Dear Newcastle United — fans, players, staff, the whole club.
How are you?
First things first, don’t worry! I know you said no letters this year. In fact, you said it to the point of bluntness, if you don’t mind me saying so. Quite rude, actually. Bit hurtful. “No more bloody slushy, emotional letters to players,” you said. “Not this time.” And although your tone was a tad bruising, we at The Athletic are here to service your requirements. We have got the message, loud and clear.
Hang on, lemme just make a note here. NO. MORE. LETTERS. Got it.
I’m sure you remember what I’m talking about. If you need a refresher — STOP SHOUTING AT ME! — we contacted the nearest and dearest of Eddie Howe’s squad before your last visit to Wembley a couple of years ago and turned their expressions of pride and love into a piece that, yes, tugged at the heartstrings.
“It was a really emotional weekend,” Sean Longstaff told us in an interview a few weeks later. “You did the article where family members wrote letters to players and we were having breakfast on the morning of the game and people were reading each other’s out and they were in tears at the table. And I was thinking, ‘We’ve got a cup final in six hours and everyone is crying their eyes out’.”
A cup final against Manchester United that, as bloody usual, Newcastle proceeded to lose.
So you blamed us for that 2-0 defeat, as if my colleagues Chris Waugh and Jacob Whitehead had been on the pitch that day, but they were only words, and bloody nice words at that, and maybe YOU could have done YOUR bloody bit and not got so p***** mortal in Trafalgar Square the night before and then turned up at Wembley WITH SUCH A RAGING HANGOVER THAT YOU COULDN’T EVEN F****** SING AND THEN…
Trafalgar Square the night before the final in 2023 (Stefan Rousseau/PA Images/Getty Images)
Oh, god, I’m so sorry. No, I am. Sorry. I didn’t mean that. Honestly, I didn’t. We’re just all on edge, aren’t we? Up a height. These opportunities don’t come along very often if you follow or report on Newcastle — not yet, anyway — and you just feel everything to your core. And then Anthony Gordon gets himself suspended and Lewis Hall gets injured and that’s the entire left side gone and then Sven Botman is ruled out, too, and arghhhh this is just so bloody Newcastle, ruining everything since 1892…
Anyway, the point you’ve all been making is eminently reasonable. This week, Matt Ritchie compared Wembley 2023 to a party balloon that had been inflated for a fortnight; by the day of the game, air was hissing out. And so what you’re saying is less emotion, more precision; less love, more anger; less teary, more tearing forward; less soppiness all round.
You’re saying let’s be businesslike and focused and get the job done. If you’re going to win the weekend, like you did in 2023, then do it properly and win the match, too. That’s what you’re saying. You’re saying no more bloody letters. Gotcha.
But now I’m here, now that I’ve bothered to open my laptop and compose this missive of formal acceptance, I suppose I could just say a couple of things. Nothing fancy, nothing OTT, just a few simple, straightforward words expressing luck, that kind of stuff. Like a stiff handshake in written format. The best of British! Up and at ‘em! Hooray! God speed! Best wishes!
Ah, no. I can’t. I just can’t do it…
I really f****** love you. You know that, don’t you? I’ve always loved you.
I love you when you lose, which used to be quite often, and I love you when you win and our eardrums quake. I loved you in the rain, in the snow, in the misery and futility. And I love this. This feeling of possibility, that one day — for god’s sake, PLEASE let it be this day — your day and our day will come.
There’s nothing wrong with telling you that. There’s nothing wrong with emotion per se, it’s just about expressing it at the right time in the right way and energising each other rather than exhausting ourselves. You’re an emotional club and emotional fans and anybody who has lived it and breathed it will say the same. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.
Steve Harper, the former goalkeeper, Newcastle’s longest-serving player and now their academy manager, uses the word “bipolar” to describe the club and that feels right.
Sir Bobby Robson, who survived the furnace of England and Barcelona, always said that the highs and lows were more extreme at Newcastle, which is pretty remarkable, particularly when those highs never quite reached greatness, no matter how much he and you strained for it. (As for the lows, let’s leave them in their cemetery tonight. So many ghosts…)
Sir Bobby Robson took Newcastle to San Siro in the Champions League (Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
Kevin Keegan, who got this show rolling, talked about “riding the black and white tiger” and that feels right, too. Your emotion, your life, can be wild and untamed and magnificent. You should revel in it, nurture it, let it all out. Love soars and love hurts and I’m not saying it makes you better or different to anybody else, I’m just saying it is who you are.
(To clarify, I definitely am saying it makes you better and different.)
Howe is not that kind of head coach. He doesn’t ride the tiger. He doesn’t surf on Newcastle’s emotional wave, he ploughs on through it. He wants to make decisions with a clear head and strong purpose and to block the cacophony out. He wants his team to approach every game in the same manner, no matter who and where they’re playing, whatever the competition, whatever the circumstances.
This is what Howe told reporters on Friday morning: “It does feel different (to two years ago). The whole thing this year has felt different because we’ve gone about our business in a calm, controlled way. To attack those games in the way we did, in the middle of a busy campaign, we’ve just gone from round to round and now we’re in the final. There’s been a lot less emotion, a lot less noise outside. Hopefully, that helps our performance in the game.”
But let’s get one thing straight here. Let’s be arrow-like in our accuracy. Howe doesn’t want Newcastle to play without emotion. He doesn’t want you to behave without emotion.
The head coach has told friends that a favourite moment this season came immediately before that stunning 2-0 win against Arsenal in the second leg of the semi-final when, from the corner of an eye, he saw the Wor Flags display in the Gallowgate End and a banner that simply said, “Get into them.” (The second part of this old terrace chant was merely implied: “F*** them up.”)
Howe rarely notices these things, rarely allows himself the luxury of deviation, but he felt a sense of calm, a sense that things would be OK. Because this was a flawless message, the encapsulation of his Newcastle. Get into them. Newcastle did. The team played like St James’ Park sounded.
“There are positives and negatives to not being overly emotional,” Howe said that night. “The positive is you do your job and you’re clinical with it and that’s how I want us to be. But there have been times this season when we haven’t looked ourselves, when we’ve almost looked under-emotional. So there’s a balance and a sweet spot we need to hit. This was perfect.”
This is the lesson of 2023. At that final, by the time referee David Coote — whatever happened to him? — blew the first whistle, Newcastle as a club had expended so much emotion building the whole thing up that there was nothing left to give.
When you say no more bloody letters, that’s what you’re getting at.
Eddie Howe after the defeat in 2023 (Eddie Keogh/Getty Images)
But all your emotion is needed on Sunday. You are at your best when that emotion is an inferno, when tumult from the stands is a force of nature, when teams and fans are in a synergy, when Bruno Guimaraes makes a clearance and turns towards you like Russell Crowe in Gladiator with blood in his nostrils, when that restless yearning for more, for better, surges from you. When you pour forward.
To be 100 per cent, 100 per cent of the time; this is what you have never quite been throughout these years of waiting and wanting whenever Wembley has beckoned. To be 100 per cent, 100 per cent of the time is surely your best chance of beating Liverpool.
So, no letters to players — categorically no letters — but a few quick notes.
To Alexander Isak: You don’t run, you glide. This is your stage, your moment. Be unstoppable. Glide.
To Joelinton: The personification of Newcastle’s story, from laughing stock to the Champions League. Bring your chaos.
To Kieran Trippier: The standard-bearer and setter of standards. You have transformed Newcastle. Transform them one more time. Into winners.
To Jacob Murphy: Make this day your s***housing masterpiece. Run, go down, run, wink, waste time, run, let everybody scream, “He’s done f****** nothing but run.” Then slide one through for Alex.
To Sandro Tonali: Let your lost months be fuel. Let Newcastle’s love be fuel.
To England’s Big Dan Burn: How magnificent does that sound? You play every game like your first and last. Make this the last we see of the old Newcastle. Make this the first we see of something new.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
Dear Newcastle, emotion is not a weakness. Emotion is your super-strength, not turning up is your Kryptonite. Convene in Covent Garden, drink and celebrate and mark a special moment that is still a novelty. Turn towards Wembley and let adversity bring clarity: no Hall, no Gordon, middling form and formidable opponents, so what choice do you have but to lose yourself and find yourself? To embrace ferocity at velocity?
Win or lose, let’s save the tears for afterward.
With love (but no letters),
George.
(Top photo: Bruno Guimaraes by Chris Brunskill/Fantasista via Getty Images)
