In the 1970s the Football Association used to hold an athletics invitational meet before the FA Cup final and in 1974 Sir Brendan Foster was the star attraction, running against European champion Juha Vaatainen in a black and white Shaftesbury Harriers vest he had borrowed from his friend Dave Bedford.
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Read MoreHe won the race but a few hours later he was drowning his sorrows as the Magpies failed to turn up in the final. The opponents that day? Kevin Keegan’s Liverpool.
A day after Foster recounts this tale, there is energy at Newcastle’s training ground. Alexander Isak, Bruno Guimaraes and Eddie Howe are speaking on Friday morning. The Magpies are outsiders for the final but there is a sense of purpose as they map out a route to victory.
Long after the last dejected Newcastle fan had trudged out of Wembley, Howe made the short trip from the dressing room to the executive box. The mood there was funereal, with one former club director in tears. As much as the tone struck in those conversations was defiant, Howe was deflated.
That night Howe immediately wanted to be with his family and sons Harry, Rocky and Theo, who were full of questions for their dad.
In Howe Newcastle have an exceptional manager (Photo: Getty)
There are two objectives on Sunday for Newcastle. The first is matching a Liverpool side that Guimaraes believes is the “best in the world”, which will require a flawless tactical plan and his best players to crescendo at the same time.
The second aim for Howe is managing the emotional load around the fixture and there has been a business-as-usual feel to the week. There will be no abandoning of Howe’s usual tracksuit for a suit, no altering of schedules to accommodate media requirements. Broadly that has matched fan sentiment: last time it felt as if Wembley was a big deal itself. Winning seems to be on everyone’s mind two years on.
Howe’s north star performance at Newcastle is when his team played Paris Saint-Germain in the group stages of 2023’s Champions League. A buccaneering 4-1 victory under St James’ Park lights was the apex of Howe’s football philosophy, an intoxicating mixture of intensity and discipline. Newcastle rode the waves of crowd enthusiasm perfectly and if they manage to replicate that Liverpool could be in trouble.
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“You need emotion. You need to feel all the excitement, the potential ‘what ifs’ from the positive side but you just need to control it.
“We’ve got a lot of experienced players, players that have played for their countries, Champions League games, won big competitions. I’m not worried about us on that side.”
This means more to Bruno Guimaraes
Guimaraes is not just passing through. “I have envisaged walking up those steps to collect the trophy many, many times,” he said on Friday of the possibility of becoming the first Newcastle captain since Bobby Moncur to lift a trophy. And the Brazil international is genuine about it, likening the Carabao Cup showpiece to the World Cup final in terms of importance to the city and club.
The Newcastle captain was in tears in 2023 at the missed opportunity against Manchester United. This time he wants the tears to flow “out of happiness”.
Isak is arguably the best striker in the world at the moment (Photo: Getty)
Arsenal, Liverpool, Barcelona and PSG are among the striker’s admirers and the best way to describe Isak was laconic. Yes he is open to contract talks but no, he insisted on multiple occasions, he does not think about his future during the season.
He is as ice cold off-the-pitch as he is on it and that lack of fear is surely an asset. If Newcastle are to win on Sunday he will need to be at his very best.
Dan Burn’s England call-up tells a story
When The i Paper spoke to Burn more than two years ago, he had almost given up hope of an international call-up. When it was mentioned to him earlier this season he laughed it off.
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Howe called Burn a “model pro” in a glowing tribute on Friday and the admiration is genuine, the respect absolute. He has truly journeyed along the path less travelled to make an England squad and we can expect to hear a lot next week about how he was pushing trolleys around Asda in Blyth just over a decade ago, having dropped out of the professional game.
‘We know how to lose’ these games
Foster is a recent convert to the idea of Newcastle ending the long wait for silverware. “I’ve not held out much help but the last week or so I’m absolutely convinced we’re going to do it,” he says.
“We’d grown up watching Newcastle actually win the FA Cup on telly so we said I’d go next time. I just assumed it would happen again soon. I didn’t think it’d be another 20 years before we made Wembley,” he says, ruefully.
“I’d actually been asked the year before in 1973 but there was no way I was going to see Sunderland in the Cup final,” he chuckles.
“We’ve had plenty of experience of not winning at Wembley so we’ll take it in our stride if we don’t. But if we do win it, imagine.”
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