Proud to be Newcastle United AND Ginger | OneFootball

After my recent article on Tommy Craig there has been a few bit and pieces in The Mag comments sections about ginger former Newcastle United players.

So I thought I would give out a mention to a few famous and also some not quite so esteemed, former Toon redheads.

Strawberry blonde Hughie Gallagher is arguably our greatest ever player and was the last Newcastle United captain to lift the League Championship.

Hughie was fiery and feisty but truly inspirational. His tragic death on Tyneside just sadly added to his legend.

I have previously written about Ivor Allchurch and Albert Stubbins and what fine players they were. Albert is immortalised for being on the cover of the Beatles album ‘Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’.

Goalkeeper Mike Hooper made his name at Liverpool as Bruce Grobbelaar’s understudy before joining Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle United in 1994. He didn’t have a happy time on Tyneside and at one point was loaned to Sunderland. He made 25 first team appearances for Newcastle before leaving the club.

Carrot-topped defender Paul Sweeney was signed from Raith Rovers in 1988, made 36 appearances for Newcastle United over the following three seasons.

Issue 68 – September 1994

He was a member of Kevin Keegan’s entertainers and always popular with the fans. For anyone that hasn’t seen ‘Watto’s winning goal for the Toon in the League Cup tie against Liverpool at Anfield, I suggest you go and look it up.

Steven Caldwell was on Newcastle’s books between 1997 and 2004 and made 28 first team appearances for the club. There were various loan periods at other clubs before Steven eventually joined the mackems in a permanent deal.

Nicky Butt joined Newcastle from Man Utd, which is generally never a good sign. For a while he didn’t look interested and at one stage was loaned out to Birmingham City. After his return he redeemed himself slightly in our promotion season of 2009/10. Before our last game of that campaign, Butt announced that he would be retiring at the end of the season.

Cramlington lad Jack Colback ran his contract down at Sunderland before jumping ship to join Alan Pardew’s Newcastle United in 2014. Coming from Sunderland doesn’t necessarily mean it is a hard task to win over the Geordies (think of Jeff Clarke and Barry Venison). Unfortunately, Colback never really set the place alight and a lot of supporters, myself included, cringed at the massive salary he was receiving.

His ‘Ginger Pirlo’ nickname was unfortunately never a term of endearment. He was a typical ‘Newcastle United under Mike Ashley’ type of signing if you like. After an initial loan spell at Nottingham Forest, we finally got him off our books in 2020.

Young North Shields lad Matty Longstaff is still with us but was recently handed a free transfer.

When Matty arrived on the scene he stole the headlines with a winning goal against Manchester United at Gallowgate, then scored at Old Trafford as well. Injuries have taken their toll on Matty in the last couple of seasons. I sincerely wish him well for the future.