Newcastle, A City United

I don’t think that there has ever been a day in Newcastle like Saturday 29th March 2025. The outpouring of joy from those there and the tears for those who didn’t live to see it resembled a Liberation of our city more than a mere sporting victory. We’ve come second before, or lost the cup, and then still had a party where boozy defiance reigned along with a collective aspirational  “just wait to see what happens when we win something” statement.

 Well we found out what that looks like on Saturday. Estimates of attendances in the city range from 300,000 to half a million people who were smiling, climbing every tree, wall, building and hugging, crying, chanting and cheering. We all saw it, especially me, as I had one of the best views in the city. I stood with one of Wor Flags “big wavers” on top of the corner Tyneside Irish Centre on Gallowgate, looking down at the tens of thousands and feeling very, very privileged and feeling the obligation to not let that Black’n’White flag fall no matter what. My Mam and Dad were watching on the telly and we were thinking about her Dad and her Mam, my Granny and my Uncle Colin and Michael and Big Ricker and Drax and all the others who died before they saw it. People had flown in, public transport was mobbed, the streets full with a black and white happy swaying horde and the Geordies had a party. We’d won something and we needed to find out how to celebrate.

My day had started well and became superlative. I’m tempted to repeat the tired old cliché that “If Staropramen did Saturdays” mine could not have been better, but being able to get the No1 Bus to town, walk into the Grainger Market, get a proper “Mam” card for Mother’s Day, then be invited by one of our best to The Fenwick’s Rooftops at SJP (It’s not in Fenwick’s and it’s not (quite) on the roof by our new standards) for food and drinks and a view of the League Cup was pretty special. Then it got better. Having a laugh with Ant and Dec and Alan Shearer and Les Ferdinand and Shola Ameobi and Peter and Tina from NUFC hospitality and Simon and Darren from NUFC Executive Management and see our fellow NUFC Fans Foodbank collectors Chi Onwurah, Bishop Helen- Ann and Kim McGuiness as they held the Foodbank flag and signed their names.

Dec smiled and shook hands and chatted about the old days in the Irish Centre when it was on Westmorland Road and it was all relaxed we were all the same on a day like this, people talking about their joy, the people who didn’t live to see and feeling the collective emotion crackle. Maybe they found something out; that maybe communal joy transcends individual achievement. I think it does and we should perhaps contemplate why only football can do this here.

Once I’d finished hobnobbing with the great and the good, my day got better. I apologised and left the rarefied salon of privilege telling Darren Eales, Newcastle’s MD, once I’d showed him the Tyneside Irish Banner that Carol and I had done our best with and Sean had sorted but it took Heather with a broom to get into position, that I had a big job to do. Wor Flags had identified the Tyneside Irish Centre roof as a good location for a display as it stood there like a fortification next to the Town Wall and dominated the cityscape right next to where the team bus would drive down Gallowgate. More to the point my father, our Centre’s secretary had entrusted me with the task of making sure everything was safe up there and especially that no one damaged the roof that we just spent £20,000 re-surfacing. I got there in time to ensure that some of our most venerable members, Ivy, Maureen and George had seats next to the Library window on the 3rd floor and luckily found some old cheap binoculars that helped them identify Eddie Howe at 400 yards.

It’s different up on the roof. It is said that scaffolders and roofers are men you don’t argue with, because they feel the strength of wind and cope with all levels of physical adversity. Up there in the wind, the flags crackled as we held them upright and the one that I, a huge checked black and white monster, showed up brilliantly as the occasional sunbeam hit it. I got up there about 3.15pm and the team bus came past about 4.45pm and I’m still knackered from hanging on. Some scaffolder I’d make! Luckily, my mate Keith is an internationally renowned Elizabeth Line designing, Lebetkin prize-winning architect and he showed me where to brace the base of the pole on the roof parapet and thus I was able to keep the thing steady with the aid of my friend and Godson Thom, and that was a good thing because I couldn’t contemplate putting it down. People, lots of them, were watching.

I looked down from my position 60 feet up and felt the wind, felt the gaze of the multitudes and thought that nothing could get better than this and I wouldn’t have swapped position with anyone, not in the team bus, not on the Town Moor and not anywhere ever. Maybe we’ll be able to do it again and then we’ll get someone else – maybe we’ll raffle the position for the Foodbank or sell seats? It would probably raise thousands. Anyway, the team bus came past, Eddie Howe and the players waved, Ant and Dec looked up, waved and took a picture and we waved back until we couldn’t see them anymore. Next door the Ethiopian and Eritrean Restaurant had their own rooftop display with three fellers holding Toon flags and they were rewarded with the jackpot as our own Alexander Isaak waved at them probably thinking about the country his father had to escape from to Sweden. Another man in Newcastle, thinking of his family and the journey we all came on to get here.

Our own journey wasn’t over by a long shot so a walk to the Town Moor was next. A trip downstairs to the Bar revealed that we were just about out of Madri and Guinness, but there was Staropramen enough to quench a thirst and thus fortified we went up the Great North Road. The weather wasn’t bad for Tyneside in March but cup wins normally take place in May when the climate, even at this latitude is a bit more benign. It was weird walking the route to The Hoppings without smelling candy floss on the breeze, and the wind took some of the PA Systems power away but the sight of about 150,000 people stood in a field, clad for winter, chanting along to a Brazilian swearing about an Italian who doesn’t like Sunderland was, by then as commonplace as everything else. The Big Drone Show which had been created by club sponsors Sela put white lights cruising in formation over Jesmond seemed normal and we may one day find out what happened to the two drones which fell out of the sky. Hopefully no one got hurt and nothing was damaged but I wonder about such things. Maybe there was a Sunderland fan with an air rifle hiding in an attic in Larkspur Terrace but every great day leaves you with a mystery or two to talk about for decades to come.

There was no mystery in me being far too knackered to go nightclubbing until 2am with the NUFC lot despite having a VIP Ticket (get me eh?) to “Above” at the Vermont, so my own day ended up with a walk back to The Tyneside Irish Centre and a bus home. I watched the turn and she was great doing a fantastic version of “House of The Rising Sun”, talked to the lads we’d got split up from, and met Norman who was as enthusiastic as a teenager still talking about the game he went to at Wembley, and the wild possibilities of a better future. Norman is a good bloke, a union man who has volunteered to help people all of his life. The people that I’ve mentioned in this article are good and decent individuals who prize their morality and do the right thing. Sometimes nice people win and then we have a celebration that astonishes the world. It was unforgettable day and The Tyneside Irish Centre and its wonderful hard working staff and committee took its rightful central position in the middle of a mass of celebrating people and national and international media attention. More to the point a feller called Declan Donnelly, whose Mam and Dad used to steward the place remembered the old days, waved from the bus and smiled as his mate Ant took a photo. All are welcome. Caed Mile Failte, Howay the Lads!

Up on the roof!

By Bill Corcoran