Flashback Friday - United 1-0 Chelsea, 7 May 2006
It's not the first time we've played Chelsea in May in a crunch game for European qualification (kind of). Scott whisks us back in time.
FA BARCLAYS PREMIERSHIP
NEWCASTLE 1 (Bramble 73) CHELSEA 0
Att 52,309.
NEWCASTLE: Given, Carr, Bramble, Moore, Babayaro, Solano (Boumsong 31), Faye, Emre, N’Zogbia, Chopra (Clark 77), Ameobi.
Sent off : Carr (75).
CHELSEA: Pidgeley, Paulo Ferreira, Huth (Wright-Phillips 45), Ricardo Carvalho (Smith 81), Gallas, Johnson, Diarra, Maniche, Robben, Joe Cole, Duff (Carlton Cole 45)
Sunday it's Chelsea, but then you knew that didn’t you? Our biggest game since the Cup final and we know what happened there.
For flashbacks Chelsea actually provides quite a few succulent maybes. Let's face it, over the last 20 years they have feasted on trophies domestically and abroad, and it might come as a shock to some that we've won seven out of their last 13 visits, and in some of them we've rubbed their noses in it. This correspondent agrees that they have deserved every one of those.
What I'm going for though, is a game almost to the day NINETEEN(!!!) years ago. Glenn Roeder (RIP) v Jose Mourinho, Abdoulaye Faye v Arjen Robben and Shay Given v er, Lenny Pidgeley. This had all the saleability of the ‘Thrilla in Manilla’ or anything else Don King could rhyme capital cities with.
Newcastle under Roeder had been a sensational success.
When Souness was finally put out of his misery in the first few days of February in 2006, having been one of the most universally unpopular managers in modern United history (little did we know Kinnear (RIP) and Bruce were coming up on the rails), Newcastle were 14th and six points off going down. The only continental opposition we were going to face was Cardiff.
Roeder immediately put his arm around the squad (not all at the same time obviously) and promised them the dark days were over. He even let them out of the underground tunnels Souness forced them to live in after a particularly bad defeat to Fulham.
Love not hate, not for the first time, worked a treat as United won nine from 14 games. Unthinkable for a side featuring Faye, Boumsong and Moore. It meant that going into the last day of the season, Newcastle could qualify for Europe of sorts.
Win and our transformation was complete as we would qualify for the Intertoto Cup. For younger readers it was like the Conference League, but it was a summer pools/lottery thing for continental Europe. No one really wanted to play in it and no one knew how to win it. Alan Pardew once played for Tottenham in it in his late thirties as a joke. It's this reason alone he's not further up in the unpopular managers list.
But in terms of rubbing Souness’ beak in it, it was one of the best things we've ever done. To get in this Bolshoi ballet of all competitions, we had to beat the best.
Chelsea blew everyone else away. In retaining the title, they won the most games in a Premiership season (29) and were one of the best teams on the planet, beating Manchester United 3-0 three weeks earlier to confirm the title. Some way to do it. Can you imagine Fergie's face?
Those standards had dropped slightly after that high. Blackburn had beat them previously and we fancied our chances.
Eldritch racist Emre was back in the United side and he looked the most dangerous man on the park in the first half and as he pulled the strings rather than an opposition player's piss.
He almost scored with a 20 yard shot and then Joe Cole nearly scored an own goal intercepting one of his passes. Solano, in his second spell which was much better than his one at Blyth Spartans, whipped a couple of shots wide but went off injured just before half time with Boumsong coming on in the most ‘did he come on for him?!’ substitutions ever.
Mourinho made six changes, leaving out top scorer Lampard and the quite good Drogba and Crespo, so to the untrained eye, it might look like they couldn't really have given a toss, but this changed at half time as on came Wright- Phillips and Carlton Cole (stop laughing at the back).
Chelsea moved up the gears immediately. Gallas and Wright- Phillips had goals disallowed. VAR might have come to different conclusions but was about fifteen years away, so we really could lord those decisions up at that point. It looked like only one team was going to win it at this point and it really wasn't us.
Then salvation, or a shortening of the summer holidays depending on which way you look at it, came in the unlikely shape of Titus Bramble. Lady luck said yes, not no Titus.
Emre sent a corner over, Senegal sensation Faye nodded it on, and Bramble somehow screamed a volley into the net. It could be at best described as part Emilio Butragueno, part Emil Heskey. But boy did it all come together. Some would say his best day at St James’. Me? I would point you staunchly in the direction of Halloween 2010.
We made things harder for ourselves soon after when Stephen Carr was sent off for kicking Diarra on the deck. Jose being Jose he wanted at least two more red cards. Some people.
After much tenseness though we amazingly held on, despite someone called Jimmy Smith coming on for Chelsea for the one and only time.
The players for once, deserved the post match histrionics but in reality one man, Roeder, did. He had brought the club back together and was rewarded within days with a permanent deal if he could pass his coaching exams. He did, but it was never quite the same after this game.
United fans dreaming of trips to Spain, Italy, Greece, or Turkey were brought down to Earth as we were put in the Northern draw. It was Faeroe rather than Faro. We got Llliestrom of Norway and after beating them, Ventspils of Latvia.
You know what happened next. One of the greatest triumphs in our long and varied history.
Scott Parker's face says so. Don't believe me. Google the hell out of it.
Scott Robson
Great flashback, Scott. I’d forgotten about Titus Bramble winning us the game. Rumour has it that the only way we could get him to win the ball was to draw a picture of a girl on it. 😂
Ooh dear, him and his brother Tesfaye were certainly a pair of lads weren’t they. Good player but blimey we’ve got limits. I remember him being booed onto the pitch, not for football reasons. Dyer and Jenas as impressionable young fellas were swayed. No wonder you don’t hear Titus doing any punditry. All forgiven anyway, quarter of a century ago:)