Flashback Friday - Newcastle Utd 2-2 Ipswich Town, 24 April 2010

Scott remembers the trophy winning celebrations of 2010. Or not, as the case may be...

NEWCASTLE UNITED 2 (Carroll 26, Ameobi 84 (Pen))

IPSWICH TOWN 2 (Wickham 42, Walters 94)

Att: 52,181

NEWCASTLE: Harper, Coloccini, Jose Enrique, Williamson, Simpson, Nolan (Butt 76), Guthrie (Barton 76), Routledge, Gutierrez, Lovenkrands (Ameobi 66), Carroll

IPSWICH: Murphy, Wright (Clark 86), McAuley, Smith, Leadbitter (Garvan 86), Norris, Peters, Colback, Walters, Murphy (Rosenior 71), Wickham

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Not massively rich pickings for flashbacks, as this Saturday is only Ipswich’s tenth trip in about 35 years but some corkers do slip the net.

2002 saw our unlikely title challenge finally put to bed after a frustrating 2-2 draw in which Alan Shearer missed an injury time penalty. That would have been a good one, but yours truly pranged his first car on the way to the game so missed 45 minutes of it. Too many memories of my poor cherry Peugeot 206 opened up like a tin of beans to revisit that one just yet.

Then there is the 1976 game which was abandoned at half time for an icy pitch. Funnily enough people didn't like paying for something that should never have started in the first place. NUFC then passed on providing refunds deeming it “impractical”.

According to the Journal, Mags then took it out on a newly opened shopping centre: “Fans rampaged as cars were damaged and Christmas shoppers fled as fans shouted ‘Eldon Square he we come’ as shop windows were broken “. Jesus.

But the top and bottom of it is, Newcastle have had very few matches in their history where we have lifted a trophy at the end of it. This one we did. The Football League Championship trophy no less. The last time we held that trophy was in 1927. For that alone, game 45 of the 2009/10 season is the Friday flashback.

Newcastle winning the league this season remains an underrated gem. Just like the shirt that year and the white Adidas t-shirts we lifted the trophy in.

However much we shouldn't have been in the situation, the fact of the matter is the club was on its knees in the summer before and the infamous pre season game at Leyton Orient laid bare the task in hand. The 6-goal mauling suggested anything but a canter to a Premier League return.

In October we lost to a team now in the National League North and had won twice in seven games. We also had Mike Ashley. A handicap to any football club's ambitions of success.

However after that defeat in a ground in a field in North Lincolnshire, where United fans fought themselves, the stats were impressive. We lost once in the next 33 games. We scored 71 goals and every game was absolute joy. Peterborough was just insane.

Sky, of course, spoiled the party by putting us on at Plymouth on a Monday night to seal the Championship as flights were grounded due to the Icelandic dust clouds. So this was the party for the hordes. The ones who didn't get back home from Plymouth three days after they left.

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Ipswich turned up bang in mid-table with Roy Keane as manager. He was as gracious as ever. Instead of congratulating us, he bemoaned his side for not winning as we were on “holiday”.

Newcastle were going for an eighth win in a row which was one short of the club record, and though it was a party atmosphere and the game a bit of a sideshow, we scored first on the half hour mark, Andy Carroll heading in his 17th of a breakthrough season from a Wayne Routledge cross. Carroll was unplayable at times that year and looked every inch the player who would get his big move to Girondins Bordeaux later in his career.

For most in the ground that seemed like the start of an avalanche just like against Barnsley when we scored six in less than half an hour, but Ipswich dug in and equalised just before half time as Connor Wickham finished in the bottom left corner. The sort of finish he didn’t do at Sunderland who he joined in 2011 for £8m.

My recollection of the second half isn't what it should be if you are doing a flashback piece, but that's the mixture of alcohol, the sun, and not really caring. I remember Ipswich actually did OK, though, and some people actually whinged, incredibly.

Nicky Butt (I know) came on and it was definitely him who got fouled with five minutes left and I'm sure, due to my elation, it was ex-Mackem goon Leadbitter who gave it away. Two midfield titans clashing there.

Ameobi (is he still the loan supremo?) blasted the penalty in. I also vaguely remember Barton wanting to take it and Butt overruling him. Not the first time a decision went against Joey.

That raised the roof again but we lost our concentration right at the end and Jonathan Walters finished smartly in the fourth minute of injury time. To be honest they deserved it. The festivities had really got me as I thought that was a consolation goal. Those diet coke bottles with nothing else in them really were lethal.

It was the first time we had dropped points in NE1 since January but no one actually cared. Chris Hughton probably went mad though. However, we had remained unbeaten at home all season, a record that had stood for 103 years before. That's some going in a 46 game season. It's incredible in fact. Championship or not.

After five minutes in the dressing room while a red and white Coca Cola podium was put up, the management came first, then players in pairs, milking the applause. Taylor and Carroll did not appear together with Nolan in the middle holding hands unfortunately, but soon after Alan Smith and Butt lifted the trophy.

Some might laugh at our celebrations, but days like this don't come around very often for us, and it capped a season that was one of my best ever following NUFC. The club was back where it should have been in the first place, but they did it in a way that had somehow got our reputation back. That was a task harder than any team laid in front of us that season. Even Scunthorpe.

What a day. What a season.

Scott Robson