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Newcastle United Football Club history

2005-06 Season

7th in the Premier League
League Cup: 4th Round, Wigan Athletic a. 0-1
FA Cup: 6th Round, Chelsea a. 0-1
Inter Toto Cup: Semi Finals, Deportivo La Coruna 2-4 on aggregate.

Highlight:
4-1 win at Sunderland

Low Spot:
0-3 defeat at Manchester City

Good:
Shay Given
An absolute rock at the back. Stood firm when things in front of him were getting shambolic and helped keep things respectable at St James before the late improvement.
Nolberto Solano
It was nice to see him back after his spell at Villa. Nobby just seems suited to playing at Newcastle.
Clever and capable of scoring spectacular goals he is the type of player the Geordies have been weaned on.

Bad:
Jean Alain Boumsong
He's worse than Titus,
He's worse than Titus,
What a waste of 8 million quid,
He's worse than Titus.
Albert Luque
Normally scoring against Sunderland makes you a legend on Tyneside but this guy has a lot of work still to do to win over the Geordie Nation.
He either wasn't interested or is just plain shit.

In Brief:
2 points from the first 5 games was the beginning of the end of the Graeme Souness reign and it was felt as blessed relief when he finally left.
Glenn Roeder and Alan Shearer then masterminded a remarkable recovery with the club winning 10 of the last 14 games to earn a return to the Inter Toto.
There can be no guarantees that this improvement will be sustained next season and the team still looks in need of major surgery.
The season finally saw the end of Shearer's playing career and although he failed to win the major trophy he so longed for on Tyneside he did overtake Jackie Milburn's all time goalscoring record.

Newcastle United FC - Club history

Newcastle United Football Club can be traced back to a team called Stanley which was formed in 1881. They quickly changed their name to Newcastle East End and became Newcastle United in 1892 after various mergers between clubs in the city during the intervening period.

The club were elected to Division Two in 1893 and gained promotion to Division One in 1898. Newcastle remained in the top flight until 1934 and reached seven FA Cup finals during that time, winning three and losing four. They also won the league championship four times to establish themselves as one of the great early forces in English football.

The clubs finest season came in 1904-05 when they claimed their first league title and also reached their first cup final, missing out on a possible double after losing to Aston Villa 2-0.

The Magpies also lost the following years final 1-0 to Everton and, after claiming a second league title in 1907, lost the 1908 cup final as well, going down 3-1 to Wolverhampton Wanderers. There was further league glory in 1909 as United claimed their third title in five years.

In 1910 Newcastle finally captured the FA Cup after defeating Barnsley 2-0 in the final after a replay. The following year there was another final defeat as they lost to Bradford City, also after a replay.

Newcastle did not get to another cup final until 1924 when they captured the trophy with a 2-0 win over Aston Villa.

In 1927 the club won their fourth league title, which remains the last time they have collected the championship. During this season the diminutive Scottish striker Hughie Gallagher set the club goalscoring record for a season, finding the net 36 times and establishing himself as the first in a long line of Geordie folk heroes.

In 1932 Newcastle won the FA Cup again with a 2-1 win over Arsenal, scoring one of Wembley's most controversial goals in the process. The Magpies were trailing when Jimmy Richardson hooked a ball which appeared to have crossed the goalline back into the centre for Jack Allen to head home the equaliser.

Despite Arsenal protests the goal stood and Allen went on to score again to take the cup back to the North East.

Surprisingly, however, Newcastle were relegated to Division Two in 1934 and had to wait until after World War II to reclaim a place in the first division.

In the first season after the war Newcastle could only manage 5th place in Division Two despite assembling a star studded attack including Jackie Milburn, Roy Bentley, Charlie Wayman and Len Shackleton. This team did make it to the FA Cup semi finals though, as well as establishing a club record victory with a 13-0 drubbing of Newport County in which Shackleton, on his debut, banged in six goals.

Although Newcastle went on to win promotion the following year and then collected three FA Cup wins in five years the hasty dismantling of this forward line appears strange.

Milburn was retained and switched to centre forward to become another Geordie legend but Wayman, who was sacrificed after netting 32 goals in 47 league games for the club, went on to score at a similar ratio throughout his career.

Roy Bentley went on to claim a league championship with Chelsea and represent England and Shackleton also won England caps although his legendary status in the game owes more to his time at Sunderland than at St James Park.

These three players had all moved on before the cup was captured in 1951 but, especially given the subsequent arrival of Bobby Mitchell, it is hard to believe even more success would not have followed had this frontline been retained.

The 1951 cup success came after a 2-0 win over Blackpool in which Milburn scored both goals. The following year a single goal from George Robledo was enough to account for Arsenal and in 1955 Milburn, Mitchell and George Hannah were on target in a 3-1 win over Manchester City.

Amazingly that victory still stands as the clubs last major domestic honour.

Newcastle suffered relegation to Division Two in 1961 but returned to the top flight as champions of the second division in 1965. The club enjoyed European success in 1969, although they were more than a shade fortunate to get the opportunity in the first place.

The Magpies had only finished 10th in the first division the previous season but still made it into the Fairs Cup helped by the fact that this competition only allowed one team from any given city to compete and because of several other clubs in front of them winning other trophies.

This is what happened:

1st: Manchester City went into the European Cup
2nd: Manchester United also won the European Cup so went back into that competition
3rd: Liverpool went into the Fairs Cup
4th: Leeds United also won the Fairs Cup so qualified automatically again
5th: Everton missed out on the one team per city rule
6th: Chelsea went into the Fairs Cup
7th: Tottenham Hotsper missed out on the one team per city rule
8th: West Bromwich Albion went into the Cup Winners Cup after winning the FA Cup
9th: Arsenal missed out on the one team per city rule
10th: Newcastle United snuck into the Fairs Cup.

At least the Magpies made the most of this good fortune, beating Feyenoord, Sporting Lisbon, Real Zaragosa and Glasgow Rangers along the way to a final with the Hungarian side Ujpest Dozsa.

Newcastle stormed into a 3-0 lead after the first leg at St James Park with centre half and skipper Bobby Moncur scoring twice. Moncur was also on target in Hungary as Newcastle sealed their triumph with another victory, this time 3-2.

The 1970's brought another terrace idol in the shape of Malcolm MacDonald but only defeats in the 1974 FA Cup final, 3-0 against Liverpool, and the 1976 League Cup final, 2-1 against Manchester City.

Although Newcastle did capture the Anglo Italian Cup in 1973 and the Texaco Cup in both 1974 and 75 this was scarcely a consolation.

In 1978 a truly dreadful Newcastle side plummeted into the second division and it would be six years before they would manage a return to the top flight.

This promotion was inspired by the arrival of Kevin Keegan and aided considerably by the two outstanding young talents Chris Waddle and Peter Beardsley.

Newcastle were hardly recognised as a leading club at this time, however, and were unable to keep hold of these two stars or Paul Gascoigne who emerged shortly afterwards and in 1989 they were relegated again.

The club were in real danger of slipping into the third tier of English football when Keegan returned as manager in 1992 to inspire another revival.

In 1993 the club romped into the Premier League and have remained comfortably stationed there ever since.

Indeed the Magpies would have captured the league title in 1996 had they not buckled under intense late pressure from Manchester United who came ploughing through to claim another title. This was a pity for a wonderfully exciting team that brought real colour to the game at that time.

In both 1998 and 1999 Newcastle reached the FA Cup final but lost both times, firstly to Arsenal and then Manchester United and despite reaching the semi finals of the UEFA Cup in 2004 the quest for another major honour seems likely to prove elusive for some time yet.

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