The Newcastle United footballers haircuts that inspired us back in the day | OneFootball

Come on, own up, who once had a footballer’s haircut?

I’m really directing this question at the lads who followed Newcastle United in the 1970s and 80s.

These were the eras of the the flamboyant flowing locks and lots of different variations of style.

The pop culture of forty or fifty years ago was so much more influential than what it is today.

From bands like the Sweet and Queen, right through to Jesus and Mary Chain, Echo and the Bunnymen and the Cult etc, their hairstyles of the day have been copied by young men on the terraces.

Of course we always had a good smattering of skins etc but I was one of the young lads that liked to keep my barnet longish.

In the mid-seventies I would say well over 50% of footballers wore their locks fairly long.

The Toon had Jimmy Smith, there were the likes of Tony Currie, Stan Bowles and Frank Worthington. It was the duty of mavericks like these to wear their hair long.

It was in the early to mid 80s that the mullet came to the fore and I wasn’t at all keen. That all changed though at the beginning of the 1984/85 season.

After a Keegan inspired Newcastle United had gained promotion to the First Division only a few months earlier, Chris Waddle came back after pre-season with a bit of a mullet.

A few months later as it grew, he had the back loosely permed and the ‘Chrissy Waddle’ was born.

I was in my late teens and quickly succumbed along with a lot of blokes older than me.

I had my Waddler style on the day that United fans infiltrated the Fulwell End in 1985.

Chris left us in the summer of ’85 and the brief phenomenon he brought about on Tyneside quickly dissipated.

I also used to know a few older lads that got a perm in 1982 when King Kev arrived.

Now, quite a few of us look more like Temuri Ketsbaia than Chris Waddle, but it is still good to look back and smile at the times.