Newcastle United Football Club (also known as The Magpies or The Toon)
is an English football club based in Newcastle upon Tyne, who currently
play in the Premier League. The club was founded in 1892 after the
merger of two local clubs, Newcastle East End and Newcastle West End.
Since their founding year, the club have played at their home ground of
St. James' Park. Training facilities are located at Darsley Park.
They have won the First Division Championship four times and the FA Cup
six times, though their last league success was in 1927. In European
competition the most notable honour the club has won is the Inter-
Cities Fairs Cup, in 1969.
They have a long-standing and fierce rivalry with local team
Sunderland. The Tyne-Wear derby between Newcastle United and Sunderland
has been played since 1898. The club's traditional kit colours are
black and white striped shirts, with black shorts and socks. Supporters
of Newcastle United refer to themselves as the Toon Army.
The 1992–93 season saw a dramatic turn around in the club's fortunes.
They won their first eleven league games before a 1–0 home defeat
against Grimsby Town ended the run, two games short of the English
league record of 13 consecutive wins. Playing an exciting brand of
attacking football Newcastle became Division One champions with a 2–0
away win, coincidentally at Grimsby, and gained promotion to the
Premier League.
Under Keegan, Newcastle continued to succeed, impressing with their
attacking flair and a third place finish during the 1993–94 season,
this was their first season back in the top flight. The attacking
philosophy of Keegan led to Newcastle becoming labelled by Sky
television as "The Entertainers". The following season Newcastle sold
top scorer Andrew Cole to MU and finished 6th that
season.
With the transfer money in 1995–96, Newcastle rebuilt with the signing
of David Ginola and Les Ferdinand amongst others. The club came very
close to winning the Premier League that season, and were at one time
12 points ahead of nearest rivals Manchester United, but eventually
lost out. One match in particular from that season stood out, the 4–3
defeat to Liverpool, which has since been described as the greatest
ever Premier League match. On 30 July 1996, the disappointment of
missing out on the title was lessened to an extent, as the club signed
Alan Shearer for a then world record fee of £15 million. The 1996–97
season saw Newcastle once again finish in second.
After short and unsuccessful spells as manager from Kenny Dalglish and
Ruud Gullit, former England manager Sir Bobby Robson was appointed as
manager. His first home game in charge was particularly impressive; it
was an 8–0 victory over Sheffield Wednesday, which remains the club's
record home win. Good performances such as these helped the club
ensure survival in the Premier League in Robson's first season. A title
challenge emerged during the 2001–02 season, and Newcastle achieved
qualification for the Champions League after finishing in 4th place.
However, Robson was fired in 2004 after failing to qualify for the
Champions League. Robson is still held in high regard by Newcastle
supporters.
Graeme Souness was his replacement, but he proved to be an unpopular
choice being fired on 2 February 2006, despite signing Michael Owen for
a record £16 million. Glenn Roeder replaced Souness; the game after his
time as manager Alan Shearer overtook Jackie Milburn as the club's
highest ever goal-scorer. Shearer retired at the end of the 2005–06
season, with a total of 206 goals for the club. Despite finishing the
2005–06 season well, Roeder's fortunes quickly changed in the 2006–07
season, and he left the club by mutual consent on 6 May 2007. Sam
Allardyce was named as Roeder's successor on 15 May, with what proved
to be Freddy Shepherd's last act as Chairman, who sold his final shares
in the club on 7 June to Mike Ashley and was replaced by Chris Mort.
Despite making a promising start to the season, Allardyce left the club
on 9 January 2008 by mutual consent after less than eight months in
charge. It was confirmed on 16 January, that Kevin Keegan would return
to Newcastle as manager, eleven years and eight days since leaving the
club on 8 January 1997. A popular choice amongst many Newcastle Fans Further appointments in January 2008 saw Dennis Wise join the club
as Executive Director (Football), as well as Tony Jimenez as Vice
President (Player Recruitment) and Jeff Vetere as Technical Co-
ordinator. The idea was to complete a continental-style management
structure working in support of Keegan. Wise and Vetere should make the
initial assessment before calling in Jimenez to do the deal. In
addition to this David Williamson was appointed Executive Director (
Operations) in April 2008. Mort decided to step down as managing
director and chairman in June and he was replaced by Derek Llambias, a
long-term associate of Ashley.
As the summer transfer window closed weeks into the 2008–09 season,
after three days of talks between the board and Keegan amid press
speculation on 4 September, Keegan resigned after 232 days in charge,
stating he was unable to continue as manager if he was not in control
of who was bought by the club. Following conflicting statements
released by the club over the facts of the dispute, extensive protests
occurred against the board, in particular Ashley and Wise, during the
next home game against Hull City on 13 September.
On the next day in a long official statement, Ashley announced he would
be putting the club up for sale, while outlining the state of the club
when he found it, the financial limitations his regime was under and
the changes he had made to provide a stable future for the club. While
making clear that his statement was not intended to be seen as an
attack on Keegan and that he was "still a fan" of Newcastle and "did
not buy Newcastle to make money", in light of safety concerns over
attending future matches, he was "no longer prepared to subsidise" the
club.
On 24 September the club registered their lowest ever attendance for a
competitive match since the 1993 promotion to the top flight, a
drop of over 4,000 from previous lows. This was for a League Cup visit
of Tottenham Hotspur, which Newcastle lost 2–1. At the time, Tottenham
lay bottom of the Premier League with 2 points, while Newcastle
themselves lay 2nd bottom on 4 points.
Joe Kinnear took charge of Newcastle United on 26th September 2008
initially on a 10 week contract, managing the club until the owner Mike
Ashley had sold the club. His contract was extended by one month in
October 2008, and he was confirmed as the club's manager until the end
of the season on November 28.
Post a Comment