Nobody who believes the soul of a football club is un-killable could attach that claim to Newcastle. In this age of red-hot globalisation at the top of the English game, there is no guarantee of eternal life for a tradition that still just about glows on the map.

Alan Shearer, the greatest of all Geordie No 9s, recalled the other day that Newcastle used to be everyone’s favourite second team. The cauldron of St James’ Park united a community behind a vision of buccaneering football that would make visitors reach for earplugs and smelling salts. Shearer’s point was that those golden days belong now in a museum as other, better-managed clubs stake their claim on the future.