THE SPECIAL - The Toon at Wembley!

Liverpool v Newcastle United, League Cup Final, Wembley Stadium, 16/Mar/25, KO: 16:30.

I woke up with a dull ache in my shoulder and drove home from my daughter’s place in Manchester after a great time with the boss, the bairn and her boyfriend from New Year’s Day to Jan 2 2023.

The drive home was okay, I managed to do it in the time I set for myself even though that pain was still there and had made me a bit uncomfortable driving.

I put it down to that futon contraption the bairn had got for us to use when we visit, which does the job normally and I’d never felt any pains before.

We’d done a bit of walking between the cool pubs and restaurants of West Didsbury and Chorlton. I’d struggled to keep up and felt a bit out of breath. I’d felt a lot like that lately and put it down to the bit of extra timber I’d put on in recent months, probably years to be honest and hadn’t been shy over the festive period filling my face.

Anyway, home and nowt a bit of a power nap wouldn’t put right. So I left the boss in the living room and have a bit of a stretch out on top the bed. The pain level quickly increases, I feel a bit dizzy, restless, nauseous and this is unusual. I shout for the boss and she decides to ring 111. They reckon my symptoms are similar to a heart attack. Nah, I’m not having a heart attack … what do I know … I’ve never had a heart attack before so how would I know? The boss calls for an ambulance. It’s late afternoon on 2/Jan/23, a Bank Holiday.

The call handler says I’m a priority but the quickest they can get an ambulance is almost three hours. The call handler says I’m a high priority but it’s still three hours. I tell the boss to drive me to the QE A&E in Gateshead. I stagger to her car. I’m wearing the beanie hat the bairn bought me for Christmas. I’m thinking about her a lot.

It’s chocca at A&E. I’ve somehow walked from the car. I’m staring at the receptionist. I can’t really speak coherently. I manage to tell her I’m not very well, I might be having a heart attack. I’m put in a wheel chair and we’re in the waiting room. I’m falling asleep. I’m fading. The boss is telling me to stay awake. I tell her I’m tired. I want desperately to go to sleep and to simultaneously stay awake. I’m white as a sheet. A woman in A&E goes to reception and tells the receptionist I need to be seen immediately.

I see a Doctor and I’m on a trolly bed thingy. I’ll be there until the morning. It was in a waiting room. An old lady is entertaining the nursing staff by swearing and tells them she’s from The Teams. My Mam was from The Teams. My Mam didn’t swear like her though. I think about my Mam and Dad … what would they make of this?

Fast forward and I’m on a ward - blood pressure taken regularly and asked if I smoke almost every 15 minutes. I’ve never ever smoked. I hate smoking. I’m getting ECGs and watched closely.

First prognosis … I haven’t had a heart attack … I could have Pericarditis (look it up) but they’re going to keep me in for observation.

Second prognosis … I have had a heart attack …

Result … not much is happening … the Pericarditis prognosis appears to be winning the day … on Thursday they tell me I’m likely to be discharged at lunchtime the following day for the weekend. I still feel like shit but I want to go home. The boss and Wor Kid aren’t sure, they’re not confident in what’s happening.

Friday morning …. I’m visited by Dr Sinclair … she’s not sure either but doesn’t want to keep me in hospital if I don’t need to be there but wants me to go through for an angiogram.

Everything changes.

By now you’re wondering … Mick, what’s this got to do with The Toon gannin’ to Wembley you radge? Bear with me.

Dr Sinclair tells me the four main valves coming out of my strawberry tart are all more or less blocked. She tells me my options .. go home, do nowt, have no quality of life and die an early death. I’ve had better offers to be honest. Stents could go in but they won’t last.

The last option … open heart surgery … quadruple bypass at the Freeman … go over there immediately and see if you can get done that weekend or early the next week.

I weigh it up … tell the boss and Wor Kid … I’m going for the op regardless of the risk … I sign loads of NHS documents … I joke I’m signing my life away … no one laughs. At tea time I’m in an ambulance going to the Freeman.

I’m in a little room on my todd. My mind isn’t racing but I’m thinking a lot … I don’t want to snuff it … I want to live … I love life … I love my life … Wor Lass and the bairn, Wor Kid, our holidays abroad … the life we’ve made … and I love Newcastle United - the most important of all of the unimportant things in life. I love my daughter, I can’t cope with the thought of never seeing her again. I play Across The Universe (The Beatles) on my ear phones and I feel emotional. I shouldn’t play music like that, it weakens me. I need strength, mental and physical.

I don’t have the op that weekend. I don’t have it on the Monday or the Tuesday morning either. I’m starting to feel maudlin, lonely and scared. Wor Kid has told me he thought I was brave … how matter of fact I was, practical but I had my moments.

All of a sudden I’m lying on a trolly and I’m off to the theatre for my surgery.

I say see you on the other side to Wor Kid and we hold hands in a kind of manly handshake way and smile at each other.

I’m rabbiting away to the anaesthetist and then I’m out the game. I mean … really out the game, a version of out-out Micky Flanagan couldn’t comprehend.

For the next nine hours I’m kept alive by a ventilator thing. Veins from my lower legs are used for the graft. I’m cut up the middle and some beautiful strangers do the things to keep me alive.

I awake in ICU around midnight … I’m all over the place … I don’t know where I am and there are tubes coming from all over me … a couple of lads walk by my bed, porters I think, I hear them talk about the match … I can’t help myself … how did we get on? My voice is barely a whisper but they hear me.

They laugh … we won … we’re going to Wembley they tell me. Geddin I reply. They laugh again and I load up with morphine and drift off happy the young nurse is there by my bedside watching over all those machines I’m plugged into.

We’ve beaten Leicester 2 zip to get to the League Cup semi final. I’m happy and I want to think about it to take my mind off this monumental thing I’ve been through.

A fortnight or so later. I’m still in hospital … well out of ICU … and on a ward … loads of tubes coming out of me and I’m on cafeter … not sleeping very well … not eating hospital food at all … and the ward is red hot. I hate it.

While I’m in hospital we play a nils apiece at Arsenal. Great result. I watch bits of it on my phone. Wor Kid tells me we were great and hard as nails, shithousing aaaall owah the shop. I love it.

I still feel like shit but I’m desperate to get out of hospital and to get home. I can’t sleep, I’m exhausted all of the time and I feel manky. It didn’t help one night I got up to have a slash and managed to piss all over myself in my pyjamas holding all of the contraptions together. I have my first Len White since I got in hospital but it’s a bit sheep’s droppings but it’s a start.

I pass the test of being able to walk to the end of the corridor which means I can be discharged. Joy be unconfined.

The boss picks me up, she pushes me in the wheelchair to the car. It’s Sunday 15/Jan/23.

As we drive from The Freeman, we come down Barrack Road and by St James’ Park. At that precise moment we’re playing Fulham. I wonder out-loud if I’ll ever get back to the match. The boss tells me not to be so bloody stupid of course I will.

United beat Fulham 1-0. We’d go onto play three successive draws - Palace away, nils apiece, West Ham at home 1-1, Bournemouth 1-1 down there and finally we lose 2-0 at home at SJP to Liverpool where Pope has a rush of blood to the head and is sent off.

I miss all of those games. I watch all of the games with Wor Kid. We beat Southampton away in the League Cup, Joelinton gets the only goal. I watch the away end ballooning all over St Mary’s simultaneously loving it and wondering if I’ll ever have the strength to do a big away game again. We win the second leg of the semi final at SJP and we’re going to Wembley … our first final since 1999.

Could I go?

I want to … I really do … I think about my rehab … its going well … I’ve built enough stamina to walk to the end of the road on an incline and I’m no longer blowing out my arse … but I know I couldn’t cope with the carry on on the tube, Wembley Way there and back and standing in our end for a couple of hours, the travel there and back. I’m not touching any booze and not exactly fun company. It’s a non-starter.

The bairn has visited from Manchester and its emotional and she says out loud what I’ve been thinking … fancy them getting to bloody Wembley when you’re like this … after all the rubbish you’ve put up with … she’s angry at the football gods playing one of their many tricks. I enjoy her saying it, I enjoy looking at her lovely face and she sits next to me holding my hand. My beautiful girl.

I miss the final. Or rather I miss going to Wembley. I watch all the carry on from Trafalgar Square on the Saturday night. I watch the match on TV with Wor Kid. He asks me if I wish I was there and I tell him I do. We lose. We look uncomfortable in the surroundings of the national stadium, like we don’t belong there, Karius in goal doesn’t make any howlers but neither does he inspire confidence. It’s just all a bit weak.

I think about all the Mags I know making their way home defeated in another final. I don’t envy them.

Another early night for me. My walks are getting longer and I’m feeling stronger. I’ve lost almost three stone of blubber. The cardiac arrest diet - not recommended.

I really love the rehab classes. I finish them after two classes per week for six weeks and I’m told I’m fitter than people younger than me who’ve not had heart attacks and surgery. I feel good.

Everything is going better than anyone could have expected. My tests come back great. I decide I’m going back to the match.

Wolves … 12/Mar/23 … I’ve planned it. I park over in Gateshead and walk over the High Level Bridge and up to SJP … I go by the East Stand so I can walk up the ramp and onto the concourse at the Gallowgate. It’s 45 minutes before KO and I get in and climb up the steps to my seat and look across SJP from the Gallowgate West. Yessss. You’re back bonny lad.

My mates turn up and there are hugs and handshakes. We win 2-1. Get in. I laugh at the stories from Wembley … another great trip ruined by the football. I wait for the crowd to clear at FT and when the lads are taking the nets and goalposts down … I climb slowly down the steps and make my way back to Gateshead to the car. Mission accomplished.

So here we are … I thought it’d be years before we got back to Wembley but we’re back today only two years after our last visit.

I’m going … I’ve even done a few aways and I never miss a home game .. queing up, getting bumped about a bit but robust enough to take it without crumbling despite my strawberry held together with veins from my legs.

Back to normal? Probably not and never will be (brain fog is a bit of a thing these days) but fitter than I was before my wobbler … will we win today?

We’ve got a puncher’s chance haven’t we?

Get into them United. Win by any means necessary. We’re not here to be popular, we’re here to compete.

Me? I’m delighted to be amongst our B&W throng at Wembley today. I didn’t think this opportunity would come around again.

I’m desperate for us to win and shake off this bloody losers tag … this nearly men thing.

When you get back home after all today’s carry on, regardless of how we get on, do yourself a favour … get your cholesterol checked … get healthy … don’t be mugged off from missing cup final trips like this knacker back in 2023.

Look after yourselves my friends, thanks for reading this.

Keep On, Keepin’ On …

Michael Martin, TFMick1892.bsky.social

Other bits …

Tyne & Mersey

Good to see our very own Newcastle United Supporters Trust and the excellent Liverpool fans’ group Spirit of Shankly joining together to register dissatisfaction at the ticketing arrangements for today’s final ….

https://nufctrust.co.uk/news/spirit-of-shankley-and-nust-write-a-joint-letter-to-the-efl/

Wembley Mementos

https://truefaithnufc.bigcartel.com/

Flag Days

It’s going to be fantastic to see what Wor Flags have planned for today at Wembley. But if we want to maintain our position as putting on the best tifo in the country we need to throw a few Bob their way on a regular basis …

https://worflags.org.uk/donate/

Against Modern Football Vol. CXVII

If you’re depressed at the relentlessly monetised state of modern football, this is probably not going to cheer you up. However it’s an excellent read

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/mar/12/gianni-infantino-donald-trump-2026-world-cup

Come Together!

Hope those who were at the Newcastle United Supporters Trust’s FREE fan events yesterday had a great time. Great to see Mags coming together like this for no other purpose than creating a great community feeling in the run up to the trip to Wembley. This is who we are.

On a similar note good luck to our TF comrades running a dedicated event this morning on the day of the final as part of the preparations for the serious business later on.

Have a great day.

Join the Newcastle United Supporters Trust ..

https://nufctrust.co.uk/

Show Israel The Red Card?

Interesting piece regards a growing sentiment in football to ban Israel from all international football after the thousands of Palestinians killed in Gaza by the IDF.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/love-from-glasgow-to-gaza-why-celtic-fc-fans-support-palestine/289198/

Fighting Talk

If you have a slight interest in young and not so young men wearing expensive Italian knitwear enjoying a pagga at the match you might enjoy this from BBC Sounds

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p09dj358?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

Money and Share

The excellent Swiss Ramble has had a look at Newcastle United’s latest set of accounts. Here it is …

Newcastle United Finances 2023/24

Listen Up

The TF pods are excellent. Well measured, analytical and varied in the perspectives on life at Newcastle United they bring a depth to fan led coverage I don’t think is anywhere else. Analysis of every game we play following in depth previews, interviews with leading football journalists, opposition fans and professionals from the world around the game.

There’s a new pod out almost every day and they’re ideal to accompany you on journeys to work, college, uni, down the gym or out on your run. Or just relaxing at home. Only a few bob per month … join a great community of supporters keen to listen and exchange opinions on what goes on at our amazing football club

https://www.patreon.com/tfpodcast

Justice For The 97?

For those of us of the generation that experienced the Hillsborough disaster, David Conn of The Guardian has provided a painstaking and detailed level of coverage over the decades into the disaster and the lies and cover-up that extended into the multiple inquests, public inquiries and God knows what else that has followed since the dreadful events of the Lepping’s Lane End in 1989. We know Police of varied ranks lied shamelessly … you’d think there would be a reckoning for them wouldnt you?

David Conn with the latest update on the campaign for justice …

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/mar/12/hillsborough-disaster-police-misconduct-claims-upheld?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

And if you thought the Starmer Labour government might be putting in place laws to prevent this kind of industrial scale state lying as tribute to those who were unlawfully killed at Hillsborough then that may be in doubt …

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/hillsborough-fury-over-watering-down-34849898.amp

Picture This

Interested in football photography and culture? You’ll enjoy this site - the Lower Block …

https://lowerblock.com/

Forward The People

Donate what you can to the Newcastle United Fans Foodbank

https://www.newcastlefoodbank.org/nufc-fans-foodbank/

The Critical List

The Robledo Brothers are legendary names in the history of Newcastle United, George being critical to FAC wins of the 1950s. This book is another on my list … it’s out in April ..

https://x.com/BitebackPub/status

Don’t Buy The Sun!

Thanks to Peter Willis for his artwork. That’s all for this week. See you back here for the Brentford game at SJP.