Newcastle have three games left to avoid relegation to the Championship

These are dark days for the Geordie Nation. Their beloved football team are sliding ever closer to relegation and desperate calls for Newcastle to be united again may have come too late.

There’s mutiny on the terraces, crisis meetings in the dressing room. A beleaguered interim boss accusing one of his players of getting himself sent off on purpose, and an open letter from the captain.

Even by Newcastle’s soap opera standards, it has been quite a week.

Newcastle's Steven Taylor has called on his team-mates to 'grow some b*****ks' during the next few weeks

Taylor, pictured after Newcastle's 1-0 win over Liverpool in November, wants his team-mates to show passion

There may be light at the end of the tunnel for Newcastle if they can avoid relegation to the Championship

Newcastle are two points above the drop zone

As it draws to a close, John Carver must sift through the remnants of a squad ravaged by suspension and injury to field a team capable of beating West Bromwich Albion at St James’ Park, the first of three games that will decide Newcastle’s fate. They have lost their last eight.

Carver needs the Toon Army marching in the same direction again. The club have called for it, captain Fabricio Coloccini has called for it, even former chairman Sir John Hall has called for it.

Sitting in a hotel by the city’s bustling Quayside, no-one articulates it quite like Steven Taylor.

Newcastle’s longest-serving player has been at his hometown club since the age of nine. By 14, he had graduated from ball boy to what they called match duty. ‘Going in the dressing-room and cleaning all the spit off the floor,’ says the 29-year-old defender. ‘Happy days. I even kissed the boots of some players when no one was around.’

His passion is evident. So is the pain. Taylor has watched his club’s decline helplessly since rupturing an Achilles tendon on New Year’s Day, but remains a key figure in the dressing room and one of the senior players responsible for calling Monday’s crisis meeting at the training ground, 48 hours after a crushing defeat at Leicester left Newcastle two points above the danger zone.

‘It was in the dressing-room,’ says Taylor. ‘Locked doors, now everybody listen. It came between the players. We were the ones who wanted to call a meeting. We’re the ones in the s**t. We know we’re not winning games, it doesn’t need Einstein to tell us that. Eight games on the bounce? If the alarm bells aren’t ringing then you’re in the wrong job.

‘It was fantastic to hear everyone’s opinion. Not just one or two. Everyone. It needed that. Players said, “Ask me to play here or there and I will”. When we went down last time (in 2009) too many of them had moves lined up months in advance.

Newcastle defender Mike Williamson was accused by John Carver of getting himself sent off on purpose

Under-fire Newcastle captain Fabricio Coloccini wrote an open to letter to fans asking for their forgiveness

Newcastle's first team players look dejected during their side's 3-0 defeat by Leicester at the King Power

‘But who’s going to want you if we get relegated? You’re going to be here. Pull your finger out. We’re all in it together. If we weren’t, we’d crumble.

‘It’s horrible to think about relegation when we were talking about Europe not so long ago. But these three games (against West Brom, QPR and West Ham) are probably the biggest games of these lads’ careers.’

Taylor knows what it’s like to inhabit the goldfish bowl of Newcastle. ‘A bubble, like Big Brother,’ is how he describes it. He knows what it’s like when things are going well, and how quickly it can all turn.

‘I call us the fastest kamikaze ride you can find in the world. At the top it’s the best feeling, unbelievable. Halfway down you think, “what’s going on here?” And as you hit that bottom bit, that’s the worst you can feel.

‘Newcastle is a football city, you can’t hide away from it. Nobody has anything else to talk about apart from football.

‘There are that many glory supporters down in London but they’re diehard here. You see fans with their tops off when it’s freezing cold, nipples like ice cubes.

‘I’ll tell you what, if anyone out-sings our fans I’ll show my backside in Fenwick’s window on Northumberland Street. It’s impossible.

‘We flippin’ love it at Newcastle but we need to give them something to shout about. We need to give them back their mojo.

‘At the moment we’re sending them home with faces like slapped backsides and it’s horrible to see that.

‘When you win they go home to their missus happy as Larry. We get beat and they’re a nightmare. I can guarantee you they will go home and be horrible around the house, causing arguments because of us. We probably cause divorces.

‘A lot of people think we don’t know about this. We talk about it. We impact it.’

Equally, however, Taylor has seen first-hand what effect the fans’ demonstrations and the poisonous mood within St James’ Park has had on some of his team-mates.

‘They’d rather get a takeaway than eat at a restaurant because they’re waiting for the next one,’ says Taylor. ‘Some of the lads are driving with their missus to go shopping and fans are pulling alongside, sticking their fingers up at them and making rude gestures.

‘Certain people hate us, say we’re rubbish. We’ve been called an embarrassment, not good enough. Worst team Newcastle have ever had. We’re getting hammered in the media, hammered in our cars. We get reminded every 10 seconds. People shouting, “You’re crap, you’re s***e”. When the lads see that every week, it does hurt. They don’t bring their families to the game now because it’s got that bad.

Newcastle fans call on their side's players to improve their effort levels after several poor performances

Taylor, pictured in 2006, has experienced highs and lows during his lengthy affiliation with Newcastle

The centre back has likened playing at St James' Park to being in Big Brother due to the public scrutiny

‘It has an effect on the foreign lads who are getting hammered and it’s horrible seeing them in that situation. They come to training and their heads are down. Their confidence is the lowest in their whole career, I reckon. They can’t get any lower.

‘It’s a reality shock for these foreign players but not for me. Nine out of 10 Geordies will hammer them because they’re so passionate.

‘It’s part and parcel of playing for Newcastle United. You’re in the public eye. You’re a sitting duck.

‘At the moment you need balls of steel,' said Taylor, who just happened to be speaking as his role as ambassador for Ballboys, a charity that aims to raise awareness for testicular cancer. 'If you haven’t, then grow some. But the lads have got the b*****ks. I wish we could have affected it two months ago. Now it’s got to a stage where we didn’t expect it.

‘We’re against a proportion of our fans at the moment. The Gallowgate, the East Stand, Sir John Hall Stand, the Milburn Stand, they all see the game differently.

‘But when we play at home now, for some of the lads we’ve talked about, so many people there are waiting for something bad to happen.

‘You imagine playing in front of 52,000 and the same minority hammering the same players each week.

The injured Taylor was among the players who called a crisis meeting following their defeat at Leicester

Taylor has defended John Carver by claiming Sir Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho would struggle at the club

Ferguson and Mourinho would fail to cope with Newcastle's ongoing injury problems, insists Taylor

‘I speak to opposition players after the game and they all say the exact same thing: get to half-time or 60 minutes and if Newcastle haven’t scored, their fans will turn.

‘Nothing about our players or stopping our game plan. If they hear boos at half-time, that’s what they want. Afterwards they’re laughing. Fans might read this and think it’s not going to get us three points. But what are you going to do? Hammer us for 90 minutes?

‘The majority of fans are unbelievable, but there’s a section who say we’re crap. We need them more than anything now. Stick with us. Three games to go.’

Carver emerged in defiant mood on Thursday after the events of last weekend when he accused Mike Williamson of getting himself sent off, and then learned that Newcastle had made an unsuccessful attempt to hire Derby boss Steve McClaren for the last three games of the season.

But Taylor admitted that the interim boss, who has up to 10 players out injured and another two suspended this weekend, has been feeling the strain.

Newcastle made an approach for Derby's Steve McClaren following the end of the Championship campaign

A statue of Jackie Milburn, who scored in Newcastle's 1955 FA Cup final win, stands outside St James' Park

‘JC’s the main Geordie about the place,’ he says. ‘His voice is like (the) Ultimate Warrior. He’s got that growl and when you hear it you think, “Bloody hell, he’s going mad”.

‘But after the Sunderland game I saw him on the Monday and it looked like he’d aged. He was devastated. It was like he hadn’t slept for a few days. It’s horrible seeing someone like that because he’s one of the fans.

‘He hasn’t had the players to play a full-strength team. What can he do this weekend? (Jose) Mourinho or (Sir Alex) Ferguson couldn’t do anything different.’

It was 60 years ago this week that Newcastle won their last major domestic trophy when the legendary Jackie Milburn scored after 45 seconds in a 3-1 FA Cup final win over Manchester City at Wembley.

A statue of ‘Wor Jackie — Footballer and Gentleman’ stands outside the Gallowgate End, just a few yards from a similar tribute to Sir Bobby Robson.

Memories of Newcastle’s proud past are all around St James’ Park. By the door of The Strawberry pub is a flyer advertising an audience with Philippe Albert, a hero of the Kevin Keegan years, in Dunston on June 19.

Opposite is a banner for the North East Comedy Festival next month. The black humour will not be lost on seasoned observers of Newcastle United.