Stakes are sky high as Chris Hughton returns to Newcastle, but Brighton boss will always remember his first job

Former Newcastle manager recalls his time in charge at St James' Park that, to this day, he still doesn't know why it ended, and returns with the Magpies in a familiar position

Chris Hughton returns to Newcastle seven years after being sacked by the club (Getty)

Chris Hughton was invited to Newcastle United by Kevin Keegan and he was told to leave by Derek Llambias.

It is a eulogy that most connected with the club will understand. If you were chasing a motif for a t-shirt, that would be like a badge of honour.

It was blowing a gale on Hughton’s first day as the senior coach of Newcastle United, back in 2008, when Keegan unexpectedly turned up as his driver at the Jesmond Dene House to take him to work.

“Jump in!” shouted Keegan, but he would have done as well to have shouted “Jump on!” for the ride had started, and when, six months later, the man who called him to offer Hughton a job was forced to leave a football club he twice resurrected because his position had been so undermined, a force stronger than that wind blew.

“Probably if I didn’t know before, or hadn’t learned already in the time I’d been there how big a club Newcastle was, I soon found out,” Hughton said.

“That was probably the time I realised how big a club it was and what it meant to the people. The coverage was massive and of course the area is Newcastle United FC first and everything else afterwards.”

For Hughton’s first game as the temporary manager of the club against Hull City, following Keegan’s departure, there were demonstrations and a march that started outside of St James’ Park at two o’clock.

“Yes it was a hard time,” he added. “It was getting so much coverage. Certainly locally, but also nationally. That was the time I found out how it dominated the area.”

Hughton witnessed a season of chaos. Thrice he was caretaker of Newcastle United, replaced first by Joe Kinnear. “It was a surprise,” he said. “I’d met Joe and he was very much old school. He would get into the players at half-time. He was more of a manager than a coach.” Hughton was back in charge after Kinnear’s heart-attack before a game at West Bromwich Albion. He was replaced again, by Alan Shearer, before the club was relegated.

We met up and chatted in the summer of 2009 at the sumptuous setting of Carton House in County Kildare, when Mike Ashley was then, as now, attempting to sell Newcastle’s football club.

Hughton took charge of Newcastle in 2008 after Alan Shearer departed (Getty)

Hughton knew nothing more than anyone else about the sale, he had no assurances about his long-term prospects of employment at the club, but he set about making a football team, regardless.

There was a crushing friendly defeat at Leyton Orient, where a dressing room purged itself of those who wanted to leave, and from there Newcastle changed direction, but it was not until October 27, with the club top of the Championship, that Hughton was finally given a permanent position as the manager of Newcastle United. They walked the division.

Fifteen games into the club’s return to the Premier League, Newcastle were ninth with 19 points. Graham Carr, the de facto sporting director, was at the Hawthorns to watch Newcastle lose to West Brom, but it was never known just how significant his visit was. Alan Pardew, out of work and known to Llambias through a friend, was available.

Llambias (the club’s managing director) wanted more interaction with his manager. Ashley wanted a less powerful dressing room. With Newcastle eleventh in the Premier League table, Hughton, on a cold and brutal Monday morning, was fired from his position. Newcastle were eleventh. Hughton has still to be told why he was dismissed. “I’ve never had an explanation and, in all honesty, I don’t need one,” he said. “You’re used to working and you’re used to working hard every day. It was a difficult time, very difficult.

"Was it unjust? Yes, and that's how most people felt at the time. We'd just got promotion. We had brought in Cheick Tioté and we had brought in Hatem Ben Arfa, who unfortunately broke his leg. Almost, apart from that, it was the squad that came up.”

That might sound familiar to the man he will face on Saturday, Rafa Benitez.

Hughton went to Birmingham, Norwich and now has Brighton three points above his old club. He has been back to St James’ Park as manager on three occasions since, and the welcome has always been warm. He treated the city’s football club with respect.

The stakes, however, have never been as great for a game he has led a team back to Tyneside in.

Of the last 15 teams promoted to the Premier League from the Championship, seven have been immediately relegated. The gap is growing, the financial gulf widening, and in the last three years, five of the nine teams to scrap their way up have been sent back down at the first attempt.

Rafa Benitez's Newcastle sit three points behind Hughton's Brighton (Getty)

Statistically, based on the last five years, one of Brighton, Huddersfield and Newcastle will start next season in the Championship. Based on the last three years, there is a pretty good chance, it will be two of the new boys who drop.

“It was the club that gave me my first opportunity to manage and that’s something I’m always very grateful for,” Hughton said, on the eve of his latest return.

Beyond that, there can be no room for sentiment.