Exactly 20 years previously, there had been swagger and dash on Tyneside. There were nerves, too — this was rarefied territory and their lead had been whittled down — but, more than anything else, there was hope. Newcastle United, without a league title since 1927 or any domestic trophy since 1955, were top of the league. Belief coursed through a city like beer through bodies on a Saturday evening.
The story of what happened next is familiar; Manchester United, chasing down Kevin Keegan’s glorious, adventurous team, arrived at St James’ Park and played like drains but won 1-0, inspired by the magnetic gloves of Peter Schmeichel and Eric Cantona’s goal. There was keen disappointment, then and afterwards, as Newcastle were reeled in and then overhauled, but they were kings on Barrack Road that night.
Precisely two decades on, there was not much sign of hope at Steve McClaren’s press conference yesterday. There were questions about the prospects of relegation, about fear and inadequacy, about whether the head coach feared dismissal. And at a club who, under Keegan, threw its doors open to supporters and journalists, there was a sour exchange that somehow encapsulated the smallness of Newcastle’s world.
Once, when Newcastle changed managers, they looked to men who might finally win them something, who might soothe the yearning that was studded in their souls. Now what do they yearn for? Next season’s television money? Safety? With 11 games to play, they are second-bottom of the Barclays Premier League, but their decline as a football club — as opposed to as a business — is entrenched and institutional.
There have been reports — including in this newspaper — that McClaren’s position is now precarious, just as it was in December, when unexpected victories over Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur brought respite. “It’s done, obviously, by a journalist who for the last 18 months has written nothing but negative things about Newcastle, a journalist who used to work at this football club and who four or five years ago, was released from this club,” he said about one of them.
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That summoned a response — captured by television cameras — and it was scathing, the writer in question following McClaren to the door. “Is this your latest excuse?” the reporter said. “It’s a new one, I’ll give you that. I’m not the problem, Steve. You’re the problem, not me. Don’t you dare suggest I’ve got an agenda against you. Walk away Steve, smile and grin again. He has been out of his depth since the minute he walked in.”
While the episode ended, finally, in a handshake, it was emblematic of what Newcastle have become; belittled and bitter and paranoid. They are where they are for no other reason than their own failings and those are plentiful: players bought — for almost £80 million in the past two transfer windows — with little thought to team-building; Lee Charnley, the managing director, making three attempts to hire McClaren, when innovation and being challenge was desperately required.
Few areas of the club are fit for purpose. They spent £28 million on three midfielders in January, when there was a pressing requirement for defenders and attackers. And, as McClaren intimated, there is not enough leadership or character in his squad. “We have been successful wherever we are when players want that ambition and want to be as successful,” he said. “We suffer when players don’t want to reach those standards and put the work in.”
Newcastle have lost six league away matches in succession and scored seven goals away from home; the lowest total in the top four divisions. It is a significant, telling flaw. “I do know that in that dressing room we’ve got the talent,” McClaren said. “Now we’ve got to demonstrate the character to get out of it.”
Like Alan Pardew and John Carver before him, he has limited involvement in terms of recruitment.
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Charnley’s record is far from glorious — Newcastle were ninth when he assumed his role — and there have been peculiarities and corrosion during Mike Ashley’s ownership, but for all that there has been little appetite for more upheaval, McClaren’s position is vulnerable. And there are valid questions about whether even this misshapen, unbalanced team should be performing better. “Absolutely, absolutely,” McClaren said when asked if his side was playing for him.
They face Bournemouth today, then Leicester City and then Sunderland, a desperation derby against their fellow warriors of the wasteland. “There are 11 games left, this is it, we know the situation — there’s a fight going on, so let’s join in,” McClaren said. Newcastle’s desire for achievement was once described as a, “magnificent obsession”, by Sir John Hall, Keegan’s chairman, but that was a different era. The kings have been dethroned and hope is rationed.
● Eddie Howe insists that the eight-point gap between Bournemouth and the bottom three offers only a limited degree of comfort. He believes the club’s season is likely to be defined by their next two games with a home game against Swansea City to follow today’s trip to Newcastle United. “This is another massive game in our season,” said the manager.