I’ve gone full circle, I dislike Arsenal as much as any other side in the country | OneFootball

As a regular Newcastle United ticket ballot loser, I was delighted to get a ticket for the Chelsea cup-tie on Wednesday night with my (now) favourite nephew.

Missing games makes getting back into St James’ Park on these rare occasions that bit more special. It’s fair to say I bounced out gleefully on the back of a well-managed game by Eddie and his boys.

Still euphoric on Thursday morning I set off on my run, with the Pod on the Tyne podcast for company.

It was very sweet as the guys had recorded it on Monday when Sunday’s hurt was still very evident, but they were in much better fettle now!

A good podcast, fair review of the weekend’s disappointment and the season so far, an interview with Andy Carroll which was a bit less inspiring, but then they hooked up with a lad who runs an Arsenal podcast. He’s on the comedy circuit and was plugging a visit to The Stand coming up soon. His banter was good to be fair and he could be worth going to see, I might be tempted.

Anyway, he and the lads cracked on about various Newcastle v Arsenal games, so many of them memorable for all sorts of reasons. The podcast was obviously doing its job as the legs weren’t hurting as they normally do.

I was enjoying the reminiscences very much but he got one wrong. He claimed Arsenal 5 Newcastle 3 (Macdonald hat-trick) was a freezing Tuesday night at Highbury. No it wasn’t, it was a freezing cold Saturday. I knew he was wrong and I was right, because I was there, and it stuck with me over the years

Years later I found myself living in the south east and would on occasion visit Highbury, when we weren’t even playing them!

There, I’ve said it, I’m embarrassed rather than proud, but I knocked around with other northern exiles, and Arsenal seemed like a good day out, especially when you weren’t particularly interested in the result.

Anyway, back to 5-3 in 1976. Gordon Lee had sold Malcolm Macdonald to Arsenal, he wanted a team without superstars apparently. The pain of losing SuperMac was real, I hated Lee for it and for a while I blamed SuperMac too.

It was decided we’d go to see his first game against us after the transfer. We’d travelled overnight bizarrely and it was bitter cold, I was 17 and travelled without a coat.

Highbury has undersoil heating so our match was on, while West Ham v Man Utd was called off late Saturday morning due to a frozen pitch. Quite a few Man U “cockney reds” from around London travelled with us to Highbury (told you it was a strange day). It seemed like a strange alliance at Kings Cross and lo and behold, there were several fallings out and I think most of them left early on in the game.

We gave Mac some stick, we were hurting, I think Micky Burns scored first for us, but Mac was on fire and completed his hat-trick right in front of our end. God it hurt, we flicked the vees and swore a bit. This is the bit that stayed with me.

The ball is in our net, I’m tired, I’m cold, it feels like a betrayal. Liam Brady is with Macdonald and tries to bring him around the goal to milk the moment and give us a bit back. Mac is having none of it. Fair play to him. He’d shown Gordon Lee and us what had been thrown away on our behalf.

We later saw the Newcastle team at Kings Cross and they chatted to some of us, fair to say they weren’t keen on Macdonald either apparently. Alan Gowling, Geoff Nulty, good effective players, but they weren’t Malcom Macdonalds and Jinky Smiths, they were workmen not artisans!

I will never forgive Gordon Lee who went on to fail at Everton and disappear. Good! Wow, I’m still quite bitter, didn’t know that!

George Graham’s Arsenal shared the same cynicism Arteta’s side have now, I’m over the respect and almost admiration I had for Wenger’s Arsenal, Henry and Bergkemp man.

My son and I had our first football row when I said I was sorry Henry wasn’t available to play against us one December.

I’ve gone full circle, I dislike Arsenal as much as any other side in the country.

So if you have a ticket for Saturday, give the lads an extra shout for me please. Coz I would love it if Arteta has another meltdown.

I’ll be refereeing on Saturday when the final whistle sounds at St James’ Park. I will give it my best (which isn’t much) but hope there’s someone following the big one on the touchline and keeps me posted.