“The club will be OK.”
This was Eddie Howe talking on Saturday afternoon, using words distant from the stuff of dreams — from winning everything and being best in class — but it was a sentiment that felt desperately important, too. A summer of uncertainty for the forever intoxicating, restless institution that is Newcastle United will now stretch into the autumn, but they have craved this reassurance of ‘being OK’, on and off the pitch.
Being OK meant trading punches with Manchester City, the finest side in the land. In the context of this season — decent results, some ropey performances — it meant a return of the high-pressing, high-octane style that Howe’s Newcastle became synonymous with. It brought relief; they still have it in their locker. In the context of the bigger picture, it means navigating the blur of change that has suddenly swept through St James’ Park, leaving the edifice trembling.
Since July, Dan Ashworth has left as sporting director, Paul Mitchell has arrived as his replacement, Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi, the driving forces behind Newcastle’s takeover three years ago, have stepped away and now Darren Eales, the chief executive, is going too. Factor in a transfer window that mutated from a dash to raise funds into a failure to spend them in a meaningful fashion and it risked the kind of instability that football loathes.
For the first time since they were sold and bought in October 2021, Newcastle risked fraying into disparate strands.
Being OK is not where Newcastle strive to be. They strain for the summit. On day one, Staveley spoke about challenging for the Premier League and the Champions League within five to 10 years, while their Saudi owners said becoming “number one” is the target. Yet the headlines in recent weeks have been about disquiet and dispute, about Howe and the England job, about Howe and Mitchell being at loggerheads. About “civil war”.
To hear the head coach say “the club will be OK” after such a punishing spell and a promising 1-1 draw against City was a line being drawn. Howe was discomforted by the chaos of Newcastle’s scramble to hit their profit and sustainability (PSR) targets in late June and how the after-effects rippled out — by the loss of Staveley, his key ally, by some of Mitchell’s clumsy public communication — but he has put his head down and ploughed through it. To be OK… if nothing else, it is a kind of foundation.
Being OK means noise quietening around Anthony Gordon, who was one of those PSR after-effects. There had been brief talks with Liverpool, the forward’s boyhood club, as Newcastle scratched around to balance the books and he returned from the European Championship unsettled. A new contract is now close to being signed, Gordon was feted by Wor Flags, the fans’ group, before the City game and he responded. Nobody questioned his attitude, his body language.
To a lesser extent, it has been a similar story for other key players. For a little while in the summer, they were all up for grabs — or so it felt — and doubt can infiltrate a dressing room, spreading and growing. Until this moment, nobody had touched consistency or brilliance, as if every player was one or two percentage points from their best, but this was a game to raise your levels for, to rediscover standards. They did it and now they must do it again and again.
Being OK took on a human form last week. The reason for Eales’ departure is a diagnosis of chronic blood cancer, the kind of shock that shines an alternative light on PSR, on victory and defeat on the football pitch. “That news put everything in perspective,” Howe said. “All of us associated with Newcastle feel for Darren and throw a protective arm around him.”
“As a group of players, we wish him all the love in the world,” goalkeeper Nick Pope said. “I’m sure the city and the supporters are all with him.”
Eales has been in position for two years, an astonishing period of flux, success and growing pains. The team reached the Carabao Cup final in his first season, finishing fourth in the Premier League and teeing up that extraordinary night in the Champions League against Paris Saint-Germain. Last season brought a dreadful list of injuries and the struggle with PSR. Internally, Eales constantly cautioned against overspending.
Expansion in other forms has continued unabashed; the building of departments, which were all stripped back or undernourished during the Mike Ashley era, more sponsorship and commercial deals, taking Newcastle from being a one-man band into an ambitious enterprise. At some point, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund must prove it means serious business by pushing the button on expensive plans to redevelop St James’ Park, but this is not within Eales’ responsibility.
What follows is a small story about the kind of club Newcastle have become with Eales at the helm. Just as Staveley and Ghodoussi provided TLC to the team and fanbase, Eales moved his family to the north east of England and got out into the community, forging relationships with people and places, from the universities to businesses, from the local council to Sir Brendan Foster, whose Great North Run is a beacon for sporting excellence in the region.
A club that had been adrift and aloof was connecting again in minor and major ways. Newcastle’s most important cultural institution was talking to other institutions, sometimes for mutual benefit, sometimes just for the sake of it — and sometimes because it is what good citizens should do and who knows what might develop from it.
At half-time on Saturday, there was a pitch-side interview with members of the cast of Gerry & Sewell, a play based on Jonathan Tulloch’s novel The Season Ticket that, in turn, was developed into the very Geordie movie Purely Belter. It is being performed at Newcastle’s Theatre Royal this week; Eales saw it in a previous guise on Tyneside, met and then kept in touch with Jamie Eastlake, the writer-director-producer. This little plug was a consequence.
It may not sound like much compared to record transfers or new training grounds or winning trophies, but for Eastlake — a Newcastle fan who went to school with Dan Burn — it meant everything. Why not do it? Why not be the city’s heartbeat? Eales will be at the Theatre Royal to see Eastlake’s updated production and this represents a form of legacy that must be protected and nurtured. Do that and, yes, in some really vital, hopeful ways, the club will continue to be OK.
The long-term prognosis for Eales is positive, but he must focus on himself and his family once the process of finding his successor is completed. That will mean more upheaval after way too much of it, but fogginess has filled the sky for a few months and perhaps it is now clearing. Howe must continue to work his alchemy on a first XI that has not been strengthened significantly for a year, but he and Mitchell have talked. His team have risen. They have a pathway.
“The first thing is Darren’s health and that comes ahead of anything else football-related,” Howe said. “It’s about the person and his family and putting that as the most important priority. Then, looking at the football side, yeah, it’s not what we wanted, but I’m sure the club will have its plans in place.
“I know Darren’s going to stay and support the club, which is a testament, again, to his character and how he wants to leave his legacy. The club will be OK.”
Manchester City were the opponents for Eales’ first match, a vivid 3-3 draw in August 2022. “The energy in the stadium and the standard of football; it really excites me to see the way we’re putting a team out there under Eddie,” he said back then. “‘Intensity is our identity’ — we’ve gone toe to toe with Manchester City and it’s fantastic to see that.”
They needed to see it once again. It may sound trite but difficulty can offer an opportunity to reflect and reset and rally around and, after all that change, they needed it, just as they needed somebody to tell them everything will be OK. They needed this reminder.
(Top photo: Eddie Howe; by Visionhaus via Getty Images)
