Referee: Stuart Attwell - a second sighting of the Warwickshire-based official this season, after he took charge of our opening weekend win at West Ham.

That's now four Magpies wins on the belt that Attwell has overseen, following on from victories at West Ham and Sheffield United last season.

VAR: Craig Pawson

Attendance: Behind closed doors.

The annual Remembrance Sunday arrangements took place around this match; the two captains placing wreathes pre-game at the club's War Memorial outside the Milburn Stand and a minute's silence before kickoff.

Both sides meanwhile wore their usual home kit with the additional of a poppy symbol.

There was an additional tribute to the recently-deceased Nobby Stiles, in the form of a still photograph displayed on the stadium screen before kickoff.


Today was the 20th lockout game that Newcastle fans have endured in league and cups; 10 last season, 10 so far this. High time then for: 

The Diary of a reluctant armchair supporter, aged 53 and two thirds:

Circumstance, in the form of the rule of six for outside assembly, meant that today's instalment of TV torture was actually in Newcastle city centre - your correspondent having graduated from his back room to the local boozer over the weeks and months since the first behind closed doors game in June.

A mostly empty Metro train into town was notable for a handful of those on board sporting Toon-themed face coverings and that the first glimpse of SJP while crossing Byker Viaduct prompted a moment of genuine sadness. So much of what has been done, said, written, thought and regretted came from that place. Sadly for now, it's as inaccessible as Machu Picchu.

Fast forward a couple of hours and pints to a hasty walk through the city via what has been a familiar pre-match route for many years. Different today though, in that it won't end on Barrack Road, the pubs passed are sparsely populated or closed and there are no fellow sufferers striding alongside.

Pint in hand, seat in front of the TV, eyes down - and be instantly distracted by, well, anything. Thankfully there were just enough attacking moves to bridge that gap from bar to ground and prompt the "go on" cries, as if the player in question could actually hear.

Almiron's first half dash down the left was one fragment of near normality, Fraser's run and cross for what proved to be the winner another - but even that was just the briefest of clenched fist / "gettin" celebrations. There are people still limping from celebrating Ritchie's equaliser at Bournemouth.

The penalty award had all the allure of a tax return, devoid of emotion - but one senses that the madness of VAR would transcend location, and people would be just as dumbfounded were they to be inside the ground.

Post-match, a tour of some traditional drinking establishments seemed in order, including one or two in sight of the ground itself - mild inebriation only adding to the sense of bewilderment and other-worldliness. If anyone remembers the old S&N beer advert where a bloke dreams of visiting his local while sleepwalking, then this was something like it. But without the Best Scotch.   

Some fellow travellers were encountered in one bar, fresh from another 90 minutes of squinting at a screen while the action was going in clear sight through the opposite window, albeit behind locked doors. Now that's stoic.

Christ knows how those Boro fans at the Riverside this weekend coped - willingly watching a game taking place the width of a wall away on a big screen: a cruel and unusual punishment if ever there was one. What's stopping them ripping curtains down or kicking doors in - a banning order?

Is there any moral to all this? No, neither is there any logic - or realistic end to this miserable half-life. So much of what we've taken for granted on a lifelong basis has just disappeared. Has Callum Wilson got a song? 

Winning did help the mood, beer did mitigate the misery of missing out - but the regret of not being part of 50,000 roaring their approval at what they were seeing remains massive. Let alone Wilson or Fraser, I've never seen Jeff bloody Hendrick in a black and white shirt. Peculiarly, that matters.

On reflection, it's the games we've not won from the 20 we've been forced to watch from afar that have been more telling. From the perverse pleasure of pressing the off button a second after the full time whistle of the 0-3 home defeat to Brighton to the sheer weirdness of the Murphy equaliser v Wolves.

The context of that latter goal is entirely different depending on whether you're viewing it from the away section at Molineux or from your settee . In the flesh, that would have almost felt like a win, or at least snatching a point from the jaws of defeat. Watching remotely, it just looked coldly undeserved.

Trying to encapsulate that in a match report when emotions are suppressed or jumbled is damn difficult at times - and even more of a tricky beast to nail from just gawping at a screen. If we'd known how this would turn out, we could have picked a more exotic team to watch - Boca Juniors etc?

Only joking, our task remains trying to preserve this stuff, if only for future generations to mock. I know we'll meet again back in that ground one day - and people will still slope off before full time.

In the meantime, at least the games are available to watch, no matter how difficult it may be to stomach them being beamed in. And if there is a crumb of comfort, it's being reminded on days like today in the same way that watching Newcastle United in person is a shared experience, then being prevented from doing so is also a collective situation - it isn't just us*.

* For the avoidance of doubt, we've not seen a single live minute of senior team action since Southampton away in March. Our match counter refers solely to NUFC U18/U23 matches observed from considerable distance....