So, the countdown to the first league derby for too long has begun.
Football is nothing without rivalry, near-tribalism and passion, but that said, I’m not a great fan. My blood pressure is already going
up writing this with a week still to go — and I’m sure my doctor won’t be too pleased about that!
Whatever the result, I’ll be driving home afterwards to watch a re-run of the game that I will have recorded, because I won’t have taken much of the game in whilst watching it live! My wife often asks me as I sit in front of the TV even after a “normal” game, “Are you watching it again?”
“No. I’m watching it for the first time without my heart rate going through the roof!”, is my reply, but a derby game and the build up to it is one of the very few times that I’m glad I live 250 miles away from the North East — certainly from a football point of view.
The taunting and arrogance of the Newcastle fans has always been a great annoyance for me.
I remember thinking once I’d moved south twenty five years ago that it was a slight relief to be away from the banter. I’m sure some revel in it and that it’s their favourite game of the season, but not for me. Don’t get me wrong: it’ll be hugely exciting, but also tense and at times almost unbearable!
It’ll be my stepson’s first derby experience, and he’s fifteen.
There may be a lot of youngsters in the crowd for whom this is their first conscious taste of this match, but you’d have to be pushing twenty five to remember a Newcastle win — assuming primary school-aged children don’t often fully remember such experiences.
My memories of derby matches are a blur of goals, chants, ecstasy, teeth grinding and near-personification of hatred!
The 3-0 wins in 2013 (that Borini goal) and 2015 (that Defoe strike!), and the Kieran Richardson rocket in our 2008 win (“2-1, we always win 2-1, we always win 2-1”) — and I also remember sitting with the Newcastle fans as Gary Rowell scored his hat trick at St James’ Park in 1979, sensibly sitting on my hands!
I could go on, but for absolute tension and even more at stake than three points or bragging rights, I can’t get past the two play off semi-final matches in 1990 for pure drama and emotion. That Paul Hardyman late penalty miss, and then trying to kick John Burridge’s head into the net instead! The sublime second leg in the rain with Eric Gates and Marco Gabbiadini…I can still transport myself back there now.
Alongside those on-pitch memories come the recollections of the atmosphere.
At Roker Park, the hatred — almost bile, if that’s not too strong a word — could almost be cut with a knife and it’s not much different now. The Newcastle fans queuing to get into the Stadium of Light, shaking their house keys and shouting “Whee’s keys are these?” in their supposed mock interpretation of the Mackem accent? All good banter you could say, but it gets on my “pigging nerves”, as Bobby Ball would shout!
So, here we go again.
Of course, we had that FA Cup game two seasons ago (which has absolutely no bearing on this game at all) but I certainly don’t want to go through that experience again in a hurry. Our team is much changed; the players who played in that match have stepped up massively, and Dan Ballard and Trai Hume will have a lot to prove.
Bring it on. Let the countdown begin, and I’ll keep taking the tablets!
Ha’way, me bonnie lads!
