In praise of Newcastle United’s travelling army, a fanbase too good for their football club

Sean O'Grady was at the King Power Stadium to watch Leicester beat Newcastle 5-0 on Sunday. But the travelling supporters did not stop singing. In fact the more their side suffered, the louder they got

Newcastle's brilliant fans did not stop singing (Getty)

This is a tribute to the Newcastle United fans who turned up to the King Power stadium to see their side get thrashed by Leicester City 5-0 and proved that, whatever else, they must be the best fans in the Premier League. Respect where it is due. None of this is meant to be condescending, by the way: if Leicester City had an owner like Newcastle has had these past few years then it probably wouldn’t still be in business.

I had the great privilege to find myself in close proximity to the Toon contingent and thus I could observe at close quarters their habits, and the various rituals of fanatical devotion. Of course they didn’t come all that way to see their loyalty tested and their lads get beat, especially given the ridiculous late timing of the match.

The more their side suffered, the louder they got. Every goal conceded added to the chorus. An own goal by Paul Dummett sent them orgasmic. They were outnumbered ten to one by Leicester fans but, for most of them, they were far noisier. Indeed, hysterical. By the end of it in the cold drizzle some of them had stripped to the waist, pogoing to the beat from the sound system, bellies flying around.

You’d have thought they’d put something in the Bovril, or just that they’d won the league.

I was not one of those Leicester supporters singing “There’s only one Mike Ashley” or “You’re going down with the Villa”. It seemed cruel, in the circumstances. They had a chant aimed at us to the effect that we undemonstrative East Midlands types weren’t as passionate as the Geordies. A fair point, amplified by the subdued silence in the rest of the stadium, because Leicester supporters have known too many false dawns to get over-excited.

They remained long after the final whistle (Getty)

Every football supporter must realise that they are only one careless proprietor or a complacent managers away from disaster – existentially so in some recent tragic cases. No club is too big to fail.

For a lot of the time the Newcastle fans spent as much time bigging themselves up as anything, with some song that went along the lines of the worst the team is they more they support them. Which is the point of being a fan, if you think about it. If they could take pride in nothing else, then they could at least have pride in themselves – undoubtedly right.

Nuanced, you see? That self-belief is the only analgesic to see them through the pain. I got the impression that relegation would be an opportunity to support their side even more ardently and, maybe, to purge the club of its past errors. The hard, punitive financial facts of dropping to the Championship make such liberation wishful thinking, and Newcastle would be humiliated even more grievously having to go and play the likes of Brentford, Nottingham Forest and, er, Middlesbrough.

NUFC is clearly a big, historic club and with that most precious of assets – an astonishingly loyal fan base. On that basis, the Toon Army beat the blue army fans ten to nil on a wet Sunday night.

They, if not their team, really do not deserve to go down.