FA Cup Final: Toon of trauma, Toon of triumph

Jimmy Nail,

the actor, writer

and singer, pens a

personal account of

his love affair with

Newcastle United

IN my line of work you're regularly asked some pretty dumb questions by some pretty dumb folk who should either know better or try harder. Once in a while, though, a question comes along that requires, no, demands more than just a glib one-liner by way of reply. It causes you to ponder; to wonder and contemplate and think and question, indeed to examine, the very things you've built your adult beliefs upon. "What does Newcastle United getting to the FA Cup final mean to you?" was just such a question, a googly sneakily delivered, couched in the pretence of innocence.

When I was a kid growing up in Newcastle I was black and white daft. Every other Saturday from August through to April, I'd get the No 37 trolley bus into town with my mates and head for St James' Park. Visiting Scousers used to refer to itsmirkingly as the Corporation ground on account of it being rented from the local council and not owned outright by the club. Very hurtful, was that.

When it wasn't raining up there, it was snowing, but we didn't care; we were little lads headed for a wonderful, magical Saturday place, where our heroes - men like Bobby Moncur, Bryan "Pop" Robson, and the prematurely balding Jim Iley, who seemed to us as old as God - would be running around in blizzard conditions while dressed in next to nowt. Only a softie would've whinged and, needless to say, there were no softies in our gang.

By today's standards the place wouldn't have passed muster as a cow-shed. But this was the 1960s, a time of blissful ignorance for football and for me, of peanuts and Bovril and Georgie Best, before the onset of the commercial onslaught, the thirty-grand hospitality box and the seventy- quid strip. Before Newcastle United Football Club became a plc. And before Ibrox and Heysel and Hillsborough would come to be synonymous with tragedy and death. Standing on the terraces back then, packed in like pale sardines, things were simple. Black and white, you might say. Even the bad bits - momentary warmth followed by awful realisation as another tanked-up tosser took a leak down your little bare leg - were nothing more than blips on a golden horizon.

I was, at that time, tragically unaware of something that would've made my life a whole lot cooler back then. Someone in my own family had not only played for the NUFC in an FA Cup final, but had carried away the ultimate prize - yes, there's a Cup-winner's medal somewhere. My great uncle, Edward Mooney (known to his team mates as Peter, for some reason), played right-half in the Cup-winning side of 1924 when the lads in the monochrome stripes twanked Aston Villa 2-0. Oh, the glory I could've basked in if only I'd known. And how come my old man, an ex-pro himself, never mentioned it? Years later I found out how come - the Mooneys were on my mother's side of the family. Hey-ho.

But now it's now, the domestic season is finally over, thank God, and my beloved Magpies are on their way to Wembley and those hallowed twin towers where they'll compete for the most wonderful trophy the English game has to offer.

They'll be making that trip without Kevin Keegan at the helm. The man they called "Special K" rocked the city when he walked, leaving behind him a traumatised Toon. It would have been a splendid bit of serendipity if Keegan, having played such a decisive part in our 1974 FA Cup final mauling at the hands, or rather the feet, of the then mighty Liverpool, had led the Magpies out on to the pitch as their manager, and then returned triumphant to a rejoicing Tyneside. But it's no good dreaming of such things. Kevin's gone and now King Kenny's running the show. How's he doing? One thing's as clear as day - the guys are playing a far less attractive style of football than that of a couple of seasons ago. Those carefree, one-way cavalry charges won them the hearts of the nation but, critically, no silverware.

I've dreamed about us lifting that trophy. I've cancelled a journey across the Andes (touchy subject indoors, that one) so's I can be there with all the lads and lasses should that dream become reality. And all that stands between us and that dream becoming a reality is one game, and one team.

Of course I'd love to see the Arsenal get their arses kicked. They've already got one enormous great trophy in the cabinet over at Highbury with the words "Premier League Champions 1997-98" scratched on to the bottom and surely that's enough for anyone. But if fate should decree we take a coshing on Saturday (and it would be churlish of me not to acknowledge that the Gunners are a team on fire this season), I'll settle for a great game. Because as much as I love those black and white stripes, I am, first and foremost, a lover of, and believer in, this most beautiful of games.

One of the many great things about footie is that just about anyone can knock a ball about, anywhere, any time (floodlights permitting, Noel). I like nothing better than a kick-about with my kids in the park. To kick, perchance to dream...suddenly that's not you booting the ball towards two jumpers on the deck - it's Shearer and it's Wembley and it's curling into the top corner... goal!

When played at the highest level, football becomes a joyous celebration of skill and co- ordination that transcends all borders and prejudices, thrilling and instilling worthwhile values into boys and girls of all ages, colours and creeds. But we need to take care. For me the saddest moment of a season that saw Alan Shearer out injured for six months and Newcastle's good name dragged through the mud, was the tackle by Ole- Gunnar Solskjaer on Robert Lee at Old Trafford that earned him a red card and a standing ovation. So I cheered when Arsenal won the championship. Mind you, watching Tony Adams score a goal that any top-class striker would've been proud of was enough to send a shiver down the stoutest of Novo-Castrian spines.

For Newcastle United supporters there's a much bigger challenge than the one we're about to face this coming Saturday afternoon - how do we convert these occasional flashes of brilliance, welcome though they are, into a club machine that can achieve sustained, long-term success? I have my own ideas, but that's another story for another day. Right now, the cry must be...TOON ARMY!

But realistically, I hear you say. I say to hell with realistically - this is the FA Cup, and anything can happen. Gunners can run out of ammo. And Magpies are famous for nicking things.

Jimmy Nail