Newcastle legend, Steve Howey, has become well known for his funny behind-the-scenes stories from years gone by at St James’ Park, but he may just have revealed the best one yet on the Undr The Cosh podcast.
Howey is a living legend on Tyneside thanks to battling performances at the heart of the defence during the 90s, but it wasn’t always a walk in the park for the centre-forward turned centre-back. Before Kevin Keegan’s ‘entertainers’ rolled into town in the mid-90s, Newcastle were languishing at the bottom of the then Second Division under Ossie Ardiles.
Things could hardly have been worse on Tyneside, and Howey has revealed that rock bottom was reached when Newcastle’s first team went 1-0 down in a training match against, well……no one!
Howey said: “We had a training session under Ossie, it’s called shadow play. He picks his eleven that’s going to start on the Saturday or through the week.
“It’s your goalkeeper, a four (in defence), a four (in midfield), and a two (in attack) and you’ve got a full-sized pitch. You’re playing against nobody, get some goals, then come back and start again.
“So, Ossie has set us up, we’ve took the kick-off, passed it back to Lee Clark, Lee Clark’s passed it back to Kevin Scott, again we’re playing backwards and we should be playing forwards cos we aren’t playing against anybody.
“Kevin Scott gives it to Steve Watson, Steve Watson turns round and passes it back to Tommy Wright who’s in goal, but Tommy Wright was putting his gloves on in the back of the net, and the ball goes in the goal.”
Conceding goals had been a big problem for the Magpies back then. Despite having the likes of Howey, Brian Kilcline, Kevin Scott, and Steve Watson in their back line, the team spent the 1991/92 season battling against relegation. Things finally came to a head when Ardilles was relieved of his duties after just a year in charge, but this was to signal the start of a new era on Tyneside.
The appointment of Kevin Keegan as manager, coupled with Sir John Hall taking over as chairman, would eventually turn the team from second-division strugglers into Premier League title challengers.
Battling Man Utd at the top of the league and taking on Barcelona in the Champions League was a far cry from trailing an imaginary team at training, and Howey still has vivid memories of his Argentine manager’s reaction.
Howey said: “We’re getting beat 1-0 and we ain’t playing anyone. We were going through a really bad time at the time, and you could just see Ossie just rocking with his head in his hands.”
Oh how far we’ve come!