Forty years of hurt

Forty years ago today, Newcastle United won their last major trophy - the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, a forerunner for the Uefa Cup (now replaced by the Europa League).

United beat Hungarian team Ujpest Dozsa 3-2 in Budapest to complete a 6-2 aggregate victory with goals from captain Bobby Moncur, Benny Arentoft and Alan Foggon.

On Geordie Day this week, I spent some of the afternoon idling around Newcastle City Centre's latest addition.

The monstrous concrete block that was the Central Library was presumably a result of 1960s Council leader T Dan Smith and his strange love for brutalist architecture.

It has been replaced by a beautiful six-storey glass-fronted building with everything you would expect from a modern library - books, CDs, DVDs, blu-ray, free internet access.

And, on the sixth floor, old newspapers.

I was genuinely interested to see how Newcastle's success had been reported by the Evening Chronicle.

After all, nowadays if United win more than two matches in a row - unlikely, I know - it'll probably get a mention on the front page.

Back in the 1960s, unsurprisingly, journalism seemed to operate slightly differently.

For a start, the Chronicle - like most newspapers - was a broadsheet.

Then there was the belief that the front page was very much the place for hard news with any stories on sport confined to the back pages.

On the day of the match (11/06/69), the Chronicle's front page led with "King Size Province is Plan for North" by political correspondent Gordon Jackson, with no mention at all of United anywhere.

The lead was undoubtedly a big story about the possibility of a North East Parliament being introduced by the Wilson government as an additional tier between local authorities and Westminster.

Odd that by 2009, this still had not been introduced and indeed was overwhelmingly rejected in 2004 in a referendum when New Labour tried to implement a similar idea.

The back pages featured stories from John Gibson who was in Budapest and led with a "play or I quit" threat from birthday boy John McNamee.

As it happened, McNamee remained unused on the bench on that balmy night in Budapest but stayed at St James until 1971.

The rest is history. United, leading 3-0 from a storming performance at Gallowgate in the first leg, were rattled as Ujpest Dozsa pulled two goals back before half time.

Manager Joe Harvey, who turned 51 that night, gave his rousing speech: "Listen, you lot. You're 3-2 up in a cup final with 45 minutes to go. What's up with you? Hit them once early and they'll collapse."

Harvey was right. Moncur volleyed his third goal of the tie (his only three United goals in 296 appearances) to halve the deficit on the night and make it 4-2 on aggregate only a minute after half time.

Another goal from Dane Arentoft recovered the first-half damage within five minutes of the restart.

And "Beatle boy" Foggon sealed an unexpected cup win for a team written off by the London press as no-hopers for the trophy late on.

In the Chronicle on the following day, under the back page headline "Big Hearts Win The Cup", Gibson reported with glee.

He wrote: "It was a moment to savour - a moment to remember for all time. Even Budapest will never forget it."

This time, a photograph of the players' lap of honour was placed towards the bottom of the page.

But it was still hard news which dominated with another story from political correspondent Gordon Jackson on economics - "Trade Gap Is Slashed With Record Exports".

In fairness, the Chronicle did produce a 20-page special edition a couple of days later on the Saturday, which could be bought for the princely sum of 5d.

And nearly every advert carried a congratulations message for the team.

Those were the days... and those days seem a long way off now.

From nufc.com:
Team: 1 Iam McFall, 2 David Craig, 3 Frank Clark, 4 Tommy Gibb, 5 Ollie Burton, 6 Bobby Moncur (c), 7 Jimmy Scott, 8 Bryan 'Pop' Robson, 9 Wyn Davies, 10 Benny Arentoft, 11 Jackie Sinclair, 12 Alan Foggon (for Scott, 70). Unused subs: George Hope, John McNamee.
Goals: Moncur 46, Arentoft 50, Foggon 76
Manager: Joe Harvey.

Geoff Allen, Albert Bennett, Dave Clarke, John Craggs, Keith Dyson, Dave Elliott, Ron Guthrie, Arthur Horsfield, Jim Iley, Gordon Marshall and Graham Winstanley had all made appearances for United earlier in the competition.