Will It Ever Be Newcastle United?
Despite the wealthy owners at Newcastle, could it simply be the case that the club is cursed & destined never to achieve good things?
Why do good things seem to come a lot harder for certain clubs and their fans than others?
Following Newcastle United for the past 40 years, I’ve seen my fair share of ups and downs. Admittedly the club has been run poorly during most of that period. But even when the club was enjoying its best spells throughout the mid 90s and early 2000s there always seemed to be ‘glorious failure’ that went hand in hand with the club.
The prime example of this was in 1996 of course, when Kevin Keegan’s team were agonisingly pipped to the post by Manchester United for the Premier League title. The club also experienced similar disappointments under Bobby Robson, most notably in the FA Cup semi-final of 2000, losing 2-1 to Chelsea at the old Wembley. To be brutally honest Newcastle United’s record in cup competitions since the 1950s has been a joke, aside from a brief period between 1998 and 2000.
Don’t get me wrong, there have been great moments of course, and some great seasons too. Some in the Premier League, some in European competitions and some at Championship (or Old Division 1) level.
Nobody follows Newcastle United for the glory. And if they do, they must be absolutely bloody mental!
The inspiration for this week’s article came late on Monday night. In fact if I’m being accurate it came very early on Tuesday morning as most of England was sleeping. Some 3000+ miles away from British shores an NFL game was being played in East Rutherford, New Jersey at Met Life Stadium - home to the New York Giants and the New York Jets.
Neither team has seen much recent success, though at least the Giants have got 2 Super Bowl titles to their name during the current century, winning in both 2008 and 2012.
However, the Jets, I mean where do you even start with a team like the New York Jets?!
In a league that prides itself on parity and the ability for its clubs to rise quickly after a poor season or two, the life of a Jets fan in the NFL must be a special type of miserable existence. Year after year after year they watch other poor teams rise up; some even go on to win the whole thing.
But the Jets? They just keep scraping along at the bottom. It’s not for a lack of trying either. They have gone through a heck of a lot of quarterbacks and other players in search of ‘the one’.
Still, year after year. False dawn after false dawn.
They currently hold the record as the team with the longest active post season playoff drought. Not just in the NFL, but in all North American sports – basketball, baseball and ice hockey too.
The Jets haven’t played a playoff game since January 2011. They’ve only played 12 playoff games this millennium and haven’t been to a Super Bowl since Super Bowl III at the end of the 1968 season. The game was actually played in January 1969, the same year Newcastle United last touched a major trophy.
So why am I talking about the New York Jets? If they’re perennial losers, so what?
Well, this summer, after many, many false dawns, their owners actually did something remarkable. They secured the services of one of the greatest quarterbacks to have ever played the game.
Aaron Rodgers, a 4 time MVP (Most Valuable Player in American parlance; think Player Of The Season) and owner of a Super Bowl ring was traded from the Green Bay Packers where he’d spent his entire career, to New York. Rodgers is an absolute certainty to enter the NFL’s Hall Of Fame when his playing career ends. A legend of the game.
And because of him, everything at the Jets felt different since his arrival.
The team had already been rebuilt well over the past couple of years but the final piece of the jigsaw was acquiring a quarterback who could raise them to the level of ‘genuine contender’. Aaron Rodgers was that man. Undoubtedly.
And last night, after 6 months of hype and growing expectation around the Jets they played their first game of the 2023 NFL season. A home game against a very good division rival, the Buffalo Bills.
The Jets won the game 22-16. Very good, right? But that was not the biggest story.
On just his 4th play of his debut Rodgers took the ball and was tackled. He got up but almost immediately sat back down on the grass. His season over in an instant with a ruptured Achilles. Painful for so many reasons.
All that hope and optimism around the New York Jets gone, in an instant. Snatched from them at their most excited. 6 months of hope instantly extinguished.
The Jets are simply a team who cannot have nice things.
And forgive me for sounding negative here but the parallels with Newcastle are definitely there. We’ve all asked ourselves from time to time ‘Will it ever be us?’.
I’m certain I am not the only Newcastle United supporter to think this but despite having the wealthiest owners in world football, I’m just not fully convinced we’ll ever see the level of success everyone is tipping us to achieve over the next decade or two. I hope I’m wrong of course, but it is Newcastle after all.
Even now I wonder whether we’ll win a solitary trophy in my lifetime. Just look at the Carabao Cup Final last February, simply played at the wrong time for Newcastle.
If the team had played Manchester United later or perhaps earlier in the season the chances of a Newcastle victory would have greatly increased. As it was, they didn’t, they played them during their worst period of the season and lost.
Newcastle United cannot have nice things. Maybe.
The fact is, supporting a team like Newcastle or the Jets is about so much more than winning. It has to be, let’s be honest. Following a sports team is enjoyable and worthwhile for lots of reasons; entertainment, a bonding experience amongst friends and family, a way of escaping reality for a bit.
However, there’s no denying that winning is what we all strive and hope for. It is what sport is all about after all.
And maybe, just maybe whenever Newcastle or New York finally win something again, the fans of both clubs will appreciate it that little bit more.
Until it happens though, I’ll remain convinced we’re cursed in some way!
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Another Great news letter Ian, being a fan of Newcastle United , England and the Minnesota Vikings I feel I’m destined to go through life never seeing one of my teams lift a major trophy. With the Packers being a big divisional rival for us it’s hard to feel sorry for Aaron Rodger’s or the Jets who took our star running back in Dalvin Cook. I do sympathise with the Jets fans who have their optimism shattered year in and year out.
You are hanging your self out to be shot at here Ian (what happened to all we want is a team that tries?)
It's a really great point you raise. Sometimes I'm not sure what the point of being a Newcastle fan is other than ridicule from others 🤣
Getting up at 2am on a Monday to watch us throw away a game against ten men, then leave the house to see my neighbour has put a Liverpool flag outside the house 😭