten. Here were people I recognised, or half-recognised, or who recognised me. Here was Newcastle United.
This was before we worried about fair market value, or PSR, or related party transactions. There were high spirits here, along with no little self deprecation. “Newcastle’s going down with a billion in the bank” we sang. “Saudi boys, we’re on the piss”, we did not, though some, with an average age of around fourteen, did. A ruddy-faced man in an inflatable camel costume just about made it through the turnstiles. Lusty renditions of Barry Manilow’s “Mandy” – or, rather, the one line of it that anyone knew – rang out. In the thirty months between then and now, we have become less starry-eyed, more realistic about what Newcastle United could be. But on that bright, if a bit chilly, Saturday afternoon in October 2021, we already knew what it no longer was. It was no longer what it had become under the cold, dead hand of Ashley. It was no longer joyless.
No longer joyless, but still shite, mind.
Newcastle United – under Graeme Jones – were absolutely honking. This was one of those afternoons where we were reminded that there was a reason why Allan Saint-Maximin had never signed for anyone good. Nothing stuck to him, and, given that tactics had yet to move on from “give it to Maxi”, we offered little to nothing.
We were only in it at half time thanks to Palace profligacy. Michael Olise made his debut and, along with Connor Gallagher, ran the show. Time and time again, they set up Christian Benteke, who should really have had about four by half time. We really could not have complained if the home side had been out of sight within the first quarter of an hour.
As it was, we went in at nil-nil. After having had two pints to myself at half time as I’d lost everyone on the concourse (some find Selhurst Park endearing; I think it’s just a hovel), we emerged for the second half and picked up exactly where we’d left off: i.e. still shite. Fraser and Hayden were charged with creating things where Maxi couldn’t. Nothing, accordingly, was created.
Benteke finally scored just before the hour. The only surprise was how long, somehow, we’d managed to hold out.
What followed though, nine minutes later, was special. “Callum Wilson” and “bicycle kick” may sound like a dangerous combination, what with waiting lists at the RVI and so on, but this was perfection. A Ritchie corner was headed back across goal by Lascelles, then deflected off Krafth, before big Callum’s acrobatic moment sent the travelling hordes loopy.
There was still time for more home pressure, a Benteke goal (rightly) ruled out by VAR, and then relief at the final whistle, at one of the flukiest points that many of us could remember. We were in no place to be picky, though. This was only our fourth point, in our ninth match. It was one point closer to forty, a target that we finally reached against the same opposition on a jubilant evening in NE1 the following April, when a Bruno-Miggy one-two made it six home wins on the bounce. We came a long way in those six months. We’ve come an even longer way in these thirty.
The 1-1 at Selhurst was one of many false starts that autumn. First match post-takeover. First home match post-Bruce. First match after Howe’s appointment. First match Howe actually took charge. First match Howe was in the dugout (he got Covid, remember). None of them wins. None of them good. It was not until January that the turning point came, at Leeds.
Still, as our train crawled back from Thornton Heath, it felt like – with Callum’s intervention – a weight had been lifted. Never mind billions in the bank, Saudi boys, or Mandy. Old boys sang of David Kelly’s hat-trick on the telly, of Rob Lee’s goal on ITV, and of Andy Cole getting the ball and – you know – scoring the goal. It really was 1992 all over again, in more ways than one. And it felt brilliant.
YOUSEF HATEM / @yousef_1892
(Image: Matty The White, via Creative Commons)
