When Newcastle United crashed out of the FA Cup in Cardiff in April 2005, it was official: the second best-supported club in England and the eleventh richest in the world had completed 50 years without winning a domestic trophy.
Since their last success – an FA Cup win in 1955 – no less than thirty-two clubs have won one of the three major prizes in the English game, but not the Magpies. In that half century, they’ve employed some of the biggest names in world football, yet most of their fanatical supporters have never seen them win a pot.
In 2004, Sir Bobby Robson paid the price for failing to bring the holy grail to the Geordie faithful. And in 2006, Graeme Souness was next to go, the 17th manager to try – and fail – to win one of English football’s glittering prizes for the longest suffering fans in the land.
In Newcastle United: Fifty Years of Hurt, Ged Clarke examines this extraordinary football phenomenon with all the humour you would expect from a disappointed but dedicated United fan. He chronicles the decades of disaster and talks to Newcastle legends such as Peter Beardsley, Les Ferdinand, Jack Charlton, Bob Moncur and Malcolm Macdonald in a bid to discover an explanation for the longest losing streak in top-class football.
