da gbg bet： To celebrate 25 years of the Premier League each week in Football Fancast we’re going to be looking back at a memorable game that took place on the corresponding date. On this occasion we revisit a ruthless hammering inspired by a thoroughly affable gent.
da apostebet： Since its inception in 1992 the Premier League has afforded us 9550 games and from that vast multitude only a handful have resulted in comprehensive stop-stop-he’s-already-dead eight goal maulings. Two came from the clinical hands of Chelsea; another came courtesy of a rampant Spurs as they schooled Wigan Athletic 9-1 in 2009; while only a few seasons back Southampton fired eight past a hapless Sunderland without response.
What made the fifth and final massacre – Newcastle United’s merciless 8-0 deconstruction of Sheffield Wednesday on September 19th 1999 – so distinct from those named above however are two aspects that also happen to make it one of the most remarkable scorelines in recent history. Firstly, it was, and presumably always will be, the only occasion when such a one-sided affair took place between teams who both ultimately finished the season in the lower half of the table. And secondly, the trouncing occurred during a manager’s introductory home fixture.
Sir Bobby Robson always had the city of Newcastle in his bones yet a long and highly distinguished career as a player and manager had taken the proud son of the North East elsewhere. As a perceptive inside-forward he’d excelled at Fulham (twice) and West Brom before changing into a tracksuit and guiding provincial Ipswich Town to previously unchartered heights throughout the seventies. Twelve years as England boss followed before largely successful spells in Holland, Portugal and Spain brought four league titles and a long overdue revisionism on these shores as to the great man’s greatness.
With the millennium near and encroaching into his late sixties Robson had grown tired of coaching on the continent and with his contract expired at PSV had willingly taken up a position at the FA whereupon he began passing on his considerable knowledge and experience. Semi-retirement and a move back to his beloved County Durham was a well-earned retreat from the front-line for a figure who was once ridiculed by the tabloids but was now rightfully feted as one of England’s leading managerial scholars. He would however have taken no pleasure whatsoever at watching from close quarters as Ruud Gullit’s ‘sexy football’ experiment at St James’ Park spectacularly imploded. Five games into the 1999/00 campaign the club Robson had supported as a boy were propping up the Premier League with their iconic striker Alan Shearer cast to the margins having fallen out with the dreadlocked boss. The city was miserable and riotous. The club was mired in calamity and crisis.
An unforgivably lacklustre defeat to Sunderland (with Shearer and Duncan Ferguson both astonishingly consigned to the bench) proved the final straw for the Newcastle board and Gullit was gone with a call soon put in to his obvious successor. It was less a job offer than destiny.
On taking the appointment, Robson’s initial task was simply to reverse Gullit’s crazy decisions and apply some common sense. Shearer was reinstated and his longest drought in club colours was prosaically put down to playing too much recently with his back to goal. For the rest of the squad the slate was wiped clean with Robson’s avuncular affability lifting the tension that had been so prevalent throughout the dressing room. For his first game in charge away to Chelsea he picked players in their right positions and encouraged them to express their talents.
They lost that one 1-0 but the spirit and belief was clearly back and the following weekend fellow strugglers Sheffield Wednesday travelled north to be sacrificial lambs at the Geordie Godfather’s emotional homecoming. A scrappy victory would have sufficed as St James’ shook to its foundations on Robson’s walk to the dug-out. In the event goals rained in.
‘I thought it was going to be a close game but it was beyond my wildest dreams,” the beaming new gaffer said shortly after the final whistle had brought blessed respite for the humiliated Owls. “I said one thing to the players before the game: show me that you want the ball. And of course they did.”
They did and then some as Aaron Hughes scored his first ever professional goal with a cute header from a Kieran Dyer cross before Alan Shearer took charge and grabbed the next day’s headlines. First he flicked home from close range to end ten games of impotence before thumping home a penalty. Three minutes before the break he completed a first-half hat-trick by diving feet-first to bundle in another devilish delivery. Incredibly there was more; the last ten minutes offering up another spot-kick and a typical moment of opportunism bringing the arch-poacher’s final tally to five. Facing the opposition goal was obviously paying dividends.
In between all this a scrambled Dyer effort and powerful header from Speed completed Wednesday’s utter misery on a day that belonged to England’s centre-forward but had been dreamed up over the course of a long lifetime by a genial white-haired genius. Newcastle’s prodigal son had returned bringing with him all that he had learned from his travels, most importantly of all that sometimes football boils down to simple, effective common-sense.
What happened next
The Toon had to content themselves with 11th that year and a promising run at the FA Cup that ended in the semi-finals. Wednesday, rudderless and lacking quality up front unsurprisingly went down without much of a fight.
In 2005 Sir Bobby Robson was given the Freedom of the City by Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. His sad passing four years later was mourned by not only the North East but a nation who treasured him.