Newcastle fans deserve their moment of glory with the Carabao Cup, but there may be excessive sentimental celebration attached to it.
That’s the view of talkSPORT’s Simon Jordan, despite watching the Magpies end their 70-year wait for silverware on Sunday evening.
Goals from Dan Burn and Alexander Isak guided Newcastle to a 2-1 win over Liverpool at Wembley, marking the long-awaited end to a silverware drought for one of the country’s biggest clubs.
talkSPORT’s Jim White was there and spoke to ex-Magpies stars Tim Krul and Chris Waddle, who expressed their delight for the fans.
However, former Crystal Palace owner Jordan doesn’t appear to be reading into their celebrations too much and explained why
“You’re not having this sentimentality, are you?” White asked, with Jordan replying: “I am to a degree.
“The thing I love about it, and I always loved about football, was the fans and the reaction of fans, and the expectation of fans, and how they live vicariously through their football club.
“Watching generations of fathers taking their kids to see games like this, will live in their memory, and watching Palace fans and seeing how much it meant to them. But there’s also another side of me that sits there going, ‘Come on, there’s over-sentimentalising of things’.
“If Chris Waddle loved Newcastle so much, why didn’t he spend his entire career playing there rather than shuffling off to Tottenham at the first opportunity?
“He doesn’t have to,” White said, with Jordan replying: “I didn’t say he did. But I also don’t have to spend my entire two hours fawning over Newcastle winning the League Cup either.”
Jordan later added: “I understand the value of Newcastle United as a football club. But for me as an impartial observer, I take my hat off to their achievement, I think if you go to a cup final you’ve got to try and win it, and they did it and they deserved it.
“They wanted it more than Liverpool, they gave more in that game than Liverpool did for a variety of reasons, whether Liverpool were tired after losing a Champions League game, or whatever else.
“Fair play to them, but I’m just not in the same camp of celebrating it dawn til dusk.”
White argued that there were plenty of neutral fans at Wembley who celebrated Newcastle’s success, but Jordan added to his argument.
“I wonder if any club that hasn’t won anything, and there’s lots and lots of clubs… Correct, absolutely right, and it would mean a lot to me [if it was Palace], if my team had won something, whatever it was.
“I wonder if there’d be a national outpouring of joy for another football club in the same way that Newcastle fans, because of the nature of what it means to this club, because of the associations, because of the people that have managed it, Bobby Robson.
“The players that have played for it, going back to Jackie Milburn up to Peter Beardsley, and how it’s stuck in folklore, and the fact it’s been a perennial underachiever for so many years, and obviously we hear the enthusiasm and passion, it gets a different feel than maybe if another club…”
“Is there a joy in that for you, that they’ve finally accomplished what they set out to do?” asked Martin Keown.
“I’m pleased for them,” Jordan responded. “Joy is relative to your life. If my child achieves something, or something I was invested and involved in, achieved something, I’d feel joy.
“I feel appreciation for them and I’m pleased for them, and I’m delighted for Eddie Howe because I think he’s one of the good guys, I think he’s one of the honest guys in football, which there are very few of them.
“And I’m pleased that the players went out and did those fans the job that they should do for them, because those fans are remarkable.”
One Newcastle fan called into the show and sensed that Jordan was feeling ‘bitter’ about the win Carabao Cup triumph.
“Bitter about what, why am I bitter?” he replied. “I think it’s delightful you won the cup but I’m not a Newcastle fan, so why should I do the Dance of the Seven Veils because your club have won the cup?
“Brilliant, fantastic, you fans deserve it, you deserve it as much as any set of fans that have never won anything. Yet you guys think you deserve it more, ok.”
Newcastle were deserved winners against Liverpool, who were in contention to win a treble this season just days before.
Now they can only with the Premier League and have a 12-point lead over second-place Arsenal.
