Your Greatest Three Games Of All Time? Here's Mine...

The international break came at a bad time for Eddie and the team with the momemtum of two wins on the trot being interrupted and the Prem and CL being put on hold for two weeks.

It wasn't the best time for the Forum either, with international breaks always leading to fewer talking points and posts about upcoming games, team formations and results.

So...

I think this might be a good time for us all to see a bit more of the fan behind the blog name and avatar by telling us about your GOAT's - your greatest three Newcastle United games of all time. I found it really difficult to leave out the 3-2 win and Asprilla's hat-trick against Barcelona but I couldn't leave these games...

In time order they are;

October 1968: Fairs Cup 1st Round, 1st Leg. Newcastle 4 Feyenoord 0.

This was NUFC's first ever game in a European competition having qualified from 10th position in the old First Division on the 'one club one city rule'. At the time Feyenoord were a top club having completed the Dutch league title and cup double just three years previously.

Newcastle at the time were are a far cry from the three times FA Cup winners of the 50's, an inconsistent team, especially away from SJP where we rarely won. We were massive underdogs against Feyenoord and, the truth is, many fans turned up more to see Feyenoord's highly lauded players than they did expecting to see a Toon win.

How wrong we were... those there witnessed one of the greatest 45 minutes in Newcastle's history as a 60,000 crowd went delirious as the Toon roared into a 4-0 half time lead. A young 19 year old winger Geoff Allen - now grandfather to Elliott Anderson - tore Feyenoord apart with a performance that George Best in his prime couldn't have matched.

Allen paid for that in the return leg where he was mercilessly chopped down time and again, leading to the injury that sadly ended what could have been a great career not long after.

Newcastle, of course, went on almost unbelievably to win the Fair Cup beating Ujpest Dosza 6-2 on aggregate in the final, all the more extraordinary considering Ujpest had beaten the great Leeds team of that era home and away in the semi finals.

But, for me, that first 45 minutes against Feyenoord was magnificent, unforgettable and probably as a young lad... the first time I experienced the supercharged emotion of being a Newcastle United fan and fanatic.

March 1974: FA Cup Semi-Final, Hillsborough, Newcastle United 2 Burnley 0.

The irony of this game was that my brother had just signed a pro contract at Burnley and got me and my dad Bill and a friend tickets... which we only found out at the ground were in the main stand surrounded by Burnley supporters.

I had a black and white top hat on, had painted white stripes on an old black corduroy jacket, wore black strides and a Toon scarf. To say I got stick from the surrounding Burnley fans is the understatement of this article. Supermac abuse also screamed in all around me.

But... how sweet is revenge! After a goalless first half Supermac scored two goals, the second one from a brilliant breakaway after a Burnley corner when Terry Hibbitt lofted a ball down the middle for Supermac to chase. Supermac got there first and as he ran in on goal Burnley's CH Colin Waldron tried to pull him down, Mac, a powerhouse of a player, shook him off and scored from the rebound after his first shot hit the keeper.

If you watch the goal on Youtube you'll see Supermac wheel away to the right, arms aloft, straight towards the stand where I was now on my feet going absolutely crackers. The Toon fans at the opposite end of the pitch were a sea of delirium and noise off the decibel scale. We were on our way to Wembley for a first FA Cup Final in nearly 20 years. Tell me ma!!

Although the final was a massive let down the drama, excitement and joy of that semi-final win at Hillsborough is a day that will be etched in my memory for ever. A great, great day, made all the more memorable by having the last laugh on the surrounding Burnley fans.

March 2025. Wembley. League Cup Final. Newcastle 2 Liverpool 1

I actually find it hard to describe the emotions of that day.

My dad Bill, God bless him, took me to my first game in 1961, a game we lost 4-0 at home to Cardiff City. It was the start of many heartaches spanning decades of supporting NUFC.

Relegations, cup semi-final and final defeats, the sale of top players like Supermac, Gascoigne, Waddle, Beardsley and Andy Cole, the absolute heartache of losing a 12pt lead to hand Man U the title, including the gut wrenching 1-0 home defeat when Cole set up Cantona for the winner, even more gut wrenching than the last minute 4-3 defeat at Liverppol.

And those heartaches are just scratching the surface. After 60 years of supporting the Toon I, along with many other fans, had gone decades seeing us win absolutely nowt. The Fairs Cup was won away from home in the 2nd leg, so even that doesn't rally count. I'd been to Wembley five times for semi and final games and saw us score only one goal, Robert Lee's against Chelsea, only for Poyet to score soon after and consign us to yet another defeat.

Ed Harrison was one of those fans from my era, along with many others years younger, who never lived to see what they had yearned and prayed so long for... to see their beloved Newcastle United finally, finally, lift a trophy. Finally, to be winners, not losers yet again.

At Wembley, before KO, I stood next to a guy who never joined in the singing, chanting. and scarf waving. He was obviously on his own and looked so downhearted that I asked him if he was OK. Turned out, he was the same age as me. 71.

Like me, he'd been to Wembley five times, all defeats. Like me, he'd suffered Toon heartaches for decades. And unbelievably, like me, he was a Wallsend lad. Why was he so downhearted on Cup Final day? Because he was a bag of of nerves. He couldn't contemplate or imagine how he would feel, or how he could cope, if yet again he saw us get beat at Wembley.

All I will say on the game is this... when the whistle finally went after that awful few minutes after Liverppol's late goal threatened a comeback equaliser... we hugged and cried like two brothers who had been separated at birth and finally, after decades, been reunited.

We'd both lived to see Newcastle United lift a trophy at Wembley.

We were two of the lucky and blessed few from our era. What a day. What a joy.

Now... tell us about your greatest three Toon games.

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