Totally Extra: Liverpool 4-3 Newcastle, 30 years on

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1:42The Athletic FC

1:50Totally Extra. Today, pulling the purest pint of Carling Premiership with Liverpool 4, Newcastle 3. The most hourly game ever. Big billowing shirts, entirely bananas defending, but what actually happened that night? What did it mean for the Magpies' memetastic title bid? And was this the game that made the Premiership? We relive the night when football went full, Keith Flint, in this Totally Extra.

2:22Unbelievable, unbelievable this. So, Totally Extra with you on Saturday, the 5th of April, or thereafter, and joined today by Duncan Alexander. Hello, Duncan. Hello, James. Charlie Eccleshare. Hello, Charlie. Hello. And George Corkin. Hello, George. Hello, indeed. Thank you so much for being with us, George. What a pleasure. We'll see. We'll see. But you're in, and this is pleasing, a Newcastle-themed room, which is great because we're going back 30 years to that game. It is a Newcastle-themed room. I mean, it is in Newcastle, my room, because that's where I live. And I am surrounded by the detritus of a once-promising career which has descended into bitterness, recrimination and staleness.

3:13Are you referring to Kevin Keegan when you say that? Absolutely not. I see I have put for the benefit of our listeners, I've put a poster of Kevin Keegan behind me, there is also a quote from Kevin Keegan behind me on the wall, which is taken from an interview I did with him when he came back as Newcastle manager for the second time which says, I want people to dream about their football club, they should we should all be dreamers at heart some people are the opposite and say we can't do that, but when you ask them why they can't give a reason well I say why not and of course arguably Liverpool 4 Newcastle 3 might be the answer to that but I love him he's my touchstone as far as football is concerned and although you're going to cause me pain today I'm kind of looking forward to it in a slightly masochistic way alright you never know George it might actually do you some good and all of us hopefully as we discuss a match that has been called the best Premier League game ever.

4:18Duncan, by my calculations, there's been something in the region of 13 ,000 football matches in this competition, lots of them high scoring. Why is this one the one? I think it kind of, it marked the start of the Premier League era in some respects. I think the first few seasons were a bit of a hangover from the old Division I in terms of sort of quality. Even the fact that they were 42 games, you know 22 teams this was the first season when it had been reduced to 20 um and it just felt it began with manchester united kind of you know on the back foot as i'm sure we'll talk about but it kind of had you know ebbs and flows all the way through and then but it needed a kind of sort of memorable moment a particularly crucial point of the season and the fact that this was televised the fact that kind of everyone well not everyone because it was on sky but plenty of people watched it and it kind of I also think weirdly the fact that the following season ended 4-3 as well and then Sky for the next 10 years always televised this fixture because they were like well it's statistically always going to end 4-3 spoiler it didn't but it did I think it just emblazoned itself on people's minds in a way that probably I don't know a game a decade does Charlie Rob Smythe famously wrote back this game in the context of genuinely great matches Liverpool 4 Newcastle 3 is hard to take seriously if it were a film said Rob it would have starred Jason Statham

5:48yeah that's probably fair it was one of the most emotional games ever played as well as being such high quality and as Duncan said it was it became a symbol of this great season and of this team that really had I know we'll get into it about the whether the numbers stack up read the whole entertainer's label but I was a neutral I mean I was very young neutral this was my first full season following football and I completely fell in love with this team um I mean it helped like a really good friend of my family's was and is a big Newcastle fan and I just got swept up in it and it was such a like even as a nine-year-old eight and a nine-year-old in this season it was a very compelling narrative you had this kind of big beast big bully beast team of Manchester United who were you know the dominant team I know they hadn't won the league before but they were the experienced campaigners and they had this quite evil seeming manager to my young self and then you had this like beacon of all that was good in this challenger Newcastle team who played this thrilling football they had this incredibly likable manager but clearly they were fatally flawed and it really set like the tone for my how I consume sport, which is to always kind of assume that the big bad bully will ultimately win and that the team that dreams will fall a bit short.

7:13So when that doesn't happen, it makes it all the more special. But I think for a lot of people of my sort of age, this was an incredibly formative season and game, this 4-3. Sometimes the biggest trophies of all, though, are the dreams that you have along the way. Again, perhaps we'll touch on that later on. But this was a game beyond its madcap nature that had all the ingredients of a classic match. two teams who were still involved in the title race at that point it was played under the lights in front of a noisy Anfield crowd it had no less than seven result swings in the course of the 93 minutes and a last minute winner of course and David James in goal which always helps we're going to discuss that we're going to discuss its broader place in the context of one of the most iconic seasons in our league ever but just before our usual dip into the almanac a quiz question relating to this game liverpool 4 newcastle 3 featured the three players who would turn out to be the three topper sisters in the division that season who are they that's your question to mull over in the course of today's show which oh are you going to have a pop already duncan No, but I think it's interesting in that this was the last season pre-Opta.

8:30So Opta began in the start of 96-97. So someone at Opta did go back and work out the assists for the previous seasons. But we're at the very, the nascent big bang of big data. So that's exciting. Wow, that is exciting. Are you suggesting that no one that season was already keeping track of assists? I think a couple of very right in through Royal Mail fantasy games might have been a kind of assist kind of grew out of the 94 World Cup as a new thing which kind of led to the up to beginning in a sense in the sense that you know people were starting to look beyond just sort of goals and results but yeah this is a very sort of fluid what's a number what's an assist at the time you'd often get in newspaper reports phrases like John Barnes laid on two goals or crafted, things like that.

9:22But no one ever thought, we should probably count this and work out who's good at doing it. Wow. There we were. Incredible. All right, well, the three top liaisoners of goals in the Premier League or Premiership in 95-96, they actually featured in this game. Who were they? We're revealed at the end of the show. Next, the Almanac. This is the Totally Football Show with James Richardson, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. Saturday the 5th of April, what's this week in football brought us through the years? Well, 4th of April, 1892, it saw the biggest English top flight win ever. West Bromajabian beating Lancashire Milltown side Darwin 12-0.

10:1112-0. A scoreline that was once equalled by Noddington Forest in their 1909 victory over Leicester Foss, but never surpassed, at least at the time of recording. Wow, that's a big one. In 1995, skipping forward a bit, 31st of March that year, saw Eric Cantona's Seagulls and Trawlers press conference. The Frenchman, who was at the time two months into his ban for kung fu-kicking Crystal Palace fan Matthew Simmons, this time went in two-footed on established press conference norms, declaring... When the seagulls follow the troller, it's because they think sardines will be stormed into the sea. Thank you.

11:02Mmm. Something to think about there. On the 3rd of April, 1999, Cantona's fellow 90s football icon, Robbie Fowler, snorted the six-yard line. A scamp. Fowler had just put Liverpool level in the Merseyside derby with a penalty and to celebrate, he crawled along the nearby white line, snorting with a cheeky grin. Teammate quickly hauls him to his feet, but undeterred probably just gets back down and does it again. And Robbie Fowler has the chance to restore parity for Liverpool. And it's very well taken. and I'm not sure that's the most sensible of celebrations from Robbie Fowler but he's enjoying the moment.

11:45It earned him a four-match ban and a£32 ,000 fine which was the largest that had ever been dished out to a player at the time. Quite a blow, you might say. Do you remember Gerard Houllier's defence of this incident? No. He said, apparently, that Fowler was enacting a Cameroonian grass-eating celebration taught to him by Rigoberto Song, which, I mean, 10 out of 10 for inventiveness, if not. Right. What kind of grass? Well, exactly. Robbie himself later explained, I had been accused of being on drugs for a number of years until I finally thought, what can I do to combat this and stop the rumours?

12:30This clearly was the answer There you go, he'd crossed the line And then inhaled it And as a result got the biggest fine of all time Also on the 3rd of April 1996 30 years ago this week Liverpool met Newcastle on a Wednesday night at Anfield For a quiet night of Carling Premiership football The trick is always buy when you're strong So he needs to buy players You can't win anything with kids You can't win anything £40 million has been invested in Newcastle's Championship drive, but now that that healthy 12-point lead has been erased, people are looking for signs of tension. It's a cracking game, and I think the one thing that's guaranteed is you'll see two great footballing sides out there who play the way it should be.

13:16Still John Barnes, Collymore closing in! Levin Paul leading stoppage time! Kevin Keegan hang his hand he's devastated we should certainly go on playing this way despite what people think and if we don't win anything so be it but this one's not over yet and I know a lot of Man United fans will be pleased with the result tonight but this one's going to go down to the wire for those that would say perhaps you should have shut up shop earlier you say no we carry on playing this way yeah or I go or I go or I go listeners it's 30 years since 1996 at least. So there's a big chance you weren't actually around for this game.

13:59What was 1996 like? Culturally, it was Blur against Oasis, TFI Friday, yada, yada, yada, Firestarter by the Prodigy, which was actually number one on the day that this match took place. But in football terms, this was not just the Premier League, but it was the Premiership, and not even Barclays Premiership, but Carling Premiership, which Duncan and I guess it's a bit like saying Jurassic, not Triassic or something like that. Can you explain to us what did Carling Premiership represent? It was a different time. Most teams played 4-4-2. Manchester United baffled lots by playing 4-4-1-1. I mean, Liverpool, to be fair, this time were playing at back three at points, which was quite innovative.

14:44But it was still, there were foreigners, a growing number of foreign players, but it was still very much a playground for English footballers. And I think it was a real sort of glut of English strikers at the time. One of my great kind of what-ifs is that if England had qualified for the 94 World Cup and the kind of squad of strikers they could have taken is mad. And we see in this game, obviously, we've got Robbie Fowler who had just come through. We've got Les Ferdinand who I think, and I'm sure George might agree or maybe not, but his 95-96 season is one of the sort of great forgotten centre-forward performances by an English, well, any player really.

15:24So yeah, it was a bit more rustic than it was, but it wasn't like the 2000s where you had Mourinho and Benitez and quite defensive football. This was a very, it was an open sort of style of football, but that didn't necessarily mean more goals because the quality of finishing wasn't always there. But as we see in this game, people could certainly finish chances on occasion. But if you were to transport yourself back to 96, the landscape of football as you knew it would be entirely different. Top of the table at this point, or at least the reigning champions in what was the Carling Premiership, were Blackburn Rovers.

16:00While Manchester City that season would end up getting relegated, Charlie, on goal difference on the final day because Google hadn't been invented, essentially. Yeah, they were misinformed about the sort of live league table and the state of play. And again, it's possible this has been misremembered, but I don't think so. So they were kind of keeping it in the corner, thinking that a draw would be good enough. But it wasn't, as it turned out. And they went down on goal difference. Yeah, one of those kind of Premier League folklore moments. I think Southampton stayed up. Did they now? George, who were Newcastle then in the 95-96 season?

16:38Well, yeah, I mean, I have to kind of give a bit of personal context to that, I suppose, as well. I mean, Newcastle were one of the kind of great stories of the time. Kevin Keegan had come back to Newcastle as manager in 1992. He'd been a player famously, sort of this kind of beautiful Indian summer to his playing career, helping to get Newcastle kind of promoted back into the top division. But when he came back as manager, they were near the foot of what is now the championship, financially all over the place. and they were pretty close to oblivion really. I mean, what might have happened if they'd gone down that season?

17:16Who knows? They stay up, 92-93, that is the season I came back home after college and so I was suddenly going to every home game again. They go up as champions and playing this just astonishing front foot football, beautiful to watch kind of hunting in packs Peter Beardsley comes back to the to the team they've got Andy Cole up front they finished third in their first season in the Premier League I mean and you know I'm kind of reeling off things like that but the mood in the city was just astonishing I mean Newcastle was kind of reinventing itself I think as a city at the time and you had the football club suddenly leading the way.

18:04It was just gorgeous. There was a buzz about it. The players were in town celebrating with fans. Of course, you know, it's like pre-mobile phone kind of time. And there was just this energy and buzz about the place. And, you know, I don't think Keegan or Newcastle kind of get enough credit for that story about coming into the Premier League playing like that. They finished, I think, I think it was third, then sixth. And then we come into this season. the team is changing Andy Cole's moved to Man United Les Ferdinand comes in suddenly they're signing David Ginola nobody knows anything about him but you know he comes into the team and you've got this glamour but that the way they played as well was just was ridiculous and that's part of the context and part of the story it was just I mean it's I've been spoiled my life has been ruined by seeing a team play football like that because that's my touchstone And so I think that every team, I measure every team, you know, to them.

19:03And front-footed, attacking, that's, you know, that's what they did. And everybody in the team did it. They had Philippe Albert at centre-half who, you know, wanted to be a striker. And it was just glorious. It was a glorious time to support the team and be around the team. As a sort of neutral but a Premier League obsessive of the time, George is completely right that Newcastle kind of did something that other teams didn't I mean in 1993 that I think there was a little sort of groundswell of of appreciation and a hope for Manchester United because they hadn't won the league for so long and I think that night they finally sealed it at Old Trafford I remember everyone being all right yeah fair enough but then as Charlie said earlier they quickly sort of metamorphosized into the the bad guy the sort of dominant bad guy the Premier League and so you think that Blackburn winning in 94 95 would have been the moment but there was there wasn't that it wasn't that romantic a story I mean they had just bought everyone you know the the phrase steel magnet was chucked around as a criticism a lot in that period and and it did take Newcastle to come in and kind of bring a sort of innocence and energy and and yeah and I think that's why this season probably lives in the memory way more than any of those other early 90s to mid 90s seasons just on George as well I was saying about David Ginola coming in.

20:21That's quite a funny story. I think it was John Beresford who tells it that they had Scott Sellers already on the left wing. And, you know, again, a sign of the times, no one had really seen Ginola play. And they were all kind of like, why do we need to sign this new guy? We've got Scott Sellers. He's really good. And then they saw him play and they were kind of like, ah, okay, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I was obviously a Newcastle fan. I was still a season ticket holder at this point, but I was also working for a local paper. And one of my jobs was to go down to the training ground, And, you know, and of course there was the other part of it was this kind of open house under Keegan.

20:53So fans could just go down and watch them train every single day. There was no separation between players and fans in that respect as well. And the media could go down and you could, you know, you could tap players on the shoulder. You could tap Keegan on the shoulder and ask for a word. And, you know, again, it kind of ruined journalism for me as well, really, because that sort of level of access was just kind of, you know, astonishing. And I remember Ginola just walking, it was Maiden Castle, it's the old university buildings in Durham. And when Ginola walked in the room, it was that sort of Hollywood thing.

21:29There was just a change in the atmosphere. And I think that word innocence is right. There was something so kind of beautiful about it. And I mean, kind of living it at the time, you don't, I mean, I think for me, 92, 93, 93, 94, will always be the special bits for me. And then by this time, the club has kind of moved into a sort of different era. The funny thing is, just as a slight digression, is that the league had never figured in my consciousness at all as a Newcastle fan. I was brought up thinking of Newcastle as a cup team, which is like an idea that nobody talks about anymore or thinks about.

22:13And it was this, it was Keegan's team that sort of changed that narrative. And I think, you know, obviously the Premier League, steamrollers, absolutely everything else now, which is sad for me. But I'd always dreamed of Newcastle winning the FA Cup. That's what I wanted to see Newcastle win. And this season actually played a big part in that sort of change, I think, in the narrative of the league and kind of romance. Because Newcastle hadn't featured, hadn't managed to win a top division league title since 1927. However, this season after a terrific start, which saw only one defeat in your opening 10 matches, the Magpies began to open up a lead at the top and then a bigger lead.

22:56And by the time they got to mid-January 1996, they were fully 12 points clear of Manchester United. The following month, two new arrivals turn up at Newcastle, David Batty and Faustino Asprilia, whose performance in his debut match against Borough was hailed by the Guardian as arguably confirming Newcastle as champions. And here comes the new man,£7.5 million worth of Colombian into the action. What a shock.

23:31Here goes Asprea, taking Vickers out wide for him. Still with Asprea. Oh, that's brilliant skill. and the cross and Watson and 1-1. Steve Watson set up by the Colombian. Brilliant skills from the new signing. Superb. At this point, George, you did seem destined to finally take the title. Yeah, I mean, the first half of that season was astonishing, like I say. I mean, I sort of remember Ginola doing stuff thinking that is not humanly possible. I saw him, there was a match where Ginola was up against, I think it was Middlesbrough's Neil Cox, and I've never seen this on the pitch before or since, where it's like a cat and a mouse, you know, a cat just playing with a mouse.

24:25Yeah, have another go, David.

24:30God is crossing more dangerously, fighting in!

24:37David Junalá made it, Les Ferdinand scored it, it has been coming. And by the end you just want the mouse to be put out of its misery. I mean it was that sort of thing, he was capable of doing that and there was this sort of swagger about the side, pouring forward, playing that kind of football. I mean it had mutated, it had changed a little bit and there was just this sort of, you know, there was just this feeling of being unstoppable I think. in that early part of the season. And I mean, I don't know how it sort of registered. I don't know. It's very difficult to sort of look back now and put myself back in that position.

25:20But, you know, they were just so good and they just felt like they're miles ahead of everybody else. That's how it felt to me at the time. And it did feel like a juggernaut, I think, at that point. I mean, for families whose parents refused to get Sky, like mine, and you kind of live each week through matches of the day. And I remember the 6-1 win against Wimbledon at St. James' Park, not only because future Guy Ritchie, Mews, Vinnie Jones went in goal at the end. But it was just Ferdinand got a hat-trick that day and Albert scored and it just, they felt irrepressible. And at that point, I think they'd only dropped points in one game or season or maybe, yeah, one, I think, when they lost at Southampton.

26:02So it kind of felt, I mean, it was an era when you did get teams starting like this. Manchester United did it in 85-86 where they won their first 10 and didn't win the league. And Newcastle 94-95 started really well, didn't it? Yeah, yeah. So it didn't feel unusual, but it did feel like they were about to sweep all before them, as George said. Well, 12 points clear. George, when Asprilia turned up, did you know much about him as Newcastle fans? How did that make you feel? Yeah, I mean, I think we knew a bit more about him than we had about sort of Gianola. I think Asprey was sort of more of a known quantity.

26:41And, you know, it gets talked about less, but David Batty was, you know, was like Newcastle's attempt or Keegan's attempt, sorry, to sort of stiffen up. I mean, I kind of remember there being this sort of almost outcry about the idea of playing a sort of holding midfield in Newcastle, playing, you know, compromising like that. someone you know someone who who was known obviously Batty joining them from a team that had won the title and it felt like doing what big clubs should do big teams should do which is strengthened from a position of strength and so the idea was this gives Keegan more more options heading into the second half of the of the season to you know to tie it up.

27:25one of those two arrivals Batty and Asprilia commented I saw on the map that Newcastle was by the sea and what was I supposed to think other than beaches and somewhere hot I was imagining yachts in the harbour and somewhere with sun well in the years that have followed Batty and mostly Asprilia's arrival are widely credited for sparking the collapse of Newcastle's prospects but we'll get into the reality of that soon enough Charlie were you wanting to yeah I was just going to say how it's funny with hindsight how much that changes because Asprey was held up as that as though he disrupted this thing but it's really striking looking back now at how kind of paper thin that squad was really like it needed reinforcements and if anything it fell apart because the squad wasn't big enough but squad rotation that just wasn't you know so much of a widely acknowledged thing at that point even though you know United were doing it and ultimately it was their better squad that probably saw them win the league but I mean just to give some numbers to what George was saying there I think in the first 25 games of the season Newcastle were averaging 2.4 points a game which is 91 point pace over a season for the last 13 games they got 18 points at 1.4 per game so it was it was a pretty dramatic falling off but actually Esprit did very well his numbers were good yeah just to back that up I mean he actually set up set up assisted more at least two more goals than any other Premier League player between February and May 1996.

28:54So he kind of came in and did what was expected. But it was, I'd say, more defensive issues, as we may see at Anfield, that caused the slowdown. Well, perhaps the negative as pretty a narrative began because from his first start onwards, Newcastle went on a run of four defeats in six matches. The most famous is the one that we're still talking about today, 30 years on, at Liverpool, 4-3. but George, there's another one that you would like to cite. Well, yeah, I mean, actually there's others. I mean, Man City 3, Newcastle 3, I was at as a young reporter. You know, another absolutely unbelievable match which ended with Esprit sticking the nut on Keith Curl, I think it was.

29:36He got very lucky, didn't he? He got very lucky, which wasn't punished, but it was like an absolutely astonishing game in its own right. But there was also, yeah, Newcastle 0, Manchester United 1, which is obviously massive for very clear reasons against their big rivals. But honestly, I've never seen a game like that. I was in the stands for that game, 0-0 at halftime. Newcastle absolutely tore them apart in every single way apart from the scoreline. Peter Schmeichel had, you know, I think the Athletic, we did this as one of the Premier League's great performances. He was astonishing. and then up pops Cantona and scores a winner.

30:18Now, I think at that point, I mean, you know, Newcastle was still ahead, obviously, but you're thinking, all right, okay, well, that wasn't great. Paul waiting in the box. This is Giggs who's let it run for Cole. He's run along the whole line. Phil Neville's cross. Cantona coming in and he's scored for Manchester United.

30:43they've been under the cost for so much of this match but six minutes into the second half Manchester United break and score crucially. Newcastle beat Man United 5-0 the following season at home they played better in this game I mean it was an astonishing game of football so to kind of label everything that Asprey touched as disastrous I think is very unfair. And of course, another part of this narrative is that 1-0 Cantona part of it. To me, it felt like it was happening every week. And I've gone back through the stats and I think there were something like there were eight 1-0s to Man U and they were churning out results at a time that Newcastle couldn't.

31:29But anyway, maybe we can come on and talk about that. But I think Man United's astonishing run of form in the second half of the season is as big a part of the story as Newcastle's collapse. So the Galaxy brain take on what happened to Newcastle, who had been on top of the table for 212 days, which is still a record at the time of recording for a team leading the division and not winning the title, who had been 12 points clear, the kind of, the better take on it all, wasn't that Asprilla turned up on Tyneside, it's that Cantona returned from his lengthy ban for his Kung Fu kick at Selhurst Park.

32:09Yeah, and I think there's a sort of telling example 20 years later, which weirdly we discussed last weekend about Leicester in 2015-16, where they had a similar autumn where they were sort of just tearing teams apart. But in the second half of the season, they started churning out 1-0 wins. I think they had four in five games at one point and I think that's kind of what you need to do to win the league and the other difference with the Leicester season is that all the big teams had an off season that year whereas I think Newcastle were unlucky that Manchester United who were tipped to have a bad season at the start of the year you know you'll never win anything with kids and Ferguson had got rid of some of his biggest names the previous summer by the by the new year had really kind of found a new side and a new rhythm and as George says they just kind of relentlessly hunted hunted Newcastle down I mean Cantona did come back in his first game was October 1st so he was there in that early part of the season but yes he certainly found his form in the second half and yeah a lot of those youngsters suddenly really came to prominence all at once.

33:10From mid-January onwards, Man United played 21 games. In all competitions, they drew one and they lost one, which I think tells a story. And eight of those games were 1-0, and six of those games were 1-0 with Cantona scoring. So it wasn't just a trick of my memory. It was a thing. Their form was astonishing at a time that Newcastle were beginning to tire, I think. The one game they lost in that run was famously itself away to Southampton with the invisible jerseys. But that's a tale for another day. Anyway, for all the myriad reasons why Newcastle pulled off the most epic title bottle of recorded history so far.

33:55God, you've been so kind and then you have to say that. Well, amongst the many factors, clearly dropping three points away to Liverpool on the 3rd of April 1996. Kind of factored in there. Let's have a look at the game then. Next.

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35:53This is the Totally Football Show part of the Athletic FC podcast network The Athletic is the only place you can read articles by Daniel Taylor, Amy Lawrence, Phil Hay, James Pearce Oli Kay and the very best football writers around Wednesday night 3rd April 1996 3rd place in the league Liverpool are hosting 2nd place Newcastle. Newcastle had already relinquished the lead to Manchester United by this point. However, they were three points behind the Red Devils with two games in hand. Let's get all nostalgic with the lineups. Duncan, tell us about this Liverpool side. Incredibly English. Ten of the eleven that started that game were English, plus Jason McIntyre, Irish, but, you know, sort of English.

36:40And I think the thing with Liverpool this season is that, as you said earlier, they were on the periphery of the title race as well David James as we see in this game was in his very inconsistent period could make some incredible stops but had a mad habit of coming for balls and just completely missing them be that from corners with his hands or out of his box with his feet but Liverpool were I think they're seen at this time as being a bit sort of flim flam a bit sort of you know not didn't have the sort of minerals to win the title but they actually only used 19 players this season. I think it's the only time in Premier League history that a team has used fewer than 20 players in a season.

37:16So the team that played in Newcastle, this was a team that played week in, week out with some exceptional talents, you know, from young players like Fowler and big money buyers like Collymore to even, you know, John Barnes almost a decade after he was that figure going to Liverpool and winning them titles. Sort of his pace had gone after his Achilles injury, but sort of, you know, pulling the strings in midfield, much like Peter Beardsley was doing at this point at Newcastle. So yeah, it wasn't the Liverpool team of the 80s, but it was still a dangerous prospect. Yeah, I mean, they were coming back to being thought of as being real title challengers.

37:53They won the, what was the Coca-Cola Cup the season before, had this incredibly exciting group of young players with McManaman, with Fowler. This was the team that was then dubbed the Spice Boys and they were seen as a kind of unserious alternative to United, I guess, which again is why probably a number of neutrals probably wanted them to win the league if Newcastle didn't. And it was kind of typical of how it felt things went for United at this time because no sooner had Liverpool won this game. Charlie, there was only one United featured in this podcast. I'm sorry to have to do this. I'm sorry to have to do this, but I am going to absolutely lose my shit in a Kevin Keegan at Leeds kind of way.

38:35You know, you used to have a lot of respect for you, Charlie, but I would you know but I've lost I've lost a lot of respect for you Charlie when you do things like that to clubs like Newcastle United to clubs like Newcastle United yeah no that is fair thank you okay it was seen as typical of Manchester United the way things used to go for Manchester United at this time that no sooner Liverpool won this game and kind of put themselves into the title race potentially they then went and lost to Coventry a few days later which again was was kind of where this Liverpool team was you know they were capable of these kind of exhilarating highs but they just weren't consistent or serious enough to really challenge Manchester United or indeed Newcastle United over the course of this season.

39:12And just to put the Coventry result into context this was the same I mean we are recording on the 26th of March yesterday was 30 years since Big Ron's famous meltdown live on Sky. Silly machines. Bottom line is you've lost you're running out of time you're below the drop line where next for Coventry City how can you get out of it? Tottenham on Sunday

39:36a little bit more than there was evident tonight. You may say that. We don't think so, you know, Richard. I'm sorry, you can sit there and look and play with all your silly machines as much as you like. I'm manager of a football team. I'm an experienced manager. Yeah, if the boys hadn't done enough, I'll whip them. I ain't whipping them for that tonight. Who won the man of the match award? Dave Bezant won the man of the match award. Oh, sorry, so he must have played not bad then. Thank you very much, lads. See you later. OK, Ron. Well, thanks for joining us. Appreciate it. And when you combine that with Keegan's rant that comes the following month, I think this is probably the most fertile sort of memory developing bit of Premier League history that there's ever been.

40:14You've got the Man United at the Dell changing shirts at halftime. You've got Cantona's sardines. It's all there. And you've got the most iconic Premier ship match of all time. George the Newcastle lineup that day or that evening rather featured the best man at your wedding well that is right yeah uh not um Tino Asprea because that would have probably we probably none of us would have survived the stag do I think but yeah Steve Howey a few years later was my uh was my best man and you know I was this I was a kind of similar similar sort of age to those young young local players in Keegan's team was kind of growing up around them and yeah Steve I mean Steve absolutely brilliant quality centre-half who was in the reckoning for Euro 96 that year sadly got got injured and kind of he was vying with Gareth Southgate for the place in that in that kind of squad at that time but yeah became a became a very close close friend of mine I mean it's just a great great team looking at it Pavel Senecek in goal Philippe Albert already mentioned to John Beresford at left back, Steve Watson at right back.

41:28I mean, I remember sort of Steve telling me about, you know, playing in that team and he would be like, he would, you know, suddenly look to his side and, oh, where's Philippe? And he's like, he's up front and Beresford has just bombed forward and it was like, oh, Christ almighty, you know. But that was the defence. And then Bassi in midfield, Rob Lee, one of the most complete midfielders, kind of very underrated, I think. but one of the kind of most complete midfielders of the Premier League era, box to box, could sort of do everything. And then if you look at the kind of front four, you've got Peter Beardsley who's in the conversation for, you know, best Newcastle United players of all time, just a wonderful footballer.

42:11Esprit, you've got Ginola and then you've got Les Ferdinand. I mean, it's some attacking team there. And, you know, yeah, that Ferdinand, Keegan had taken that sort of incredible gamble. He'd sold Andy Cole to Manchester United. And, you know, the first bit of dissent, really the only bit of dissent about his management when Newcastle fans had actually gone up to St. James' Park to kind of protest or ask what the hell he'd done. And again, this talked about the openness around the club. he addressed them from the steps of St James's Park and admitted that there was a bullet with my name on it if I get it wrong.

42:51And they get to the end of that season and then sign Ferdinand, who, as a centre-forward, just had everything. He was an athlete, he was a gymnast, he was incredible in the air, he was a great footballer too, and it was just such a powerful team. and everybody in it, everybody in it wanted to attack. And so, yeah. Did Steve ever talk about this idea that Kevin Keegan once tried doing some defensive training, Newcastle lost the subsequent match and Keegan declared, we will never do that again. I mean, I don't remember that. I don't remember that specific incident. But I mean, they loved him. They loved him as a manager.

43:35I mean, so I think sort of in training, it was that sort of Liverpool thing of loving the ball and playing small-sided matches. That was Keegan's heritage, obviously, at Liverpool, and they sort of did that. And he was just that archetypal man management. He would say to them, you're the best in your position. He told Rob Lee, you played for England and did. and they would do anything for him. And he was like that Pied Piper figure for the whole city. I mean, you would just follow him into battle. He was just astonishing. Do anything for him except defend. Duncan, were you about to say something?

44:19No, I just had a memory of, didn't Mark Lawrenson have a brief defensive coordinator? He was defensive coach, yeah, the following season. Interesting, interesting. Interesting. So, George, have you seen this game back since then? As I said, it's still too raw for me. And it's funny, it's like, I don't know, I must say something about my personality. I've not watched the League Cup final back either, and I still don't believe Newcastle won that. I still don't believe that Newcastle were good, even though everyone tells me that they were. So I think I've kind of, I mean, you know, when we talk about this as one of the best and, or if not the best game in Premier League history or Premiership history, obviously it's not quite that for Newcastle fans because it is so painful.

45:05and it you know it our our feeling about it is that sight of keegan slumped slumped on the touchline afterwards so it's not something i kind of look back with great joy albeit i do look back on that team and that season with with with joy and um i mean so maybe i'm getting ahead of myself a little bit here if you want to talk about the game but i do want to talk about i do want to talk about that a bit. I think it's an important thing Keegan might say and I'm sure he wouldn't be the only person in football that sometimes the result isn't the most important thing in a match and what Liverpool did that night at Anfield was something that brought joy to so many people and in many ways that counts.

45:47I'm getting a little bit of Hallmark cards on us here so let's romp through the goals which started early and went on until late. 97 seconds in Robbie Fowler, Charlie opened the scoring on a Stan Collymore layoff.

46:21Yeah, cross to the back post. I mean, these two were a great partnership and that was the era of partnerships. you know as Duncan said everyone was playing 4-4-2 so you did have these great partnerships and obviously Newcastle had one themselves with Beardsley and Ferdinand Arsenal had Bergkamp on Rie and obviously SAS were operating they well yes and I mean it was the previous season where they had delivered the league to Blackburn but yeah Collingham and Fowler were a brilliant partnership and obviously you see that in this game but yeah it's a great cross and I do remember and even if you hear in commentary there was already this narrative developing of Newcastle can't defend and I think it's for one of the guys I think it's for the goal that maybe makes it 2-2 in the second half foul a second and Tyler says something like oh well you know how are Newcastle going to defend here and then sure enough seconds later they concede but yeah that that goal early on very much set the tone.

47:15However it's not that much later that Falsino Sprillia tees up Les Ferdinand who equalizes that's 10 minutes into the game George. Yeah and I mean Ferdinand is seen as a Newcastle legend and he was only at the club for two seasons and I think that sort of tells its own story really. I mean his goals return was extraordinary. Moving ahead, obviously Shearer arrives in that summer and the two of them formed a partnership which was as devastating as I've seen. I think they used to sort of say to each other in the tunnel let's go and smash them up today and they would do that. And he is, I mean, it was a terrible moment when he left the club, which at that point was then struggling financially.

48:03And it was a big moment. But Ferdinand had absolutely everything as a centre forward. He had a bit of everything. And remains the highest scoring player in Premier League history never to score a penalty. So he was a pure striker as well. Good Lord. 29 goals that season. That was one. Asbriar has been back to Colombia for an international since he last played for Newcastle. Here he is, past Ruddock. Ferdinand turns and scores! Before 15 minutes being played, Newcastle were 2-1 up. This time it was David Ginola, or Ginola, who'd burst through on the counter. From a brilliant Ferdinand assist with the outside of his foot as well.

48:46So, you know, creator as well as scorer. we had Michael Cox talking about this game in the context of the 95-96 season and he and I think in his book The Mixer as well he he describes Ginola as the key to the whole game because as a winger playing as a striker he he essentially just left McAteer free to do what he wanted and McAteer has an amazing game yeah tracking back was not the first thing it was not the was not the biggest piece of his his armory it's it's fair to say and you know I think that did I think that did cause Newcastle problems because they were all looking to get forward and then if they lose the ball there's just nobody behind I mean I know that's a very basic way of looking at it but that's that's what it was and no part of was it in Keegan's mindset to think if you're a goal ahead or if you've you know if we've got a if we've you know it's won all let's shut things down that was just never part of his mindset it just wasn't the way the team was set up to play it wasn't the way they operated you know if you you know you could kind of look look back in retrospect and say my god why isn't somebody just putting their foot on the ball or taking it to the corner or just wasting time or doing it like that just it never ever ever happened and so this this fed into that sort of idea of naivety or sort of innocence somehow and it's why people loved watching that team because they just didn't stop.

50:09You know, they didn't stop attacking, even when all logic said, for God's sake, like, just take a minute, you know, like, take a minute. They didn't believe in it. And they would attack and attack, attack beyond the point of logic. But that is why they were such a special team too. Right in it. That's great play. And the control and the pass for Ginola. He's run beyond McAteer. 2-1 to Newcastle. And until 10 minutes into the second half of this match, it was working. However, Robbie Fowler makes it 2-2, heads in his second of the game. Wait, Newcastle aren't done yet. Two minutes later, here comes Tino Asprilia.

50:53And here, Duncan, do you want to talk about the role of David James? A glorious through ball from Rob Lee. And David James can't help but be drawn to it like a moth to a flame. Yeah, I mean, obviously, contemporary football, it has goalkeepers, many of them will position themselves as an auxiliary centre-half during games and be in a position. I think if he'd have been there, he would have intercepted the ball pretty easily, but this was 1996. He was probably in and around the six-yard box as the three-ball came through, and he sprinted out, and just before he gets there. It's one of the most unusual finishes I think I've ever seen in the Premier League, because rather than kind of bend it round James' left-hand side, or rather than kind of go round him or even lob him, he kind of just bends it with the outside of his right foot from fully, what, 30 yards, if not more out, and sort of spins into the empty net and, yeah, runs towards the Newcastle fans who were behind that goal.

51:52It was a wonderful finish. Terrific play from Beardsley. Newcastle respond the only way they know how. With brilliant attack and play on their own! Aspira! In James' defence, after Liverpool make it 3-3, Les Ferdinand goes through and has a chance to make it 4-3 to Newcastle, which he does save and he does quite well. He just kind of, in terminology at the time, makes himself big. Didn't he do an almost identical error leading to a Newcastle goal in the following season's 4-3? He definitely spilled one in in that game. Maybe he did charge out. I think he came racing out for an Esprilio goal. Newcastle very nearly came back from 3-0 down, etc.

52:36But back to this match, where are we now? 3-2 to Newcastle. Can they hold on? One thing that I couldn't help but notice looking back on this was the sheer physicality of the match. Not just the tackles, but there's one bit where McAteer and David Batty basically smack each other in the face and there's not even a yellow card from the referee. I love that. I want more of that. And the other thing, look at the pitch as well. Have you seen the pitch? The pitch is awful. It's like there's patches on the pitch and there's mud on the pitch all over. I mean, it's not obviously as bad as the sort of 70s, 80s, but it's not a great pitch.

53:13And they're still, I mean, literally trading blows in that instance. But, you know, they're kind of, their legs must just be absolutely, you know, so heavy at this point. and they're just going at each other still, which was something to see. A joy to watch. 3-2 then with about 67 minutes played. Duncan, could Newcastle hold on? No. Big spoiler here, but no, they're going to lose 4-3. And the reason is Stan. Stan Collymore, who comes up with the final two goals of the game, the first one in the 67th minute. on a Jason McAteer cross. And then with Newcastle now beginning to feel a little bit like they were hanging on.

54:04I know there were chances at both ends. There's a huge chance for Lez. Tino Sprillier I think has a chance as well. But Newcastle feeling the pressure a bit. In the 93rd minute, it happens. And this iconic bit of Martin Tyler commentary. Have you ever known 90 minutes go so quickly?

54:26Barnes, Andy hanging on to man of the match. Barnes, rush, Barnes. Still John Barnes, Collymore closing in. Liverpool lead in stoppage time. Kevin Keegan hangs his head. He's devastated. What an incredible finish to an incredible Nates football. yeah it's a funny goal in a way because there's a and a sort of power league series of passes between ian rush and john barnes which again is a bit of a throwback to the 80s in a sense it's almost like the the muscle memory of liverpool's 1980s putting paid to newcastle's 1990s but eventually the balls played to the left hand side of the box and it's one of those if you're looking watching tv it's one of those passes where you can't actually see who's yeah who it's gone to it seems to just be going to no one but luckily martin tyler is there um and says collymore's closing in and it makes it sound like it was he just had to sort of roll it into the net but it's actually a very difficult finish you know newcastle players are understandably closing down the angle and he does really well and it's um on his weaker foot as well yeah yeah and um yeah slams it in in front of the cop to much um you know much of claim and then hats off to the to the tv director who immediately cuts to the Newcastle bench and there we see Kevin Keegan just slumped forwards over it.

55:54And given this was a stadium where he had some of the best days of his career, that just made it even more poignant. Keegan, who mysteriously had changed from a red suit that he'd been sporting, a very mid-90s premiership red suit. Yeah. Now he was in the club track suit, slumped, as you say, over the hoarding right in front of the bench. George, what were you slumped over at this point? Well, it was probably alcoholic, whatever it was. It was just exhausting. And I think everybody was exhausted by that point or certainly getting to that point that you could just feel it slipping away. I mean, and there was that sort of desperation sort of creeping into the team at that point that they were trying and they were trying, but fatigued what came naturally at the start of the season.

56:39There was this kind of great flow to the team, felt unstoppable. and of course you know it was at that point it was it was like wading through treacle and you know that they they they won their next game at home to qpr but it was a late winner they then you know they lost at blackburn leading the game right until the end and then graham fenton scores twice graham fenton a boyhood newcastle fan a geordie and it just felt you know it it felt like that at that point that things had just moved ineffably away from newcastle and that they weren't going and get it back. Yeah, I was going to say that actually, George, the fact that, yeah, they did, they just got past a QPR team who ended up getting relegated.

57:20And then, yeah, their very next away game was an even worse collapse, that Blackburn game, 86th minute, 89th minute. And yeah, you're right. I mean, it did just feel like it was, it was slipping away from them and they were just exhausted. They actually did fairly well. They then won three games in a row, all of them 1-0 and, you know, exactly the kind of wins they hadn't been getting. Yeah. You know, and I remember that. Including the Leeds game. Well, there we are. Exactly. There we are. Yeah. Which brings us to the other most famous incident from that campaign. Let's get into that. Leeds, Sir Alex Ferguson and what Kevin would or would not love to see next.

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59:59You're listening to The Totally Football Show with James Richardson. Now with you four times a week. Keep up to date with us on Insta and enjoy us in glorious Technicolor on YouTube at The Totally Show. Yeah. Seven matches to go after the 4-3 at Anfield. Newcastle winning four of the next five. QPR that weekend, then Villa and Saints and then Leeds. And after the 1-0 victory at Ellen Road, Keegan is asked by Keezy and Grazy about Sir Alex Ferguson's comments in which the Scotsman has casually observed that perhaps Leeds and Nottingham Forest would not try as hard against the Magpies as they had against his Manchester United team Indeed, said Sir Alex Forest, since they were going to be playing the Magpies for Stuart Pearce's testimonial might even let Newcastle win Keegan takes it well A lot of things have been said over the last few days some of it almost slanderous and we've never commented we've just gone on working trying to pass the ball like we do in training What do you mean by that?

1:01:06That people have been having a go at you and your team? No, no, I think things have been said about I think you've got to send Alex Ferguson a tape of this game haven't you? Isn't that what he asked for? Well I'm sure if he was watching it tonight he could have no arguments about the way Leeds went about their job and really tested your team And we're playing Knott's Forest on Thursday, and he objected to that. Now, that was fixed up four months ago. We were supposed to play Knott's Forest. I mean, that sort of stuff, we're bigger than that. But that's part and parcel of the psychological battle, Kevin, isn't it?

1:01:39No. When you do that with footballers, like he said about Leeds, and when you do things like that about a man like Stuart Pearce, I've kept really quiet, but I'll tell you something. He went down in my estimation when he said that. We have not resorted to that. But I'll tell you, you can tell him now, if you're watching it, we're still fighting for this title and he's got to go to Middlesbrough and get something. And I'll tell you, honestly, I will love it if we beat them. Love it. Keegan, after the final whistle at Anfield, says that he turned to Terry Mack, Terry McDermott, and said, I know I should be disappointed, but I'm elated.

1:02:14Which I guess touches on what we were saying before, this notion that even if you don't get the final score, your performance through the 90s should be something to be proud of however by this point the pressure is clearly on him yeah i mean and there's is a kind of interesting dynamic going on there because like as i said i was a i was a young reporter at the time and i remember going going down to the training ground and it you know must have been around this period sometime and you know i plucked up a plucked up the courage to ask a question surrounded by all these kind of grizzled northeast hacks and i said you know it was my Newcastle fan and perhaps you know a bit of naivety youth showing through but I asked Keegan you know if like Newcastle finish second this season that'll still be an achievement won't it and Keegan looked at me with you know with daggers and said second would mean nothing to me absolutely nothing and it was kind of quite it felt like as a journalist it felt like kind of quite a good line but of course I mean you know how could it once you've if you've been leading by 10 points 12 points yeah but he was a winner and i think there's like there's been this sort of reinvention of him or history's kind of you know has has shows him to be a loser because of what happened at newcastle but throughout his career as a player he was a winner you know and he he was interested in winning and you know it was all about winning it's just that he was also married to this to this style of play i mean and you know we're we've been in an era of kind of like philosophy managers haven't we if you want to call it that you know people insist on playing in a certain way beyond the point of logic or you know it's like sometimes you've just got to get a result right but you know that at the time at the time there was something sort of poetic almost about what Keegan was doing.

1:04:09But to present him as a romantic, not interested in winning, I don't think is right. He felt it as much as everybody. And after Leeds, he stuck up for his team and his players and his club in a way that you would want. I mean, again, I know he gets ridiculed for that, but I just think it's part of his, you know, his kind of unique nature as a manager who had a way of playing and wanted to back his team till the end. To bring that to the modern day, I mean, it's a really interesting point about Keegan. He played that way because he thought that would get results and it largely did. And that's very much Andropos de Coglu's line.

1:04:52He's probably one of the closest equivalents, I guess, to Keegan in having a commitment to playing exciting football, even though he actually did then compromise those principles to win the Europa League. But he always said he didn't play that way because it was fun or entertaining, he did it because he thought that was the best way to win matches. One of the little things that I've always sort of thought about this, I mean, obviously have some sort of regret, although I don't, you know, I don't, I'm not sure if I would go back and change his, I mean, yeah, of course I would. But, you know, that sort of, that identity of that team and that, you know, almost being beautiful but doomed is so much part of our identity as a club in Newcastle so much part of my sort of identity as a supporter you know not winning but yearning to win was so kind of very powerful and special in some ways but I do I do have that thought about what if that Newcastle team had won the Premier League and I'm not trying to compare Keegan to Guardiola for example but you know you know because Guardiola is a generational talent as a generational manager but you know you go from that thing of seeing what he did at Barcelona and And then in the Premier League, and then a few years later, you've got teams in League 2 playing out from the back.

1:06:09And you think, my God, how has this happened? I do wonder, you know, how much football might have changed or, you know, whether other teams take on that style of play because Newcastle had won the Premier League playing it. I don't know. It's just something that I've always sort of wondered. Essentially you're saying that that Newcastle 95-96 were like the Brazil 1982 of the Carling Premiership. Their defeat famously in that second group stage game against Italy in the World Cup ushered in a new defensivist thinking in place of what would have been the model for everyone to follow had the Celisau come through in Spain.

1:06:49Duncan. I agree I think but I also would point out that if the 90s was a series of contenders sort of squaring up to Manchester United and sort of saying we'll take you on obviously Arsene Wenger then came in at Arsenal and and kind of probably did achieve that and did play very expansive football the difference was that he inherited probably the best defense of the 1990s so he was able to to marry that kind of creativity going forward that Keegan had but with a defense that was proven to be you know the best in the division and so i think that was yeah that was the difference but i i do think that you know the man on the street remembers this newcastle team way more than the blackburn team that won the league the year before way more so and i think you don't have to be champions to to be the most memorable team of a season um and that's definitely the case with this campaign well man united still had to go to middlesbrough and get something and And of course, they did a 3-0 victory.

1:07:47And on the final day of the season, they were champions by four points. That's a 16-point swing from mid-January, which is, as far as I know, unprecedented. Why exactly? We've touched on some of the reasons, but let's bust a few more myths next.

1:08:10All right, Duncan, so Newcastle weren't the kind of proto and Josie Ardila style free-for-all madcap entertainers that people necessarily remember them as, and a Sprillia signing probably didn't cost them the title. What else did, though? I mean, ultimately, what cost them was losing home and away to Manchester United. I mean, they lost the league by four points. That's a huge swing. Even if they'd just won the home game in the spring, which as George outlined, they really should have done. That would have been enough. And I know that's not quite how football works because that then changes how teams approach subsequent games, etc.

1:08:45But it was that tight, really. Four points is nothing in that context. But yeah, Manchester United and Liverpool both scored more goals. We've just mentioned Arsenal's defence. They had the best defence that season, although they only scored 49 goals in 38 games. this is very uh you know a dour arsenal so um yeah i mean i think the last two times the title has been won by teams scoring 66 goals which is what newcastle scored will is leads twice the sort of early 70s leads which is very much well i guess there are you know people think of that team as as quite you know cynical and but they they were able to play as well they but again and they had that steeliness that I think that Newcastle didn't have and is what ultimately cost them.

1:09:33So Newcastle didn't actually score that many goals and the other thing is they didn't concede that many either. They only conceded two more goals than Man United did that season and United clearly finished up as champions. George, what do you think are the other misconceptions about that season and that team? Well, I mean, I kind of touched on it a bit earlier but I think just how phenomenal Man United were in the second half of the season doesn't get sort of talked about enough because it gets talked about as a Newcastle collapse. And I think the two things go together really, don't they? I mean, I think if you're Newcastle, you're famously at a club that hasn't won a trophy for a very long time and you have on your shoulders a team that are just metronomic, there was just huge pressure.

1:10:20I mean, I can remember that pressure. There's that feeling of pressure. They've not done it before. I know it was a young Man United team at that point but it was a club that had you know had a history of winning things and Newcastle didn't and they hadn't done it before and this is again a slight digression it's like you get to the end of the season and think to yourself I mean I do remember that feeling of disappointment but my feeling was also okay well next year next year we'll do it and then eventually the years run out but um but um you know that I think I think there was that I think was just fatigue I think that pressure becomes fatigue you know we've seen it seen it seen it so many times this season how momentum just changes you know changes a team's performance and you could see them dipping you could see them getting tired as I say those first first half the season stuff comes naturally you don't overthink it second half of the season suddenly nothing is coming easy and they look like they're trying too hard and I you know I don't think there's sort of any great kind of mystery to it.

1:11:23It wasn't as if they were doing a thing kind of remote, you know, hugely different. Again, you know, you can say in retrospect, does he change the style of play? Does he change the formation? Come on, Lance, you're 1-0 up, go, you know, let's just hold what we have. But that just wasn't what that Newcastle team did. So they were beautiful and they were floored. Should be said as well, just to put it in the kind of context of the time, 78 points would often win you the league or get you close at that time. Manchester United won it with 75 the following season. Arsenal got 78 and won it at 97-98.

1:11:57Admittedly, they slightly threw their last two games. The United treble-winning team won it with 79. And Arsenal, who were fresh from winning a double, got 78. And those two are considered two of the best Premier League teams ever. So, you know, it's just supporting George's point, I guess, on how good that United team were at chasing them down. and and that's yeah the 96 97 season was the closest ever gap between bottom and top and you know that's for a long time people have wanted the premier league to return to that sort of competitiveness and i i would argue that this season in terms of everyone beating each other we're back there we you know we might get a a relatively low uh points total to get into the champions league in fifth place which could help newcastle all these years later But to finish off then just on the subject of this game which was voted and has been on various occasions the Premier League's greatest ever match I likened it before to football gone for Keith Flint Firestarter was number one in the UK that week and here were two teams a little bit like the bewilderingly coiffed Keith wild, alarming, kind of inexplicable why is he attempting to soar through a railway line with a rotary saw but incredibly watchable you couldn't take your eyes from it 30 years on does it still turn you on and one other auxiliary question i remember because i was in italy at the time the news of this kind of seeped through and people were kind of gazing admiringly at the kind of stock car rally entertainment being served up over in in the uk liverpool came out almost immediately with a dvd were 4-3 so very rare at that point it must have been a vhs surely yeah it was a d okay so vhs then but i mean that this was the peak era of vhs's i mean i used to go to wiccan games and and if we'd won the week before by the previous week's win on VHS.

1:14:04Yeah, it was like... Yeah, the following season when Newcastle beat Man U 5-0 at home, they immediately brought out a VHS entitled, of course, Howe 5-0. Genius. All right, but 30 years on, should this match 4-3, which is nowadays not that uncommon, should it still be hailed as the greatest ever? I think it kind of should, but also it's a slight problem that it still is and i think it speaks to a wider cultural point in the sense that you know in some ways time stopped in 1996 and you know like last summer everyone spent the summer going to watch oasis again and all the brit pop bands are touring and you know key there's intermittent returns of tfi friday and weird formats and do you know i mean it feels like it was such a good time in a lot of ways that that people haven't moved on and it It kind of speaks more to the paucity of stuff that's come since in some ways.

1:15:00But that doesn't take away how good it was both then and even now when you relive it. But also it was the first really, as Duncan said at the top, the first really great Premier League game that captured the wider imagination. And that's why whatever happens, whatever other games there are that may be objectively better if such a thing is possible or have more meaning or whatever, this was the first. and that will always make it so special. And so I don't think it can ever really be topped, even if there are better games, because it was the first. And that context of the mid-90s and everything that went with it just will always set it apart.

1:15:42And it was the context for the game itself, wasn't it? It wasn't just a random 4-3. It was everything that we're talking about, the narrative of Newcastle playing the kind of football that they were. I mean, the cliche about it is, you know, everybody's second favourite team. Newcastle fans never got a vote on that. You know, it was like, great, you know. But that was the sort of narrative that they had around the team, the football they played. They were appealing to football fans in general. And there was also this, you know, the narrative, the plot line of them having been top for so long. And then, you know, that tone of desperation following them.

1:16:21It was a game that had huge, huge meaning. And it was head spinning. It was head spinning. It was stomach churning. It was all of those things. So it was the context for the match itself, not just the football. You know, I think, yes, there have been plenty of 4-3s since then. But with that sense of actually standing for something important, I don't think it's been topped. Also, I just don't think in 2026 or beyond the level of mythos can develop about a game like it did here. because now there's too much written, there's too much cynicism. You can imagine now, if this game was played now, there'd be a lot of, well, actually, the defending was pretty shoddy and, well, actually, it didn't really mean anything.

1:17:01Didn't they say that at the time? Not in the same way. At the time, it was all filtered through Sky, which was incredibly bombastic and got taken the piss out of, but it did feed the hype. It will have been said that this was the greatest game ever in the greatest league in the world. Everyone would have kind of bought into that. Now there'd be so many takes and countertakes, almost in real time that I just don't think a game would be allowed to reach that kind of unfiltered wider appreciation there'd be fans from other clubs wading in saying we had a better game just last week if you actually followed you know the championship and it would just develop into argument and counter argument and you couldn't have this unanimity I don't think Duncan?

1:17:40If you listen to Martin Tyler's voice as he says Collingwood's closing in there's one bit of it where it sounds that the tone and the pitch is the same as Aguero, which happened. And I think to Charlie's point about games don't matter anymore, I think maybe that was the last time that it actually happened. And that was interesting because to the point of Manchester United rarely getting toppled, that was... I think the whole country was behind Aguero scoring that goal that day because it felt like, once again, Manchester United were going to get away with it on the last day and win the league.

1:18:15And it almost feels like... I don't know, it just feels like Aguero had Keegan inside him a little bit that day. That was, you know, it was like payback slightly. And I do think they're sort of very tangentially connected, those moments. But to make a slightly old man point, it was also there was less televised football back then. So games stood out and they stood out more in the memory. It was much more of an event. It wasn't immediately followed by another televised game. That's certainly how my memory has it. And so, you know, there was that feeling of we're watching something special at that point too.

1:18:48George, just kind of to finish off then, it is sad that Newcastle were involved in such an amazing game, performed so well, so entertainingly, and yet disappointed fans, supporters like yourself and everybody else, I guess. And then even that season in the broadest sense, you finished second in the league. that's the best ever Newcastle finish in the Premiership and probably for decades. But I imagine that very few people actually enjoyed it because the perspective was of having lost the title, not having conquered the runners-up spot. Looking back, the levels of support that Newcastle enjoyed, the levels of love that they even engendered among neutrals and even rival supporters, and the joy that they brought throughout that season, Does it not, even though it didn't work out the way that you would have wanted, the way that it did turn out, does it not give you pride and joy?

1:19:44Oh, totally, yes. I mean, they're my team. You know, that's my team, as I said at the top. That's how I, you know, I will always judge football compared to Keegan's team. And that's ruined football for me because they were so good and so special and so different. And, you know, I asked that sort of philosophical question about whether I would change things. And no, because I think that sort of yearning and that striving, wanting to know what it feels like to win is just so much part of who we are as a club and who we were as a fan base. I mean, talking about looking back, at the time, it was all about what's next.

1:20:24And as I said, I think the players felt that. It was like, it'll be next year, it'll be next year. Keegan, so they signed Shearer the following summer for a world record fee, let's not forget. and go again but then Keegan leaves and so that was a huge moment but Kenny Dalglish comes in and the idea then is like okay well this guy will do it and then it doesn't you know they finish second again but they're not really challenging then it's the he gets replaced by Rude Hullet so okay well he'll be the guy that does it for us and they get to cup finals and then it's and then it's Sir Bobby he'll be the guy that does it and that was the kind of feeling around the club at the time so it wasn't like it was just this one-off season that we either had to win it then or you don't win anything it was like the club was right now it it then degenerated from that point on to into the kind of ashley into the ashley era but no i mean i i look back i look back on that team with just with just love and you know i can't i can't change i can't sort of change What I can say is that the Newcastle that exists now, for better or for worse, and I know for a lot of people that would be for worse, but that doesn't exist without Keegan.

1:21:36It doesn't exist without Keegan's Newcastle. He is the figure that the modern Newcastle is built on and constructed around. he gave Newcastle that sense of possibility, of ambition, of power, of beauty. You know, it was a club going absolutely nowhere before his arrival. The stadium kind of grew up around him. And, you know, it just doesn't exist in its current form without him. He is the most, I would argue that Eddie Howe is the most kind of important figure at Newcastle for a generation. but it's all built on Keegan's work, including a young Eddie Howe watching Keegan's team and being inspired by it and giving the team and club a very, very different identity, it must be said.

1:22:21But it doesn't exist without Keegan. He's an absolute icon. Perfect, George. Thank you very much. Before we wrap up, let's provide the answer to our question, which you will recall was this game, Liverpool 4, Newcastle just the 3, featured the top three assisters in the Premier League for that campaign. Who were they, Charlie? Was Rob Lee one of them? No. Ah, I thought that was the kind of cheeky one. Collymore? Must have been. Well, Collymore was in there. Yeah, he was second. Beardsley? No. All three assisted in this match. I think the curveball is going to be John Barnes. Because it was like his sort of late autumn season.

1:23:03John Barnes was third on the list of... And then I guess McManaman. Yes. Steve McManaman came in top. Wow. That's pretty good. Yeah, it must be one of the only times the teams had the top three assisters in the Premier League. You know better than me, Duncan. We need to, yeah, Newcastle rub Liverpool of the glory for the doubt. Yeah. We'd know if someone had only been keeping track of assists back in the 95-96 season. There you go. Well, George, it's been very, very generous indeed of you to be with us and allowed us to rummage through your recollections of that most special of seasons. Well, it's been therapy.

1:23:49I mean, I've put it off for a long time, but, yeah, it's been therapy. Now I've just got the subsequent 30 years to deal with, but thank you. I appreciate it. Excellent. Thank you so much for being with us. thank you to Charlie and Duncan producer Lucy and producer Jesse too and you listener, we'll have more Totally Extra for you soon now though, from all of us here, it's goodbye you've been listening to the Totally Football Show part of the Athletic FC podcast network for other great podcasts just like this one including the Athletic FC and our dedicated club podcasts, search for The Athletic in all the usual places we're also at the Totally Show on Insta and at the Totally Show on YouTube.

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