I cannot stop thinking of Newcastle United and… | OneFootball

I wrote an article on The Mag after the final Newcastle United game of the season against Everton, in which I quoted Captain Sensible’s ‘Glad it’s all Over’, as a way of describing how I was feeling.

At the time, I had only just recovered from that harrowing 90+ minutes at St James’ Park, and thought I was ready to take a hopefully relaxing three month sabbatical from football.

Now barely just over one week later, I cannot stop thinking of Newcastle United and our prospects for the coming season.

Apart from the Toon and football, boxing and cricket are really the only other sports I enjoy and take a vested interest in.

The big boxing draw of the summer is going to be Ukraine’s Oleksandr Usyk against Britain’s Daniel Dubois, for the undisputed Heavyweight Championship of the World at Wembley Stadium.

I’ll be taking more than a passing interest in England’s five Test matches against India and can tolerate the one-dayers, although I’m not a lover of T20 cricket.

These events, along with a smidgeon of Wimbledon, would have usually been more than enough to keep me satisfied through the summer break from football, but this year everything feels different.

And I know it’s because United have finally broken our silverware duck, are back in the Champions League, and that Eddie Howe reigns supreme at St James’ Park.

I just cannot and won’t let the feeling of what has happened in the last few months subside.

I know I cannot live on it forever, but everywhere I go and whatever I do at the moment, feels better than before.

My friends are all happier men and women too. With a lot of us getting older and so much else going on in the world, the recent success of Newcastle United has brought a definite warmth and cheer to coastal North Tyneside.

I’m sure a lot of you in other parts of the region will be picking up those vibes too.

Next season’s EPL fixture lists will soon be out and the first matches yours truly will seek out won’t be the mackems, it’ll be the ones against Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal.

That’s where the Saudi PIF have taken us to since breathing new life into the club, after arriving little more than three and a half years ago.

It’s bloody amazing and don’t let any biased and smarmy ex player or pundit, or even a jealous mackem, tell you anything different.

A lot of us said that once the Geordie juggernaut clicked into gear and eventually started motoring, that there would be nobody to hold us back or able to overtake us.

Well United are now firmly on the road to even greater success and I basically just can’t get enough (*My second Depeche Mode reference in here from their first album ‘Speak and Spell’).

This summer’s boxing and cricket is only slightly going to distract me from mopping up every tiny scrap of information that I can gather from what’s happening at Newcastle United.