Flashback Friday - Newcastle Utd 0-0 Liverpool (1-0 pens), 16th April 1988, Wembley Stadium
Looking for a positive Wembley omen? Look no further than the time we beat the all-conquering Reds under the Twin Towers!
Mercantile Credit Football League Centenary Tournament
LIVERPOOL: Hooper, Gillespie, Ablett, Nichol, Staunton, Watson, MacDonald, McMahon, Aldridge (Durnin 23), Barnes, Beardsley.
NEWCASTLE: Kelly, Anderson, Roeder, Tinnion, McCreery (Stephenson 25), Wharton, McDonald, Mirandinha, Gascoigne, Goddard, O’Neill.
Att: 27,000
How many times have you heard the pearler (usually from a Liverpool fan) that on the morning of the 1974 cup final, we had won more trophies than the ‘Pool. Eleven to ten apparently and now it's something like 300 versus 11 in their favour.
It's Wembley on Sunday, so yes we are doing a flashback, and yes I'm doing a one where we beat Liverpool at Wembley. Go on I dare you, I hear you say.
Well, European Cups are not for everyone. The first round of the Mercantile Centenary tournament is where it's at. They know it, we know it. It's so much in Liverpool's heads that even me mentioning the word “mercantile” brings the whole club into a cold sweat and inevitably gives us the psychological advantage for this weekend.
Some of you can go full Everton and set fireworks off at the wrong hotel. I will just do this. It works just as good as having a German shepherd bark at you 24/7 in Guantanamo Bay. Mark my words.
For the uninitiated, the Football League had its centenary year in 1987/1988 and celebrated with a year long party which included a Football League v Rest of the World elevens. The Rest of the world had a front four of Maradona, Futre, Lineker, and Platini but lost 3-0 to a side containing Richard Gough and John McClleland. I guess they wanted it more.
Then in April, a whole weekend (this was no mean feat as Man City and Chelsea played league games on Saturday before a cup final on Sunday the year previously) was set aside for a two day party/festival/rave at Wembley.
The league, in their wisdom, picked out a group of games between two certain dates in which the teams who won the most games across the top four divisions in that period would get invited/ forced to play.
Newcastle had avoided relegation the season before with a run of only one defeat in ten thanks to 8 goals in a row by Paul Goddard. This was smack bang in the middle of the League’s red zone so we got invited. Good job it wasn't the nine games previous, as we lost them all. Anyways, we were invited to the party. Willie McFaul presumably knocked on the door of the Empire stadium with a case of Tennents Super.
The games lasted 40 minutes each and the hardest thing looked to be keeping peace in the stadium as Everton, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sunderland, Leeds, Manchester United, Wolves and Aston Villa fans were all in the ground at the more or less the same time. We got 2,300 tickets.
Which brings me on to the day itself. You can imagine somewhere deep in Lancaster Gate at the time someone would have pitched this something like: “Don't worry. It will be warm and sunny. Man Utd will be there. Bryan Robson is bound to be. What can go wrong?” A bit like Jim Morrison's ghost in ‘Wayne's World’ who said “Book them, they will come”.
Well firstly it poured. All day. The ‘Royal Liver assurance’ sign was resplendent. Its reflection in the flooded area behind the goal created a red 3-D image while Wimbledon v Tranmere in the pissing down rain superfluously staggered on in the background. A 100,000 capacity ground was a quarter full at best. The Pink did a poster special. But then they did that even if someone got a skip delivered.
We were second up. At 10:50 am.
I mean the draw had not been kind. Liverpool were class. The gulf was much bigger than now. They had been at the top since November and stayed there. We had a decent enough, likeable team, which would have another late season spurt to finish eighth, but in the two games against the reds this season we lost on aggregate 8-1. We could have played anyone but them.
The game was awful. The fear before the tournament started was that games would be played at walking pace and no one would go for it. This was an understatement, as nine out of fifteen games were draws. Mostly goalless.
This suited us. The likes of John Barnes, Peter Beardsley, and John Aldridge would have murdered us. Instead, no one could be arsed. Both sides had a couple of openings but most folk just chatted among themselves. Even the players.
The result was the 0-0 morphing awkwardly into penalties which bizarrely and hysterically were sudden death from the off.
Steve McMahon (not exactly popular with us) stepped up and hit Liverpool's first down the middle. Gary Kelly dived to his left but stopped the pen with his trailing leg. It was unorthodox but heroic. The excitement this brought to a ten-year-old me will be hard to beat on Sunday I can tell you. McMahon for his part shrugged his shoulders as he walked back, his reaction not hiding the fact he couldn't give a toss.
All Neil McDonald needed to do was score. He casually did. He ran back ecstatic and gave the rest of the lads a massive high five, missed all of them and fell over. It was that sort of day. The career defining moment frazzled his brain and who can blame him.
Right. That's the best team in the world out the way: now it's on to a procession like tournament victory. At 1:20 we played Division Four side Tranmere. We got torn apart and lost 2-0.
If any day encapsulates the madcap but exhilarating history of Newcastle United, it's those eighty minutes of football three hours apart, in the driving rain.
Even fewer turned up the second day as most of the well-supported teams went home. Nottingham Forest won eventually and their manager didn't even turn up.
So when Sunday does come and you wake up thinking of heroes I will throw at you: Kelly, McDonald, Tinnion, Anderson, Roeder, Mirandinha, Gazza, Goddard, O’Neill, Wharton and McCreery. Hang that in the Louvre.
Inspiration comes in all sorts of forms, and if Eddie Howe has got anything about him he will play the VHS of this about 3.30 on Sunday. It's quite short Eddie, so you can drip feed it to Isak and Tonali easily.
I hope this has inspired every one of you. Sing and shout yourself hoarse on Sunday. Do it for the people who haven't got tickets, do it for the people who are no longer here and would have been there. Do it for the lads.
We can do it. We really can.
Scott Robson
Magnificent article, about something i was totally unaware of. Modern football can be absurd at times but 1988 sounds wild…
One of the best articles ever. Had forgotten about sudden death from the start, so we won one nil on pens! I remember the crowd singing ' tell me Ma' the week before, thinking, what the hell are they on about!? It was that low key.