Totally Gold 95-96: Keegan's Newcastle and the best Premier League game ever

0:00You're probably multitasking right now, right? Commuting, working out, crossing things off your list. Worth asking when check-in on yourself landed on it. Grow makes the booking part fast. The rest is between you and a therapist who actually gets it. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality, licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow helps you find therapy on your time. The therapist you want takes your insurance on Grow. Grow accepts over 125 insurance plans.

0:38Sessions average$21 with insurance and some pay as little as$0 depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com slash start now today to get started. That's growtherapy.com slash start now. Growtherapy.com slash start now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. Thinking about selling your car? Start with a real offer worth real money from CarMax. Then take seven days to compare your offer, and when you're ready, accept your offer and get paid. CarMax will even pick up your car. That's it. No haggling, no hassles, no pressure. Just a real offer worth real money from CarMax. Get all the details and a real offer today at CarMax.com.

1:22Want to drive? CarMax. At-home pickup not available in all locations. Distance restrictions and a fee may apply. Want to turn challenges into chances? Go digital enterprise and adapt to every change by combining the real and digital worlds. Transform the everyday with Siemens.

1:48The Athletic FC Podcast Network.

1:58Hello, listener. It's Totally Gold time, revisiting five years ago, a time when no football was on, so we all came together to look back on some of the greatest seasons in history. Today, in what is the last Totally Gold of this summer, it's the time when Michael Cox, Daniel Story and Matt Davies-Adams joined me to discuss the campaign 30 years ago that featured one of the greatest meltdowns and the greatest games in Premier League history.

2:30Unbelievable, unbelievable this.

2:42That's right, listener. It was the mid-90s. A time of blur and oasis. A time of lads of gear and smoking in pubs. A time when Chris Evans owned Friday night and Noel Edmonds sat stride Saturday. and a time when the Premier League witnessed its most famous meltdown ever. 95-96 is the season in question. Michael Cox, author of The Mixer, a history of the Premier League and the tactics that have marked its evolution. This is, I think I'm right in saying, one of your favourite seasons, but good luck, if I may, finding any tactics here. Well, yeah, I mean, that was the interesting thing. I mean, Newcastle obviously came very, very close to winning it.

3:19And in the end, I think when you look at why they didn't win it, you have to say it's because Higgins didn't really any emphasis upon defensive training. He didn't look at the opposition at all. He kind of just read out the team sheet in the dressing room rather than actually giving them instructions for the game. But the interesting thing is probably not that they didn't win it with that approach, it's that they came quite close to winning it with that approach, if that makes sense. And yeah, I mean, it was a remarkable season. I must say, having heard for maybe 15, 20 years about, you know, the game that kind of defined the season, their 4-3 defeat to Liverpool-Anfield.

3:53I hadn't actually watched the game in full until relatively recently. And it is a genuinely incredible game. I don't generally like watching old games when you know the scoreline because I think a lot of the excitement about football is not knowing what's going to happen next. But I mean, that is a really, really incredible game. And I still think probably the most memorable title run in. For that Liverpool 4-3 game, you've also got probably the second most iconic line of commentary ever for the winning goal. Barnes, rush, Barnes. Still John Barnes, Collymore closing in. Liverpool lead in stoppage time.

4:34One of the myths of Newcastle, which Michael talks about in his book, is this idea of the Kevin Keegan entertainers. It should be said that they only conceded 37 league goals that season. It wasn't a disaster in defence. Their biggest problem was anyone else other than Les Ferdinand scoring goals, basically. He scored 25 and nobody else scored any more than eight. One of the questions that always gets asked is whether signing Faustino Aspira caused the meltdown. But Newcastle didn't really have a lot of choice. Beersley had only scored four or five times. No one else had scored more than three or four.

5:08So you kind of had to gamble on that to help Ferdinand out. All right. Well, we'll have a little discussion about what really happened to the Magpies in that fateful season. But let's just get into some of the other rich, old-timey detail from the 95-96 season. It was the first 20-team Premier League campaign. The numbers had come down from 22 the previous season. The reigning champions were Blackburn Rovers, who produced the Premier League's all-time worst title defence, at least until David Moyes pitched up at Old Trafford. To me, Blackburn's season in totality is far, far more disappointing than Newcastle's meltdown.

5:43as defending champions, keeping the same team, Silal Al-Anshira. And they took like two points in the first six games, I think, and were basically out of the title race at that point. They also had that incredible bust up between Graham Lassau and David Batty before his move across to Newcastle. Where was that? At Spartak Moscow, huh? Yes, yeah. They had a disagreement. And David Batty, it's fair to say, was a combustible character, an unpredictable character, shall we say, at the time. But yeah, I mean, they finished bottom of the Champions League group with Rosenberg, Galicia, Warsaw and Spartak, Moscow.

6:14So it's fair to say it didn't go well. Looking at Blackburn, they finished seventh. They were 21 points behind Man United. But I thought, actually, it's probably not that bad a season. If you think that Leicester, you know, a club of similar size and stature, you know, if you compare them in the two eras, they were 40 points off Chelsea in 2017, the year after that they won it. And Blackburn, of course, started the season with a new manager because Kenny Dalglish moved upstairs and Ray Harford took over. So actually, although the Champions League campaign was an unmitigated disaster, Premier League-wise, they probably just reverted to what was about the mean for them.

6:50Really? They were rich at the time, weren't they? They did have Jack Walker's considerable checkbook. And I just think Manchester United weren't a brilliant team that season. They were a team in transition that won the league and did very well. But I think it was open for Blackburn to stick around a little bit longer than they did. Well, there were all sorts of other contenders in this year. Liverpool, for example, who were in and around the title race at times, dubbed the Spice Boys, wearing white suits to the FA Cup final that Liverpool there. Forrest were in the top flight and in Europe, making it all the way to the UEFA Cup quarter finals.

7:23Matt, you went along to their final game in this campaign. I did, yeah. How did that go for you? Not great, but Forrest got further than any other English team in European competition that season. and they beat Malmo, Auser and Lyon before they came up against Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals and lost 2-1 in Munich in the first leg. So you're thinking, OK, great, we'll just win the return. Leg 1-0, we'll go through and away goals, that'll be fine. Bayern won 5-1 in the return. It was a bit unfair because they had Jurgen Klinsmann and Jean-Pierre Papin up front and Forrest didn't. They also had people like Lothar Matthäus, Oliver Kahn.

8:01So yeah, it was a bit of a mismatch really. And you just sold off Stan Collymore to Liverpool as well. Yeah, and spent the money wisely by replacing him with the Serie A top scorer, Andreas Selenzi. He managed no goals and no assists in his 12 Premier League appearances. Legend, yeah. This may be a struggle for younger listeners, but down the bottom end of the table, that season ended with Man City relegated. Do you remember the circumstances, Daniel? Yes, I absolutely do. That is absolutely classic 90s when you've got something like a lack of technology and you had people on their radios in the stands But yeah, the story goes that Alan Ball, managing Manchester City, Manchester City drawing with a minute or so to go, believed that Southampton were losing and therefore that Manchester City only needed a draw to stay up.

8:47So he basically tried to play out for a draw and Manchester City didn't only need a draw. They needed to win and were relegated, which is an incredible piece of administration. Right, Niall Quinn apparently, because he'd been subbed off, so he sees the score as he's walking down the tunnel and he has this desperate race to try and get back out. and warn them before the time runs out. Magnificent stuff, missed days like that. Also going down with Man City, Bolton and QPR, who struggled having lost Les Ferdinand to Newcastle. QPR wouldn't be back in the Premier League for 15 years. Les Ferdinand would, though.

9:22He joined Kevin Keaton's exciting jazz tactics experiment, Newcastle. Michael, let's hear now about the Magpies and how they lined up under a manager who had no previous experience and an assistant manager who had no previous experience. Yeah, pretty much. Keegan and McDermott. I mean, they didn't score that many goals. I mean, that's the strange thing about the entertainers. They scored fewer goals than every Premier League champion, which ties in with what Daniel said about, you know, there's a slight myth in terms of why they didn't win the league. But certainly in the first half of the season, I mean, they were a fantastic force going forward.

9:58They had Kiki Gillespie down the right, who was kind of an old school winger, got to the byline and crossed. They had Peter Beardsley buzzing around just behind Ferdinand. And they had David Ginler, who arrived from PSG. And I don't think there's many players who have adapted so quickly to the Premier League. I mean, the first few months, I think he won Player of the Month in his first month in the competition. And he was just, I mean, a very unusual winger. He wasn't just a kind of skillful, tricky flair merchant. He was a big guy. He was very good with his back to goal, actually. Two-footed, could spin either way.

10:29could score long-range curlers into the far corner. And I think he kind of epitomised the spirit of Newcastle. There was a real directness and a real kind of passion for scoring goals in the first half of the season. And of course, in the second half, things slow. And as mentioned, Espriar comes in. And that's a funny situation because a lot of people say that Espriar was the reason that Newcastle really declined in the second half of the campaign. But I think Espriar individually actually was often Newcastle's best player. The problem was he was so unpredictable and Keegan didn't really have any idea or communicate any idea in terms of how Newcastle were meant to play with him.

11:06That kind of what they'd created in the first half of the season kind of fell down. And they were now depending on, you know, this complete foreigner, you know, foreign in terms of to the team as well as to the country, who didn't speak any English. They couldn't really communicate with him. And it was all just about his own individual magic rather than, you know, the relatively structured attacking they'd done in the first half of the season. It also seemed to put Les Ferdinand's nose out of joint as well. He said that the manager said we weren't scoring enough goals other than me. So we brought him in, but he felt that it had made the team lopsided, which seems a little bit harsh.

11:39But just on Ginola, there's a great quote that I heard in researching for this. John Beresford, one of his teammates, said that one of the first things he told the squad was, I'm a butterfly, the rest of the team, you're worker ants. Manifest. one of those workarounds is who I believe is the most underrated Premier League player of all time which is Rob Lee who was he only played 21 times for England but such dynamism in midfield and kind of underrated skill I think maybe even because of his name people just sort of assume he was a bit of a clogger but he was a really really skillful midfielder I really like Rob Lee and the other thing a slight defense for Newcastle the last eight games of their season every single game was decided by one goal or no goal so although they fell short it isn't that hard to see how if things have gone slightly differently in the odd game they might have won the league it wasn't like they were losing games 3-0 or 4-0 and getting you know completely losing their minds although that's very much the charge that's often laid at Kevin Keegan's door so he hadn't been a manager previously and by all accounts didn't do too much in terms of setting out the team Terry McDermott Marco you write in your book that he he'd previously been working in a burger van at a race course I think that was a one-off day I don't think he had anything on so he helped out a mate or something but certainly he had no coaching qualifications no intention to go into coaching and I mean when you read reports of their training sessions there just wasn't any real structure to them I mean they did I believe they did a defensive session once all season which was ahead of a 1-0 defeat to Southampton and Keegan just said well that's not working we're not going to do that again so they didn't chat about defending for the rest of the campaign.

13:18Pretty much all the centre-backs he used were kind of midfielders converted into defenders. Steve Howie was the obvious example. Philippe Albert was very much a rampaging, roaming centre-back. The full-backs, Barton and Beresford were very solid, but towards the end of the campaign, they'd been replaced by Robbie Elliott and Steve Watson, who were wingers in the youth system. Lee Clark had been converted from a number 10 into a defensive midfielder so Keegan really just had this vision of almost creating you know a goalkeeper and 10 attack-minded players and while their you know their goal scoring record wasn't spectacular I mean they were good to watch you know they there was a real excitement and even though they fell short there's still I mean personally speaking I still have a tremendous fondness for that team and the way that they played football and some of the individual results obviously it was the next season rather than the season we're talking about but the 5-0 win over Manchester United the following season is maybe the most exciting and complete performance I've seen in the Premier League considering you know what had happened in this season so yeah they fell short but I gather you know if any of those players go back to Newcastle there's still a real kind of affection for them and a real I think pride at the way Newcastle conducted themselves throughout the season and you can tell that from you know when Keegan talks about the season he says that you know the thing that he's most proud of the thing that stands out is that neutrals like them you know they were often applauded onto and off the pitch and you know that wasn't something you had for Manchester United who obviously had this kind of us against the world approach which in the end proved very much successful for them right I mean he talked about it being I think a moral victory at the end of that season in a way he's right because when you think of the 95 96 season you do I think have Newcastle in your mind more than Man United Man United narrowly missed out the previous year to Blackburn, of course, who were busy ushering through the class of 92, which prompted after a defeat to Aston Villa early on in the campaign, one of, as I mentioned, the two most famous soundbites in Premier League history, when Alan Hansen said...

15:20Three players have departed. The trick is always buy when you're strong. So he needs to buy players. You can't win anything with kids. United, of course, winning the league and cup doubles for the second time that season. It wasn't just the kids, though. they also had Eric Cantona back. Yeah, this is where I crowbar in the biggest plug-in in history. In my book, 250 Days, yeah, firstly about Alan Hansen, which I do talk about in there, history inevitably paints him as the fool for suggesting such things. But how rapid the rise was of that group of players was pretty much unprecedented, certainly in what we consider the modern game.

15:57At the time, it wasn't ridiculous. No, there was articles in The Guardian saying exactly the same. Fergus was under huge pressure from the support and the club. You know, he says, forget Mark Robbins in 1990. That was as close as ever got to getting the sack. So it wasn't a completely ridiculous thing to say. Obviously, they went on and won the double and it makes Hanson look like a clown figure, but he was kind of reflecting the mood, really. It wasn't just the class of 92. You know, it wasn't like they had 11 youth players out there. Peter Schmeichel, Dennis Irwin, Gary Pallister, Brian McClare all played in that opening game.

16:31against Villa and then obviously Cantona came back in halfway through the season and 14 goals 10 assists in the Premier League so it wasn't like Beckham and co carried it on their back for the whole nine months. Yeah and I think Ferguson really was he was thinking long term because there was a game early on that they won 2-1 at Blackburn quite a tight game David Beckham code and a very late winner and Ferguson afterwards said well you know you look at this team and with the exception of I think one or two players, they're going to be together for the next five years. So he really was, you know, as was referred to, thinking of that as a transition season.

17:05I think the fact that they won the title, indeed they won the double because Cantona won the cup final as well, almost felt like a bit of a bonus. I think had Newcastle won it that season, Ferguson would have said, well, OK, you know, we're building for, you know, that next cycle, which obviously culminated in 99 in the Champions League, which really was his priority. So, you know, I don't think that, I dare say Ferguson used Hanson's words as motivation for his side. But I think at that time, deep down, probably kind of got where he was coming from. The other thing we have to, that can't be overlooked is just how pivotal a role Cantona played in the class of 92's development, purely because he was, you know, he wasn't playing football.

17:45He was suspended. it he twice came close to leaving Manchester United and the second time Ferguson said he swayed it by saying look you can take this group of players under your wing and you can develop them you can create a legacy for the next 15 years at Manchester United and ultimately that's what persuaded Cantona to stay and I think the the really nice one of the really nice things from that season is Cantona's comeback game against Liverpool was the first time that all of that class of 92 two played with each other in the same game. So both Neville brothers start, Butts starts, Giggs starts, Beckham and Scholes come off the bench.

18:21And that's the first time that all six of those players played in the same game for Manchester United. So yeah, that element of Cantona's kind of mentorship, I think is pretty well overlooked.

18:36You're probably multitasking right now, right? Commuting, working out, crossing things off your list. Worth asking when check-in-on-yourself landed on it. Grow makes the booking part fast. The rest is between you and a therapist who actually gets it. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow helps you find therapy on your time. The therapist you want takes your insurance on Grow. Grow accepts over 125 insurance plans.

19:14Sessions average$21 with insurance and some pay as little as$0 depending on their plan. Visit growtherapy.com slash start now today to get started. That's growtherapy.com slash start now. growtherapy.com slash start now. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. This summer, JBL is on a mission to help you Tune into what you love. Audiobooks, podcasts, and everything in between with JBL's live headphones. These headphones are perfect because of their high-res sound, making your fave stories and voices come alive with so much detail, exactly the way they were made to be heard.

19:55Plus, they have 80 hours of battery life, so you can binge without pressing pause all summer long. Find your pair at JBL.com.

20:08This 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. That was United with their tremendously well-organised set up and the combination of veterans and young talent coming through. But better than them, certainly until February, was this completely thrown together side of superstars from Newcastle. Christmas, they were 10 points clear. By mid-January 1996, it was 12 points. And then, well, you have the signings of Esprilio and David Batty in February.

20:47And that's followed by a run of five defeats in eight games, which is hard not to draw connection between the two things. The penultimate of those five defeats coming on the 3rd of April at Anfield, when they lose 4-3, voted this the greatest game in Premier League history. Michael, you're very on board with that. Daniel, Matt, do you still feel that it deserves that place at the top of the Pantheon? Yeah, because it is both incredibly entertaining when you watch it back and iconic in terms of what it meant for both teams. It might sound very controversial, but I think Liverpool missed a trick by not being stronger that season.

21:23You know, they had David James, who was named in the PFA team of years, the goalkeeper. They had Fowler and Collymore, which was probably the best strike force in, well, one of the best strike forces in the world at that point. Because Collymore was fantastic the season before Forest. Fowler was top scorer in the league. They had McManaman, they had Barnes, who played 36 games that season. He was still there. And they had a really good defence. I think they basically had a period, I think, where they lost four in five or something around November, December. but Liverpool were a really, really good team.

21:51You know, their lack of title challenge should be a bit of a shame, really. Yeah, and you think it did, looking back on it, all play into Ferguson's hands in terms of his rivals. We've spoken about Keegan's maybe tactical deficiencies, although he did take Newcastle from battling relegation in Division 2 to second in the Premier League. But, you know, Liverpool, Roy Evans, if they'd had a manager of maybe a bit more pedigree, would that have helped them challenge more? And Blackburn, we've already mentioned with Ray Harford, So it wasn't like the teams who should have been challenging them were maybe at their strongest in terms of managers in the way that United obviously were.

22:24Do you remember watching that game? I was at a school, some event at school. So I'd have been, what, 12 years old. And I remember getting the last half an hour in the car on the radio on Five Live and cursing the school that I was not able to watch it. My main memory of it actually is that famous shot of Keegan head slumped over the advertising hoarding with his hand down on it as well and like zipping up his jacket, unzipping it again, then trying to get it zipped up again, just trying to take his mind off, you know, what was going on. That's the main thing that I remember from it. And also Asprey's goal and his kind of fist pump celebration as he goes in toward the supporters.

23:03But it was quite bittersweet to watch the greatest game in Premier League history and see it decided by somebody who Forrest had sold in the summer. So I wasn't that into it and also I wanted Newcastle to win the title. you know watching it back from a tactical perspective the most interesting thing is the whole game revolves around david ginler who plays so high up the pitch for a left winger in a 4-4-2 i mean he's basically a third forward i think two of newcastle's goals come from the fact he's so high up the pitch and two of liverpool's goals come from the fact that he has absolutely no interest whatsoever in tracking back with uh jason mcatee so i think ginler for good and bad really deserves the credit for that that game being so memorable right and as you say with Keegan slumped over the advertising hoardings United now three points clear at the top of the table although the Magpies did still have a game in hand which takes us on to the other famous soundbite from this season Kevin Keegan's I would love it if we beat them 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 I'll be watching it We're still fighting for this title and he's got to go to Middlesbrough and get something.

24:14And I'll tell you, honestly, I will love it if we beat them. Love it. It was a classic piece of Alex Ferguson mind games. He says as much in both his diary of the season. He says as much in pretty much every autobiography he's written. He realised that he had the wood over Keegan and he suspected that there was an element of Keegan's personality that would make him prone to this kind of reaction. And it's a piece of, you know, puppet on a string. It very much is. Ferguson was just toying with Keegan and poking him and jabbing him and it had gone on a few weeks before. And eventually he doesn't only get the reaction from Keegan, but he gets it live on TV, which is everything Ferguson wants.

24:58And Ferguson says, looking back, that that was the title won. He knew it. As soon as Keegan had been so emotional, so blatantly that he knew the title was done. So Alex had suggested that Nottingham Forest wouldn't try as hard when they played Newcastle. That's what prompted this from Keegan. It was because Newcastle with the opposition for Stuart Pearce's testimonial, which took place a couple of weeks after the end of the season, and Forest still had to play Newcastle at the city ground before the season ended and actually equalised to draw 1-1. The testimonial, by the way, was great. It finished 6-5, Kevin Keegan scored.

25:33They brought their full first team squad for it like a week after they'd lost the league title. It was amazing. But what I really liked about this was when Fergie started, it was after they'd just beaten Leeds 1-0 at Old Trafford. And Leeds played with an outfield player in goal for most of that game. Beanie, their keeper, got sent off. And it was in his post-match that he was saying teams try much harder against Man United. And he said, I was really disappointed in Leeds. as if one of their biggest rivals should have just had the good grace to come and lose the game, not try and stop them from winning it.

26:06And then obviously opined that Leeds would try much harder against, or Leeds wouldn't try as hard, I should say, against Newcastle at Ellen Road a couple of weeks after that. I mean, the good thing about that is it's not even my favourite post-match managerial rant on Sky Sports of the season because there was also the Ron Atkinson meltdown a couple of months beforehand, which I must say I just find even more funny for a variety of reasons, mainly because he kind of outwits Richard Keyes in their head-to-head, which is always good to see. But you have to show, surely, don't you, a little bit more than there was evident tonight.

26:41You 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. But I ain't whipping them for that tonight. Who won the man of the match award? Dave Besant 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 then it ends with a victorious Ron Atkinson hurling his headphones away in disgust, but then having to kind of come back with a rueful apology and retrieve them because he's managed to hit the sound man on the head with them, but marvellous stuff.

27:18On the field, anyway, while Newcastle were falling to bits, It's United winning 13 of their last 15 games. The only match that they lost in that period, and what a memorable season this is, was the infamous 3-1 defeat at the Dell against Southampton, the Invisible Shirts game. See, the players deny this. They say that they just hated that kit and they thought it was unlucky. And apparently when they got in the dressing room at halftime, Ferguson said, just take that kit off immediately. We've never won a game in it. None of you like the look of it. We're putting this one on instead in the second half, which there must be some rule that you're not supposed to do that without good reason.

27:56So presumably they cooked up this reason of we can't see each other, so we need to wear a different kit. Yeah, Sir Alex claiming afterwards that the grey shirts they were wearing, grey football shirts, very much in vogue in this period of the 90s, but that their jerseys were blending in with the crowd. So they switched to their white and blue kit and did promptly go out and pull a goal back. It was 3-0 at halftime and it ended up being 3-1. Well, yeah, I mean, it's interesting that we remember the Keegan meltdown as Newcastle bottling. It had the season gone the other way. You wonder whether Ferguson demanding his, you know, blaming his defeat on the colour of the shirts would be remembered as a slightly more cynical, negative way.

28:36Just another world. I mean, so much of that season, with the possible exception of Man United, who seemed to have modernised ahead of much of the rest of the league. So much of that season seems to belong to an entirely different sport. You say another world, James. I was looking through the teams that it was a wretched season for English teams in Europe, Nottingham Forest aside. You look at the teams that the Premier League sides went out to. Liverpool went out to Bromby. Blackburn went out to Rosenberg, Leeds of Water and Spartak Moscow, as we said. Manchester United lost to Rota Volgograd. Leeds lost 8-3 on aggregate to PSV.

29:12and the really nice little nugget from that is that Ray Throvers went further in the UEFA Cup than Manchester United that season which I think is excellent. Michael the big question then is it fair to say that Newcastle bottled it or was it just a question of Man United being that much more professional? Yeah I mean they really lost it in the last couple of weeks of the campaign in particular there was a defeat against Blackburn away the midweek game at Ewood Park and the interesting thing with that was both goals both backbone goals were scored by graham fenton who's this guy who doesn't really appear in premier league history before or after but was very much a geordie and it's run away this is fenton oh there's a bit of fortune there fenton wants more and he's good they looked as though they got away with it but they hadn't and he was assisted for both goals by alan shearer two guys who grew up at Wolves End Boys Club.

30:09Graham Fenton has since been the manager of both North Shields and South Shields, so he's very much a Geordie. And yeah, in the end, Newcastle kind of just ran out of steam. I mean, I would attribute it to the fact that really they changed the system with the signing of Asprey and then David Batty, which changed things in midfield. And it wasn't necessarily the individuals, but it was really the fact that, you know, Keegan didn't really have much direction or much, didn't communicate really how he wanted the players to change with those, you know, quite significant changes in personnel. It meant Beardsley was sometimes now on the right, having played up front.

30:41That kind of changed the fact they weren't playing with wingers. They were kind of messing around in the central midfield zone as well. So, yeah, I think they just ran out of steam. And in the end, they, you know, it sounds an obvious thing to say, but they just didn't pick up enough points. They were a great side at their best. But I think when they really had to dig in and fight, they didn't have as much as Manchester United in that respect. And just in terms of any other business, I think it was the season before that Jürgen Klinsmann had come, but this was really the start of the superstar foreign signing, Ginola and Asprey too, we've mentioned.

31:11Yeah, Silenzi, yeah. The one I was thinking of actually was Giannino. He came for the first of his three spells at Middlesbrough and probably goes down as one of, if not the greatest player in their history. But it was around this time that that really started emerging, wasn't it? Giannino, Asprey, David Ginola, Forrestad, Brian Roy, plenty of others. Ruud Hullett, you know, who'd go on to be Chelsea's manager the next season. That was when that really started to kick in. And the other thing that stands out is that David Boost injury for Coventry at Old Trafford that made Peter Schmeichel sick on the pitch and need counselling.

31:46What actually happened to him that day? His foot got implanted in the ground, didn't it? And then just snapped on the lower part of his leg. He still has the scar, still walks with a limp. It was pretty graphic. he got MRSA in hospital as well so he really did have the worst time possible with it I looked up David Boost what he's doing now because he had 10 operations in 12 days and 22 overall after this injury he's now head of Coventry's charity group Sky Blues and the community so that's a fairly nice ending thank you to Michael, Matt, Daniel and producer Charlie and that is our final Totally Gold of the Summer the Totally Football Show as we know it will be back on Tuesday as we get geared up for the start of the brand new Premier League season though.

32:29So I do hope you'll be joining us for that. For now, 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 more great podcasts just like this one, including The Athletic FC and our dedicated club podcasts, search for The Athletic on Apple, Spotify and all the usual places. We're also at The Totally Football Show on Insta and at The Totally Show on YouTube. The Totally Football Show is an Athletic Media Company production.

33:00The Athletic FC Podcast Network.

33:26exactly the way they were made to be heard. Plus, they have 80 hours of battery life, so you can binge without pressing pause all summer long. Find your pair at jbl.com.