Man United (2) 4 Cantona (25), Butt (30), Beckham (86), Keane (88)
Newcastle United(0) 0
Att: 73,214
Man Utd: Schmeichel, P. Neville, Irwin (G. Neville 46), May, Pallister, Butt
(Poborsky 42), Beckham, Giggs, Keane, Scholes, Cantona, (Cruyff 66)
Subs Not Used: McClair, Van Der Gouw, Johnsen, Solskjaer
Toon: Srnicek, Watson, Beresford, Peacock, Albert, Batty, Lee,
Ginola (Gillespie 77), Beardsley (Asprilla 65), Shearer, Ferdinand
Subs Not Used: Barton, Howey, Hislop, Clark, Kitson
Everything was going great, we had got into a pub which was 'fifteen minutes walk from Wembley'. We were having a few pints and we had just thrashed the Robertson\Kelly partnership at table football, thus proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that I know more about football than either of them.
The moment we left the pub things started to go wrong. These London chaps must be fast walkers for a start because it took us considerably longer than fifteen minutes to walk to the ground. I think that the landlord at the Pantiles Pub (daft name) may well have been fibbing about the distance from the ground.
The pre-match atmosphere was brilliant. The Toon fans were fantastic, the noise frightening. I think that herein lies the problem. The Man Utd fans just sat there and made no noise at all until they scored when they went mental for 30 seconds before being drowned out by the Toon again. The Toon fans should adopt a new policy and sit there like lemons until we score. The big kid mentality of 'I'm going to sit here and hold my breath until we score ... so there', seems to work wonders for Man Utd.
The game was a wee bit poor. We started badly, tailed off in the middle and the less said about the end the better. We were abysmal, I'm not going to go into detail about this because it's too painful. I've got psychological scars and we are not just talking about surface wounds here, I've got some serious injuries to the vital organs. At half time we quite fancied going down the tunnel and giving the players a bit of a team talk. I'm sure that my mate and I could have solved the left back and centre half positions quite easily, given some heavy, blunt instruments.
We left the ground stunned and shaken, how could this have happened? It then rained. Not your normal London driz but hard, get stuck in there, stuff. We were soaked to the bone within a matter of minutes. Then there was a dramatic electric storm. We reckoned the Gods' were angry, which may have been right but Zeus and his mates were not as vexed as me. I can remember looking back at Wembley from the tube station. Wembley Way was a mass of black and white, 40,000 despairing Toon fans. These people are the most passionate supporters in England. Football has never been just a game on Tyneside and it never will be, it is the one single factor that matters more than anything else to the people of Newcastle. Looking back down Wembley Way I will admit that I felt desperately sorry for myself but I felt angry for all those Geordies. Surely, after what we have been through, we did not deserve this.
Once on the tube and heading for the pub we all lapsed into 'Geordie in the smoke' mode. It's amazing the effect that a NE accent and a can of lager has on the locals, you would think that we were Basque separatists. After a few hours of heavy drinking Charles Charlie Charles was leading the conga around the pub singing 'We've got Mirandinha' (which of course we have not anymore but it is a good conga song). The landlord was looking a bit tense, someone had told him that we were freedom fighters from Pelaw.
I'm very bitter about Sunday, one day when we do achieve some glory I will look back and it will make the moment all the sweeter. The problem is that after every kick in the guts it is a lot harder to pick yourself up and imagine that glorious day when a Newcastle player has a nice silver trophy in his arms. Supporting Newcastle is making me very bitter, twisted and confused. Anyway it's Everton on Saturday.