Reflections on Wembley: Love is the Drug

YOUSEF HATEM (@yousef-1892.bsky.social) on a day and weekend never, ever to be forgotten.

Euphoria. Disorientation. Tears. Heart palpitations. Insomnia.

I always figured that, if we won something, there would be numerous tangible – and some diagnosable – consequences. Writer’s block, however, I had not expected. Perhaps I should have. So much emotion, such strong feelings, refusing to form words and ending up as an amorphous mess, before I gave up – time after time – and watched Burn’s towering header goal again. Or Longstaff choking on his confetti. Or that lad asking Craig Hope for “gear” on Wembley Way. Or my own videos of Geordie Alouette on the Metropolitan line. Or the highlights, or the full ninety minutes, again and again and again.

But perhaps that’s the point: this has been a week of weeks, as real and visceral as anything could ever be, and yet somehow faintly unreal and cosmic. How could such a day, such a week, such an achievement, possibly reduce itself to print? Has this week been an extended high, or a colossal come-down? I still don’t know. What I do know, though, is that it’s now been six days, and it’s about time to at least try and unpack it all.

How was it for me? I still really don’t know. It felt – it still feels – way more powerful and affecting than I thought likely, and I am not in control of my response in the way I thought I might be. Following Isak’s superlative finish (and it was – ninety-nine strikers out of a hundred put that into orbit), the WhatsApp messages from fellow Mags completely stopped – we were much too nervous, too fixated on what was unfolding before our scarcely believing eyes – and then, first as a trickle, and then as a stream, other types started to arrive: from family, or family friends, or friends of family friends, who cared little for Newcastle United, but who had known Dad, who had taken this big, beautiful club to his big, beautiful heart, which sadly stopped last May. The day was no longer – if, indeed, it had ever been – just about a trophy. I was with my sister. We had each other. We missed him. We called Mum at full time. She was in tears. We – too – had been in tears, as well as roaring, hugging (each other and strangers) and doing whatever you do when it’s all too much, when you’re in bits.

The last game Dad was well enough to attend was in this competition: the defeat to Chelsea on penalties last season. He probably knew, then, that he’d never see us lift a pot. The first time I sat next to him in his treasured seat in the Milburn Paddock was in this competition too: a 1-0 win over Oldham in 1996. You have no idea how proud he was of Row D, Seat 101: he had a bond, so the seat had his name on it, and that meant he – from fully 6,000km away – was a Geordie. Three days earlier, we’d beaten Man United 5-0. I’d listened on a coach back from a school trip. My sister, then five, wore her tiny Newcastle shirt – which had, of course, been mine – to school for when the coach got back, and had a scrap of paper with all five goalscorers listed on it, and was upset when I ran straight past her and into the woods to have the most urgent pee of my young life. Twenty-nine years later, that little girl who looked up to me then – who gets married on the first day of next season, and whom I will be walking down the aisle though I never wanted to – was with me at Wembley.

There was, amid all of this, a football match. And, for the first time ever, we brought a sword to a knife fight. We did not so much turn up as gatecrash, Joelinton in particular clearing everything and everyone out. Poor Jarell Quansah: he was just in the way. Tonali continues to make me question my sexuality: there he was, man-spreading on the Wembley turf with the Carabao Cup between his legs, cool as a cucumber, as if he hadn’t delivered – along with Bruno – a midfield masterclass. Isak – wheeling away, leaving Van Dijk with his head in his hands, the undisputed Angel of the North in front of a banner proclaiming the presence, in that block, of the Tantobie Mags (someone, by the way, should give John Brooks a dictionary and tell him to look up “interfering”). The inspirational, peerless Trippier now confirmed as the most consequential signing in our modern history; the classy Schar, the best value one. Barnes and Murphy, tireless and dangerous. Pope, decisive and commanding. Livramento – like his team - dominant against supposedly the best in the country. And then there was Dan Burn, on the subject of whom I can only recommend Scott Robson’s magnificent article: here.

Since Sunday, I’ve thought about how lucky I am, how lucky we are, to have this football club in our lives. Easy to think that, maybe, when we’ve just won a trophy, but nonetheless true. The moments, too numerous to recall, shared with friends and family – but also with our innermost selves – over the course of a whole, honeyed weekend. We’ll always have Wembley Way. We’ll always have the Lowlander. We’ll always have the Globe. We’ll always have that very slow chicken shop on the Gray’s Inn Road. And we will always, always have each other. I’ve found myself, this week, taking pity on colleagues or neighbours who have none of that. Who are able to describe the latest Netflix show as the best thing they’ve ever seen, who can share stories of their holidays in far-flung places, but who I know have not truly lived, have not felt the fearsome power that I felt on Sunday, and maybe cannot quite conceive of it, or think I’m mad or somehow degenerate. We have long described Newcastle United as a drug. It has never felt so apt to describe it as such. Taken in full view of the world, taken with those whom you already love, taken in so pure a form, I can only feel sorry for those who cannot, will never, experience it.

It’s natural to worry whether it will ever be as good again, whether we can ever top Sunday. Don’t worry. Supporting a football club is about connection, identity, friendship, family, and love. As those things in your life change – as they do – the triumphs and travails of Newcastle United will mean different things to you, and maybe even more than they do today. They will continue to matter as here is a bond which cannot be broken. You will go with your children, and theirs. You will continue to measure your life out not in coffee spoons, but in Newcastle United matches. And, by the time it comes around – you will be ready for Brentford at home, a week on Wednesday.

At least, I think you will. I hope I will.

YOUSEF HATEM - @yousef-1892.bsky.social