Fifty thousand hopeful zebras

From the newspaper perspective, there's only one sport that counts, and that's football. And there are very few places where it counts more than in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

I had the great good luck to join the Evening Chronicle as editor around three weeks into Newcastle United's first season in the Premier League. Kevin Keegan, revered by fans for his stellar performances for the Toon in the twilight of his playing career, had returned as manager two seasons previously, with the club facing relegation to the third tier for the first time in their history. That would almost certainly have put them out of business.

In his first season, he saved them from the drop. In his second, they were promoted as champions, playing an irresistible brand of attacking football that overwhelmed their opponents, week after week.

Over the summer of 1993, as I worked my notice at the Coventry Evening Telegraph, I couldn't wait to make a start at the Chronicle, a Top Ten regional title. Before being interviewed for the job, I'd never been to Newcastle, so to get to know the paper and the city, I had a copy sent to me in Coventry every day.

As the summer wore on, I became concerned that the paper had too much football in it. There was understandable anticipation about their debut in the Premier League but here we were in the heart of the off-season and the paper was gorging on football. The sports pages were full of it, as you might expect, but so too were the news and features sections. Sorting this out would be my number one priority.

Arriving for my first day at the Chronicle offices in Groat Market, I got into the lift with a young woman who I guessed was an advertising rep. She was beaming from ear to ear. “Ee, did you see the match? Weren't they great?” She had no idea who I was, and she didn't care. She simply couldn't contain her excitement at Newcastle's win the previous day.

It was the same story on the editorial floor; gnarled, seen-it-all journalists were wreathed in smiles. After dropping my coat in my new office, I went upstairs to see managing director Tony Hill. His PA welcomed me to the company and immediately set off on a eulogy about Keegan, the club and the players. The whole building was buzzing. I'd never known anything like it. After approximately half an hour in my new job, I decided it was impossible for the Chronicle to have too much football.

Despite the euphoria gripping the city, my first visit to St James's Park left a bitter taste. On a dripping wet October night, the Toon were hosting my team, Sheffield Wednesday. It all started out so well for the Owls – inspired by former England star Chris Waddle, they led 2-1 with less than 15 minutes to play. A win for the visitors seemed nailed on.

Then, in a foretaste of many memorable games to come, Newcastle tore up the script. Andrew Cole equalised and, five minutes later, substitute Alex Marnie – in his only memorable contribution to the Toon cause – scored a wonder goal. Two minutes before full-time, Newcastle scored their fourth to seal an outrageous win. In the seasons that followed, glorious victories, improbable comebacks and the occasional heartbreak came as standard with Newcastle United. And after 30 years of the dismal fare served up at Hillsborough, I was hooked on the technicolour football of the men in black and white stripes.

A few weeks after the Sheffield Wednesday drubbing, I was invited for a get-to-know-you lunch at Newcastle Breweries by managing director Alastair Wilson and marketing director Jim Merrington. Alastair, an affable Scot who would later serve as communications director at Newcastle United, summed up my new city in a single sentence: “There are four brands that matter to the people of Newcastle – the Tyne Bridge, the football club, Brown Ale and the Chronicle.” It was an astute observation, which spawned a series of successful collaborations between NUFC, the brewery and the newspaper.

The first was the launch of a Player of the Month competition, promoted through the Chronicle. Readers who voted for the winner went into a draw and a lucky dozen would be invited to a buffet lunch at the brewery's visitor centre, opposite St James' Park, where they would rub shoulders with the players. The success of the event was largely down to Keegan, who insisted the whole first team squad would attend the lunch, without fail. This gave a small band of our readers one of the most memorable days of their lives and provided the Chronicle with some good content and a great deal of goodwill.

As Keegan's newly-promoted Entertainers wowed fans all over the country, they were supported by an equally formidable back-room team. Chairman Sir John Hall, who had made his name and his fortune by building the MetroCentre, one of the UK's first out-of-town shopping malls, had a North East native's understanding of the Geordie in the street. One of his shrewdest and most crowd-pleasing acts after winning control following a bitter takeover battle had been to appoint Keegan as manager, sparking the on-field revival, rekindling the interest of fans and – crucially – boosting gate receipts.

The extra cash at the turnstiles and Hall's property development expertise combined to turn St James's Park from a drab, decaying, out-of-date hulk into a modern, 52,000-seat stadium that would become the jewel in the Newcastle city centre skyline. The original plan involved moving the ground to a new site on the nearby Leazes Park, and to create a sporting club modelled on Milan's San Siro, but it was rejected by the city's planners. Not a man to be easily deterred, Hall decided to demolish the existing stands and to build taller replacements with many more seats, bar areas and new executive boxes.

To boost the ground capacity further, the four open corners were filled in with extra seating, but this caused an unexpected problem; the wind could no longer provide a natural draught to dry the pitch, causing it to cut up badly every time it was played on. Keegan cut up rough, too, demanding a better surface to suit his team's fluent style of play. The pitch was re-laid a number of times before a solution was found. Between matches, a set of specially-designed, high-powered heaters was wheeled out and directed at the pitch, to do the job that Mother Nature had previously done for free.

Freddie Fletcher, a streetwise Scot who had transformed Glasgow Rangers commercially, was recruited by Hall as chief executive, with a brief to unlock the sleeping Tyneside giant's money-making potential. In a candid one-to-one discussion at the ground, Fletcher opened up to me about the previous regime's lack of commercial acumen. Referring to them dismissively as The Blazers, he said: “They even lost money on the club lottery. That's almost impossible to do, but they managed it.”

Unfortunately for me and the Chronicle, Fletcher's eye for an opportunity led him to poach one of my best photographers, Ian Horrocks, to be the club's first official cameraman. Looking back, this was an early example of Premier League clubs seeking to control and commercialise their own media output, breaking up the symbiotic – some would say cosy – relationships built up over many years with the local press.

Riding high in the Premier League and feeding off the enthusiasm across the city, the club was full of ambition. One of Fletcher's priorities was to make more use of the revamped stadium, which was packed for two and a half hours on match days, with the tills ringing, but lay dormant the rest of the week. One of his first ideas was decidedly off-the-wall – a fashion show.

In the summer of 1995, Fletcher had made five significant signings: French international winger David Ginola, striker Les Ferdinand, goalkeeper Shaka Hislop, full-back Warren Barton and fashion designer George Davis. The man behind Next and George at Asda had been brought in to create a clothing range for the club. Now for the clever bit – Fletcher wanted to pull all of this together in a fashion show at the ground, with the four new players among the catwalk models. The Chronicle's role was to promote the show and drive ticket applications. On a September evening, with the Gallowgate end almost full and the London media attending in force, Fletcher was a happy man.

Although the club's commercial trajectory as a whole was on rocket-boosters, they did experience the occasional misfire. In November 1995, as part of his mission to sweat the stadium asset, Fletcher opened a high-end restaurant, named the Magpie Room, with respected local chef John Blackmore running the kitchen.

The official opening was perfectly timed, with Keegan's team sitting proudly on top of the Premier League. Actress Denise Welch, who was starring in TV's Soldier, Soldier at the time, and her husband Tim Healy, of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet fame, were among the Tyneside “royalty” in attendance. Sir John Hall proudly revealed a specially-commissioned painting of two fighting magpies by French artist Henri Bismuth as the visual centrepiece of the restaurant.

One of the Magpie Room's unique selling points was its commanding views, with the lights of the city centre shimmering to the South and the stadium itself looking a picture through the floor-to-ceiling restaurant windows. Diners had the option of taking their after-dinner coffee in the new stand where they could drink in the atmosphere of the silent stadium. By night, under floodlights, it had a strangely magical quality. But while the Magpie Room appeared to have all the right ingredients, it never found the recipe for commercial success. A few years later, the space it occupied was turned into a match-day bar.

At Newcastle Breweries, the marketing team were always looking to add interest to the Player of the Month event by introducing extra elements that would make good pictures. On one occasion, they arranged for members of a local Army regiment, just back from a tour in Northern Ireland, to join us for lunch. The soldiers, in full uniform, looked magnificent – none more so than a very large sergeant whose beret had an eye-catching thistle at the front.

Coincidentally, star winger Ginola had arrived at the lunch sporting a natty, navy-blue beret. As we lined up for the customary group photo, Ginola suggested they swap headgear. The sergeant agreed and, just as the shutter clicked, Ginola shot a cheeky look at the towering soldier. The picture was published in newspapers and magazines all over the world.

If Ginola's swashbuckling performances on the pitch made him a hit with the fans, his flowing mane and Gallic good looks established him as a heartthrob among the womenfolk of Tyneside. As part of our annual sponsorship package, the Chronicle could invite 50 guests to one of the choicest Newcastle home fixtures. With managing director Tony Hill away on holiday, it fell to me to host the Newcastle v Arsenal game on January 2, 1996, and to present the man of the match award in the sponsor's lounge afterwards.

The game was one minute old when Ginola picked up the ball on the left and set off on a slaloming run, leaving bewildered Arsenal defenders in his wake. Nearing the corner of the penalty area, he cut inside and unleashed a right-foot shot which curled unstoppably into the top corner. As the crowd erupted, my wife Jo turned to me and whispered: “If Peter Beardsley wins man of the match, you can present it to him. If it's Ginola, I'm doing it.” It was, and she did.

Having borne the burden of supporting Sheffield Wednesday for 30 arid years, the games at St James' Park during this golden period made the heart sing. There were many memorable matches: a 7-1 trouncing of Spurs; an Andy Cole hat-trick in a 3-0 win in the snow against Liverpool (when the second goal went in, the roar of the crowd was so loud it blew out the speakers in the Newcastle Breweries box); and a 6-1 battering of Wimbledon, in which Vinnie Jones ended the game as an emergency goalkeeper.

As he donned the gloves, the Newcastle fans in the Gallowgate end greeted him with a chant of: “Dodgy keeper!” A couple of minutes later, after he made a decent save, the chant changed to: “Super keeper!”, much to Vinnie's amusement.

Among all these memories, there are two matches, in particular, that stand out. The first was the 5-0 annihilation of Manchester United, where Newcastle achieved a degree of redemption after conceding the Premier League title to Alex Ferguson's team the previous season, following Keegan's “I'd love it” meltdown. On a day when everything Newcastle touched turned to goals, Jo and I were guests of Barclays, the club's bankers. Half an hour or so after the final whistle, a beaming Freddie Fletcher arrived in the Barclays box and invited the remaining handful of us to have a drink with him in the directors' lounge.

As we made our way through the bowels of the stadium, striker Ferdinand – one of Newcastle's scorers – was walking towards us. Wearing a dark grey suit and a white, open-necked shirt, he looked like a god. Just as our paths crossed, Jo – a few drinks to the good and still giddy from her Ginola encounter a few months earlier – decided to engage him with a few well-chosen words. “Ooh, Les,” she said, “you … you … you lovely man.” Ferdinand flashed her a killer smile and, wisely, continued on his way.

We arrived at the directors' lounge and standing by the door was a glum-looking chap in a grey overcoat and a flat cap, waiting for his lift back to Manchester. It hadn't been the happiest of afternoons for Sir Bobby Charlton.

My second extra-special moment happened on a monsoon-wet Tuesday night in February 1999, when Newcastle entertained Coventry City – a mid-table clash and far from the most glamorous fixture in the Premier League calendar. Newcastle conceded an early goal but came back to win 4-1 in a match with little at stake. This was the first time I took my sons, Joe and Rory to a game. They were aged six and four. The roar that greeted the team as they ran on to the pitch hit my boys like a bolt of lightning, jolting them upright in their seats. From that moment, they were Toon fans.

* * * *

All the on-field drama of the Keegan years was eclipsed by one sensational off-the-field event – the signing of Alan Shearer. For Newcastle fans, Tuesday, July 30, 1996, is the equivalent of the first Moon landing. Everyone knows where they were when it happened. In my case, it was my mother-in-law's back garden in Lincolnshire.

On a sunny morning, I was playing with the kids when my mobile rang; it was Chronicle assistant editor Roger Borrell. He apologised for interrupting my holiday but he thought I'd want to know that Shearer had just been signed for a world record fee of £15 million. The first team squad was in Hong Kong on a pre-season tour when Keegan took the Chronicle's Alan Oliver and his counterpart from the South Shields Gazette to one side and gave them the biggest exclusive of their careers.

It was a story that editors dream of but rather than call the shots from 150 miles down the A1, I felt Roger and the team should have their day. I wished him all the best and went back to pushing the children's swing. The Chronicle team produced an outstanding front page, with Shearer pictured in action, wearing the famous black-and-white stripes. It was a neat piece of Photoshop

work, with Shearer's head grafted on to midfielder Rob Lee's body. Sales went berserk.

During those tumultuous years on Tyneside, we shared many high points with the club. But every now and then the relationship would hit choppy waters. 

One Monday morning, chairman Sir John Hall called me to discuss a story we were planning to run in that day's edition. The team had played a Premier League game on the south coast over the weekend, but the big news had nothing to do with the action on the pitch. Club captain Barry Venison had ducked out of a ten-pin bowling trip, organised by Keegan to pass the time before following day's match, and spent the afternoon in the hotel bar with two younger players. A furious Keegan promptly stripped Venison of the captaincy and told him he wouldn't be playing the next day.

Sir John had heard that we had the story and called me to ask if we were planning to publish it. I told him we were, and why: the fans would want to know why Venison hadn't played; at the next home game everyone would see he was no longer wearing the captain's armband; and – above all – it was a great story.

Sir John asked how much prominence we planned to give the article and I told him it was the main story on our back page. He went quiet and I could sense his brow furrowing. I explained we'd been all set to splash the Keegan-Venison bust-up on the front page until we heard there had been a triple murder in Gateshead that morning. It was quite a news day.

On another occasion, my managing director Stephen Parker was summoned to St James's Park following the publication of a story in the Chronicle's stablemate the Sunday Sun. A double-page spread had been given over to a sequence of aerial photographs showing Kevin Keegan's sumptuous house on Sir John Hall's Wynyard Hall Estate, with arrows highlighting where some of the main rooms were situated. Although my remit didn't extend to the Sunday Sun, Stephen took me along as our editorial spokesman. We were accompanied by our finance director John Williams, for reasons which still escape me.

Keegan's mood was somewhere between livid and apoplectic, and he turned the verbal flamethrower on us. Chief executive Fletcher and Sir John Hall's son Douglas, a director of the club, sat silently as KK let rip. This was particularly difficult for Stephen – a lifelong Liverpool fan who for whom Keegan was a footballing hero. We tried to explain the rationale for the story but anything we said served only to make matters worse. Still seething, Keegan left the room.

If we thought the temperature would cool, it didn't. Fletcher and Hall took up where the manager had left off. Hall demanded an apology from us; we said we stood by the story. After a few minutes of stalemate, Stephen, searching for some middle ground, said we were sorry the story had offended the manager and offered to write to the club to that effect. This was deemed acceptable by Hall and Fletcher but a few days later, presumably after they had discussed the letter with Keegan, word reached us that they were still unhappy with what they saw as a less-than-fulsome apology.

Nonetheless, after a few frosty weeks, something close to normal service was resumed – an indication that, despite their annoyance at this particular story, the club appreciated the value of their relationship with Newcastle Chronicle & Journal Ltd.

At the time, we felt we were within our rights to publish the pictures, but I suspect the press regulator might take a different view if the same pictures were published today. Over the years, the regulatory framework that news publishers work within has become steadily more rigorous and, despite what the keyboard warriors say, modern-day editors take care to balance the individual's right to privacy with the public's right to know.

A couple of years after the Keegan firestorm, I attended another feisty meeting at St James' Park with his successor Kenny Dalglish. Keegan had resigned, feeling he had taken the club as far as he could, and the board needed a big name to replace him. They had landed one of the very biggest in Liverpool legend Dalglish.

But the early gloss soon wore off; the fans were unhappy with the style of football being played, and Dalglish was unhappy with the way the Chronicle was reporting it. Matters came to a head after a home defeat and an insipid performance, which the Chronicle's back-page banner headline described as “GUTLESS”.

Also at the meeting were Dalglish's assistant Terry McDermott and Alan Shearer, who was representing the players, while the away team comprised Chronicle editor Alison Hastings, sports editor Paul New and me, in my new role as editor-in-chief of the Evening Chronicle and its sister morning paper The Journal. We were ushered into the manager's office, where we found Dalglish leaning back in his chair, his shoeless feet resting on an open desk drawer. He zeroed in on one of our reports that had offended him. When we disputed his interpretation of the piece, he halted the meeting and demanded the cutting be faxed over from our office.

After a few awkwardly silent minutes, the fax finally dropped. We were proved to be right but Dalglish immediately moved on another story he didn't like but which was also factually correct. Eventually, he found a piece that we agreed contained an error. We were bang to rights, apparently.

Next came the thorny issue of player ratings or “match marks” as we called them in the paper. The players absolutely detest them, said Dalglish. He was right, they do – especially if their latest performance was rated a five out of ten. (The Chronicle's unwritten rule at the time was that five is as low as you go). Interestingly, when Dalglish invited Shearer to jump in on this subject, he didn't push it hard. Then again, when you're getting nines and tens every week …

The meeting ended with the Chronicle team holding our ground and Dalglish still far from happy. A couple of weeks later, the situation deteriorated further when another article prompted him to call our Newcastle United reporter Alan Oliver, to express his displeasure.

Later that season, for the first and only time, the Newcastle manager gave an in-depth interview to the city's Metro Radio station. The content wasn't earth-shattering but Metro ran it over two or three nights, quite rightly milking their exclusive for all it was worth. It was a coup for them and a poke n the eye for us. We realised then that the days of partnership and world exclusives were over.

Keegan's Entertainers never won a major trophy, but they achieved legendary status among the fans and their era is seen as one of the highest points in the club's history. Their legacy? A constant longing among Newcastle fans for a team of similar quality, playing the same daredevil way.

A few years ago, a national newspaper journalist described the St James's Park crowd, decked out in their black-and-white striped replica shirts and yearning for success, as fifty thousand hopeful zebras. They say in football it's the hope that kills you, and in the 14 miserable years of Mike Ashley’s ownership the club, the fans’ hopes were slowly strangled.

Of course, Newcastle’s new Saudi owners bring with them their own brand of controversy, focused principally on the kingdom’s human rights record. But for the long-suffering supporters of this historic club, the change of ownership revives their dreams of better footballing days ahead. I hope those dreams are realised.