Newcastle United 5 Tottenham Hotspur 1
St. James’ Park… Sunday May 15th… 3pm
Attendance:52,183
Ticket: £39 – Programme: £3
You really couldn’t make it up. Another nine months of underachievement drew to a close with a 5-1 hammering of Champions League bound Spurs. Whilst for us, for the second time in seven years, it’s back to the Championship we go…
It was rather fitting that we should bow out against a club with which we should be looking to compete, one whose fortunes have been rather different to ours in the time since Mike Ashley lumbered into St. James’ Park…

Second Half Action: 52,183 Fans Watching a Relegated Team…
A sunny afternoon, a capacity crowd, some cracking counter-attacking football and five goals. It all added up to the strangest relegation finale that I’ve witnessed…
Was it the atmosphere…? Was it because the pressure was off…? Were players attempting to put themselves in the shop window…? I don’t really know and I don’t really care, it was just refreshing to enjoy the football, at times I honestly forgot that we’d been relegated …
At the final whistle Rafa took the entire squad to the centre circle, applause echoing around the ground, all rather surreal…

Post Match: Saying Goodbye…? Rafa and His Players…
And that was it… Sadly, Rafa couldn’t quite save us, in the end we just ran out of games. Much now hangs on whether the club can persuade him to stay, current noises appear to be positive but let’s wait and see, we’ve been here before…
We reconvene in August, with Rafa at the helm, and with a good start, it could be quite a ride. Without Rafa…? Well let’s not go there……
Newcastle United; Darlow, Janmaat, Taylor, Mbemba, Dummett, Tiote (Shelvey 62), Colback, Wijnaldum (Aarons 76 (YC)), Sissoko (Sterry 84), Townsend, Mitrovic (SO)
Not Used; Cisse, De Jong, Perez, Woodman
Goals; Wijnaldum (19, 73pen), Mitrovic (39), Aarons (85), Janmaat (86)
Tottenham Hotspur; Lloris, Walker (Chadli 71), Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Davies, Dier, Mason (YC) (Carroll 46), Lamela YC), Eriksen, Son (Onomah 46), Kane
Not Used; Rose, Vorm, N’Jie, Wimmer
Goals; Lamela (60)
As usual, More pictures on flickr…