Next up we welcome a side we’ve faced regularly over the years in Aston Villa, traditionally a mainstay in England’s top division. In 1928 Newcastle United as reigning champions triumphed in what one can only assume was a ‘you attack, we attack’ game of football with Villa as the final score was 7-5 in our favour with United’s hat trick hero being reserve centre forward Monty Wilkinson who had the misfortune of playing second fiddle to arguably the two stand out centre forwards of that age Hughie Gallacher and then Dixie Dean when he left for Everton. Scoring two for Villa that day was club legend and England centre forward Pongo Waring. Goals were again on the menu in 1952 as 36,000 fans saw us crush Villa 6-1 with the obligatory Jackie Milburn goal eclipsed by a brace from Reg Davies and a rare strike from defender Frank Brennan. We continued our good record against The Villains in 1961 when a Len White double secured the points and in 1975 when the newly promoted Villa featuring Tynesider Brian Little were put to the sword by two goals from Supermac and an effort from Tommy Craig. The Magpies made a strong start to the 84/85 season under Jack Charlton and they made it 3 wins in their first 3 games with a 3 goal win against the Brummies with goals coming from Peter Beardsley and Chris Waddle (2). A few years later in 1987 Beardsley was on target again along with one of Charlton’s ill-fated signings Tony Cunningham as we triumphed 2-1 against The Villa. Towards the end of the 93/94 season a Villa side who had finished second only the season before managed to take the lead before being absolutely blitzed by a confident and in-form United with goals from Bracewell, Sellars, Beardsley (2) and a record breaking goal from Andy Cole who went past Hughie Gallacher and George Robledo in having scored the most goals in all competitions in one season. A few years later in 1996, Cole had left for Man United and Newcastle now fielded a dream partnership in Les Ferdinand and Alan Shearer and both were on the scoresheet with Ferdinand bagging United’s first two in a 4-3 victory with Steve Howey heading in our fourth; Dwight Yorke perhaps feeling a little hard done by having scored a hat trick for Villa yet ending up on the losing side! In 2001 an in-form United duly swept away with the men from the Midlands with Alan Shearer’s memorable side foot volley at the Gallowgate was sandwiched in between two impressive goals from Craig Bellamy, the second of which he managed to nutmeg Peter Schmeichel. 2nd April 2005 saw one of the most embarrassing days in which to be a Newcastle fan as Steven Taylor’s pathetic acting after he handballed on the line was surpassed by Lee Bowyer and Kieron Dyer fighting each other on the pitch; all of the players in question were given red cards as the team lost 0-3 to Villa. In 2010 United managed to announce their return to the Premier League in style with an impressive 6-0 victory over Villa in their first home game of the season. Joey Barton’s opener was quickly followed by a double from Kevin Nolan and eventual hat trick from Andy Carroll in one of our best days in recent memory.

RYAN BELL’