Bolton Wanderers 1-3 Newcastle United

22 August 1995. Steve Howey – The Boy With The Wrong Place in the Side

“I just remember standing there thinking, I’m getting paid for this!”

Steve Howey used to do a lot of standing when he was 16: at the bus stop near his home in Gilley Law; then at Sunderland station; then at Newcastle Central Station, as he waited for the bus to take him to Benwell, where Newcastle United trained.

“It would be pitch-black in the winter,” he says. “I would get the bus into Sunderland city centre and the wind was brutal. I used to be standing there with about 15 layers on, freezing. You just think, fuckin’ hell, this has got to work.

“I’d get the train through to Newcastle and then the number 38 from Newcastle to Benwell. I would get there for eight o’clock. The groundsman was wicked. He had two Alsatians and the dogs would hear you coming up the drive and they would be after you”. All that to get into Newcastle’s training facilities at Benwell.

“It was a shit-hole,” he adds. “The boot room was outside and sandwiches would come in at lunchtime for the apprentices and you would try and grab whatever you could because, if you didn’t, you could be left with beetroot. To this day I fucking hate beetroot.

“You’d be doing your jobs because the pros would be finished. You’d put bins in their dressing room and they would fling stuff all over the place, the bins were just full of crap. The bath was a communal bath. If we were lucky, and if there was any hot water left, we would try and fill it up.

“You had to leave in what the pros had been in so it was just full of mud and all kinds. You were actually dirtier when you came out.

“The gym was an old-fashioned multi-gym where everything was attached. The carpet would be up at the edges so you’d be running along you could trip over. It was always freezing and always windy. I was from absolutely fuck all to be honest. I was from a council estate called Gilley Law in Sunderland. It wasn’t exactly the nicest place in the world.”

To get out of there, Howey got out of bed every morning at six o’clock, when his mam woke him.

“They were long, long days,” he says. “You would come away and you were knackered. You would finish at about four o’clock. I got the bus to Central Station, then the train, then another bus back home, the Six O’Clock News was on the telly with Sue Lawley and I used to sit in the kitchen and my head would be dropping in the middle of my tea.

“All the kids were knocking on the doors, going, ‘Are you coming out?’ and going out was the furthest thing from my mind.”

Peter Beardsley celebrates with Les Ferdinand during Newcastle’s comfortable win at Bolton. Photograph: Michael Mayhew/Allstar Picture Library

He was a centre-forward when Kevin Keegan took over as manager. “When Kevin came in he thought I was a centre-half,” adds Howey. “It was a case of a couple of games behind closed doors. I was at centre-forward in the games. Kevin took me to one side and said, ‘If you want a future here, it’s not as a centre-forward’. From that moment I was a centre-half.” The struggling striker flourished to become one of the most accomplished central defenders in England.

He remembers Keegan arriving in 1982. “I remember when Kevin came as a player,” he adds. “We were up in Scotland. Obviously Arthur Cox was the manager then and it was on the radio. Me dad is a massive Sunderland fan, he was going, ‘Keegan going there? He’s finished.’

“Kevin completely turned it round with Peter [Beardsley] and Chris Waddle. Of course, it changed the mindset of Newcastle fans. Keegan gets a lot of plaudits for things he did. You had to think how much work Arthur [Cox] did. If it wasn’t for Arthur getting Kevin, then none of this would have happened.”

Newcastle had signed Les Ferdinand, David Ginola, Warren Barton and Shaka Hislop by the time they turned up at Bolton, for their second game of the season. They had won the first three-nil against Coventry.

“It was a lovely, balmy August night,” adds Howey. “We were unbelievable. I was standing back and watching us play and thinking, this is the easiest thing ever. I’m actually on the pitch, I’m getting paid to be on the pitch and I’m doing bugger all and I’m watching David Ginola tear the arse out of their full-back and whip balls in for Les.

“We were just playing so well. It was an amazing cross from David for the first goal and what a header from Les. We used to call him Zebedee because of how high he would get up.

“They equalised, Rob Lee got the second and then Les just powered through for the third and people were bouncing off him. I remember speaking to Alan Thompson, who was at Bolton by then, afterwards, and he went, ‘Oh my God. How good are you?’

“How good were we? We were frightening.”

Newcastle were also top of the Premiership.

Newcastle United 2-0 Chelsea

24 September 1995. Darren Peacock – Mission Impossible

David Ginola cruises past Chelsea’s Gavin Peacock in Newcastle’s 2-0 victory in September 1995. Photograph: Matthew Ashton/Empics Sports Photo Agency

Newcastle had played six league games by the time Chelsea arrived at St James’ Park. They had won five of them. They had conceded three goals in those six games and there had been three clean sheets.

The defence was rarely letting in goals. Nobody mentioned it.

The noise in the house at the end of the street in Whitchurch, a small village in Somerset, was becoming familiar and maddening: an 18-year-old with a shattered leg in a cast jumping up and down the stairs to make sure the good leg did not go the same way. It was a terraced house. The noise was shared with equally unimpressed neighbours. Thankfully it was on the end of the row.

In the front room, parents Janet and Henry sought inspiration to bite their tongue. It was easily found. When Darren Peacock had his right leg shattered in a challenge with Carlisle’s Mick McCarthy, and when it didn’t set properly and his body rejected the bolts that were trying to keep it together, they were told something by his surgeon that their son was not. He would not play again.

They opined the news would be more shattering to their boy than the tackle. They said nothing. When Peacock hopped relentlessly up and down stairs to keep even the most basic level of fitness in his battered body, his mum and dad counted down the days to when the conversation would come. It never did.

Peacock was a swashbuckling centre-forward when he was on Bristol City’s books as a schoolboy, until he was 14. He was powerful and he scored goals. He went to Bristol Rovers and played against Chelsea and Tottenham. They said he wasn’t good enough.

“That was when Tony Pulis offered me a trial at Newport,” says Peacock. “He was a coach there. I played in a triallists’ game. People don’t believe this but I scored five goals in the trial.”

The only out-and-out defender Newcastle had in 1995 was originally a forward.

“My old man used to give me ten pence a goal,” he adds. “I played for two teams at the weekend and I scored sixty-eight goals in one season.

“I was in midfield for the trial. I got a letter in the post and I was in. I was offered a two-year apprenticeship on £16-a-week with my digs paid for. I left home at 16. I was moved back to centre-half within eight weeks.’’

Then came a tackle that took three-quarters of an inch off the length of his leg and very nearly took his dream.

“I went home and I put loads of weight on,” he adds. “My leg was in a cast up to my hip. The first six weeks I came out and it didn’t set.

“Then I had pins in place and my body rejected it. Then I had a bone graft from my hip. Then came rehab. When you’re at home you’re doing nothing, kicking around, doing a thousand leg chops a day.’’

In February 1989, within months of his return, Newport folded. Bob Smith, who by then had moved to Hereford with Colin Addison, signed him. He was back in Division Four.

“Hereford was brilliant,” he says. “I was there for 16 months. I was centre-half. They were good times.”

He adds: “I was in the manager’s office and Colin Addison said, ‘QPR have come in for you.’ Bobby Gould was working with Don Howe there. Bobby had this black book of good lower-league players.

“My mum and dad were chuffed, more so my mum. They said. ‘You deserve this, you’ve worked so hard.’

“Bobby lived in Bristol as well so he picked me up to take me to London. I got in the car with my future assistant manager. When we arrived, there was me, the PFA and Bobby, and he told us the offer. I said to Bobby, ‘I want to think about it.’

“I got on the phone to Colin. He said, ‘Come back here if you want, we’re playing Scunthorpe in a couple of weeks. Who have you got? Liverpool. Don’t be an arsehole, son.’

“That put me in my place. The next day I went in and signed.” The fee was £270,000.

Peacock played against Newcastle at St James’ Park three years later and QPR won. He man-marked Andy Cole. Cole told Keegan Peacock was a handful, and Peacock got wind Newcastle were interested.

It was 1994. “I put a transfer request in straight away! I got a call from the gaffer and I didn’t believe it was him. It was all sorted very quick and I got a flight up. Did Kevin sell the club to me? He didn’t have to.”

Peacock did not open his wings. The £2.7m transfer fee, a club record, weighed heavy.

Keith Gillespie tussles for the ball with Ruud Gullit at St James’ Park. Photograph: Paul Mcfegan/Allstar Picture Library

“It didn’t take off for me,” he adds. “I had a poor start. There was one time on a night out a couple of supporters went up to Barry Venison, “He’s shit, he’s not worth £2.7m.” I went up to them and said, ‘Come and say that to me.’ It got a bit heated. I got used to it. I wasn’t one of the stars, like Pedro [Beardsley] or Ginola.”

It took time for Peacock to settle but the second season was significantly better. “We would spend hours at QPR on defending,” he says. “We would do it live on the pitch in the pouring rain. I went to Newcastle and it was five-a-side. It would be so quick. Get warmed up, all with the football, games and competitive small-sided games. Without doubt it improved me as a player. As a defender it worried me. I asked if we could do a bit of defending and we did it once before we played Southampton and we lost and we didn’t do it again.

“The momentum at Newcastle was building all the time. You could feel it on the terraces and in training when there are 4,000 there, and hot-dog stands, and ice-cream vans and people selling shirts. At that point I can’t imagine it happening anywhere, even Man United. The fever that was throughout Newcastle.”

And then came Chelsea. Chelsea had Mark Hughes, Dennis Wise and Ruud Gullit. It didn’t matter. Newcastle were on a different plane. Les Ferdinand was once more unplayable, scoring in each half. He had scored eight goals in the eight games since his move to Tyneside. “We were in control that day,” Peacock adds. “We weren’t troubled at the back and they had Hughes and Mark Stein up front. What stands out for me was that “Toon, Toon” song going on for twenty minutes. Just relentless. It was like a wall.”

Newcastle went back to the top of the Premiership, ahead of Manchester United, who had conceded eight goals. Newcastle had conceded three times in seven league games.

Still, nobody mentioned the defence.

Newcastle United 0-1 Manchester United

4 March 1996. Steve Bruce and Peter Schmeichel – Shoot you Down

Eric Cantona scores the winning goal for Manchester United in a match largely dominated by Newcastle. Photograph: Getty Images

“Thirty-six thousand? It sounded like ninety-six thousand.”

On 4 March 1996, Steve Bruce was the Geordie captain of Manchester United. He had already picked up the Premiership trophy twice, ending Man United’s own 26-year wait for the domestic crown.

As Newcastle pushed for the title, Joe Bruce watched his son lead out the team that was doing its damnedest to stop them. “All my family and my wife’s family too are Newcastle fans,” says Steve Bruce. “Everybody supports Newcastle; my mam and dad still live in Walkergate. Janet’s mam and dad live at Four Lane Ends, me brother lives over the road from me mam and dad in Walkergate. We are all born and bred in the suburbs of Newcastle.

“I would like to think my family wanted me personally to win. I don’t know what Janet’s dad thought. Listen, if it hadn’t been Man United I would have loved Newcastle to win it.

“I think the whole of the country, probably the whole of the world, wanted Newcastle to win. They had a flamboyance and a style that was definitely Kevin. You have to take your hat off to him. It was a spectacular rise.

“He did fantastically well. It gets lost as to how good a job he did. It was also the rebirth of Newcastle. It was incredible. He deserves a big pat on the back. He got himself a really, really good side. Howey, Ginola, Beardsley, Ferdinand, Rob Lee, Batty, Gillespie, Albert, Beresford, he got really good players. The front three in particular were pretty spectacular. They started like a house on fire.”

When Newcastle faced Manchester United at St James’ Park, the lead between the two teams was down to four points. It was the biggest occasion at St James’ Park since Bruce had stood on the Popular Side as a supporter for the 1969 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup final.

There was no other topic of conversation for days. There was no space in bars as kick-off approached. The air around St James’ Park was electric; fear and hope. It could be won tonight, not technically, but there was a chance to quell the Manchester United resistance. You cannot quantify the build-up of emotion in not being champions of England for 69 years, but you could hear it, inside the stadium.

Bruce, bred on the banks of the Tyne, walked out as the region opened its lungs. “Thirty-six thousand? It sounded like ninety-six thousand, I have to tell you,” he adds. “It was a phenomenal atmosphere, it was absolutely crackling. It was brilliant to play in. That night at Newcastle was right up there with the likes of Galatasaray. It was deafening.”

“It was in the lion’s den,” said Sir Alex Ferguson. “The support was magnificent. It was an incredible atmosphere. The Newcastle fans were absolutely out of this world. They were fabulous. It was the most important game for years.”

The first half was a massacre. “They absolutely battered us,” added Ferguson. “We were struggling,” added Peter Schmeichel. Newcastle charged down the hill, down the slope, towards the Gallowgate End, where people used to be executed for real. Manchester United, too, were slaughtered.

“There was chance upon chance they were getting,” added Ferguson. “Peter Schmeichel defied them. He just kept defying them. He was magnificent.”

Peter Schmeichel’s performance against Newcastle was crucial to Manchester United’s 1-0 win in March 1996. Photograph: Darren Walsh/Action Images

Manchester United’s players sat in the visiting dressing room at St James’ Park and looked defeated. Ferguson let rip. Keegan, meanwhile, understandably, asked for nothing more of his players, other than the same.

“We were superb,” he said. “If you’ve ever seen a team get hammered nil-nil at half-time that was it.”

“Kevin said to us, ‘That was fantastic’,” remembers Warren Barton. “We didn’t come in and say, ‘Don’t get beat’. We said, ‘Let’s go and beat them’.”

“We absolutely battered them,” agrees Rob Lee. “Ask their players, we annihilated them, Schmeichel was unbelievable. We could have been five-nil up. He was the best goalie in the world.”

Momentum turned. Ruud Gullit sat in the television studio at St James’ Park and said Newcastle could not maintain the dominance and pressure. Schmeichel thought similar. “I knew that in every game we played in that period, there was a storm we needed to ride,” he said. “If we could get past a certain point in the game, then we would start getting chances. The frustration from the other team sets in.”

Six minutes into the second half, Andy Cole took a pass from Ryan Giggs. He slipped away from Philippe Albert, passed to his left and Phil Neville hoisted a cross to the far post that the despairing John Beresford could not intercept. Eric Cantona watched the ball and volleyed it into the ground; the bounce took it away from Pavel Srnicek and into the far side of the Newcastle goal.

St James’ Park had been rebuilt for a night like this. It was a stadium and it was an all-covered bowl and the atmosphere had swirled around the heads of the players in red for 45 minutes. They were intoxicated by the football and the noise. Newcastle had done everything right, bar score. Just a goal. That was all Newcastle wanted, but this time it had not come, and when Cantona shot, it was a painful body-blow that took the wind from the sails of anyone in black and white.

“We got done with a sucker punch,” adds Barton. “It gave them a lot of momentum; it gave us doubt. It was a real kick in the teeth. Schmeichel was phenomenal. We dominated them. Unfortunately we kept going forward and got caught with a counterattacking goal.”

The gap was down to one point.

“Well, it’s a race now,” said Ferguson. “It closes the whole thing up. It’s going to be one incredible finish.”

Touching Distance; Kevin Keegan, the Entertainers and Newcastle’s Impossible Dream, by Martin Hardy, is published by deCoubertin Books, and is available for £18.99 from www.touchingdistance.com