Michael Walker: Newcastle United no longer rely on omens, its currency and character has changed

The night, as DH Lawrence might have put it, was “dark with north”, and in a different January in a different year the ferocious gusts sweeping down the Tyne Valley and smacking into St James’ Park would have been seen as some kind of brooding omen. There was that day in 2009 when the sky literally darkened as a 0-0 draw with Portsmouth pushed Newcastle United towards relegation and on the final whistle the Smiths’ song, There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, came over the tannoy.

Gallowgate humour, they call it. Tales of black and light.

But this was another January – January 2023 – and Newcastle United is a club changed, altered, transformed even.

Southampton were north for the second leg of a League Cup semi-final and though the winter weather was head-down oppressive, you could sense the anticipation from the sell-out crowd as it skipped magnetically towards the seducing lights beaming out from the Milburn Stand.

Leading 1-0 from the first leg at St Mary’s, there was confidence in those steps along thronged Strawberry Place; already they were selling cup final scarves on nearby Percy Street.

It was as if Newcastle had one foot in the final and when Sean Longstaff scored twice in the opening 20 minutes, they had. That heavy weight, it was lifted; that long wait, it was over.

Then Southampton scored. Although the home lead was 3-1 on aggregate, there was a degree of angst within the stadium. Not winning a domestic cup since 1955 does that.

Bruno Guimaraes was later sent off and immediately fans worried if his ban would affect a Wembley appearance.

All sighed – the Brazilian, Newcastle’s most important player, is available. Guimaraes will be fresh for Wembley and he contains the ability to dictate a match.

So they sang and they sang, they told their mothers they won’t be home for tea. Newcastle had reached a first cup final for 24 years; they had reached a first League Cup final since 1976. This was all these fans had asked for during the grinding Mike Ashley years – a team that tries.

And Eddie Howe has Newcastle trying. He has taken a squad flatlining under Steve Bruce, merely ticking over under an ownership spurning ambition, and turned it into a force.

Howe has done it through coaching, commitment, intuitive intelligence. Joelinton is player unrecognisable from before, Miguel Almiron has been galvanised, so too Longstaff and Joe Willock.

Those wasted years under Ashley – 14 of them – are being rinsed away. The serious appointments in senior infrastructure he should have made, have been made. The very character of the team, of the club, has changed. Potential, for the first time in almost 20 years, is being realised.

They swept out of St James’ on the breeze and awaited confirmation that Manchester United, not Nottingham Forest, would be the opposition on Sunday. It is a repeat of the 1999 FA Cup final, which formed the second leg of Alex Ferguson’s treble. Teddy Sheringham and Paul Scholes scored the goals that won it.

Kevin Keegan had departed Newcastle by then. His team was known as The Entertainers and made a huge contribution to the televisual and marketing success of the new Premier League. Keegan re-established Newcastle United in the national psyche after 25 years of mediocrity. He brought drama and excitement.

When he left, the club’s status as everybody’s “second favourite team” began to wane, though there was still broad goodwill to those who troop across the country in black-and-white; in 2018-19 Newcastle supporters travelled 4,500 miles, more than twice the distance, for example, of Arsenal fans.

People understand England’s geography and that football is a big deal up there. It is a regional characteristic.

Coincidence brings a new play to Newcastle’s Quayside next week. Love It If We Beat Them takes its title from Keegan’s infamous TV rant about Manchester United towards the pressurised end of the 1995-96 season. It concerns football, the Labour Party and shifting northern politics. The play promises to “explore the questions: What is power without principle? And what are principles without power?”

Given Qatar’s sudden interest in Old Trafford and Newcastle United’s absorption by Saudi Arabia, the timing is pertinent. What is a football club if it is owned by a government?

We can argue, but what is not in dispute is that it is no longer simply a football club.

[ Ken Early: Sportswashing suggests guilt when it’s more likely the Saudis are not embarrassed at all ]

It does remain one, but it is also an extension of something else, in this case Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030. Why?

Were it merely a football club formed 131 years ago, there would be no reason for crown prince Mohammed bin Salman to personally petition then UK prime minister Boris Johnson about Newcastle United’s sale, as revealed by the journalism of the Mail on Sunday. MBS isn’t keen on journalism. Or dissent.

A few months later the sale was waived through by the Premier League and Jamie Reuben joined the board at St James’. He is a former chairman of Johnson’s London mayoral team and has donated a reported £816,000 to the Conservative Party.

These are men and networks hitherto unfamiliar with Dan Burn, but they understand vast wealth and access. This is England 2023. Professional football has been caught in this axis.

And it has helped take Newcastle to Wembley. For all Howe’s coaching, there has been a quarter of a billion sterling spent on Guimaraes, Kieran Trippier, Burn and the rest.

Guimaraes and Trippier, in particular, have brought steel as well as skill. They have chiselled Newcastle’s attitude, as has Howe’s willingness to irk opponents – Che Adams was visibly shocked when barged by Almiron off the ball at kick-off in the semi-final; there are rumours Meryl Streep got a Fabian Schar calendar for Christmas.

But then as Howe said last month: “We are not here to be popular; we are here to compete.”

This went down well locally. No one loves a siege mentality more than a fan base.

It’s not Keegan, though.

He could not get his organic version of Newcastle United, who were here to be popular, across the line. Howe might.

There has been a focus on having Loris Karius in goal since Pope’s dismissal against Liverpool and the unfair ban that followed, but that physical loss may be offset. Just as Southampton had a game in between the two semi-final legs – and Newcastle did not – since then Newcastle have played three times and Manchester United have played seven, including on Thursday night against Barcelona.

Those differing workloads, less rest, plus improved coaching and big investment means Newcastle United no longer rely on omens. Its currency has changed; its character has changed.