Football news now, and Newcastle United have won a trophy for the first time in my increasingly long lifetime. Yes it is hardly believable but it happened, they beat league-leaders Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final, and beat them well. I had to sketch it. I am not of course a Newcastle fan, having no connection to the Northeast myself, but one of my oldest friends Simon is a long-suffering Newcastle fan, Gateshead born but grew up in north-west London so shares my accent. We just assumed they would never win a trophy, after so many near misses. Look, I’m a Spurs fan and we get stick for the whole trophy thing, but our trophy cabinet is like Real Madrid in comparison. Spurs have won trophies, just not lately. When is the supposed cut off point? Did football start in 2009? We could easily say, Chelsea hah, they don’t win anything, they have no trophies, because I’m just counting from 2022, football started in 2022 after the pandemic, but that would be ridiculous. Football isn’t all about trophies, most teams don’t win them and people still support them. I’ve had a bloody QPR fan jeer at me because Spurs ‘don’t win trophies’ but I bloody well remember beating them in a cup final. So yeah I’m pleased for Newcastle. Of course, I’d have preferred a Newcastle v Spurs final, and for Spurs to win it, but we got twatted by Liverpool in the semi-final. We are having a pretty crap season, down in 15th or maybe it’s lower now, but still in the Europa League (just about) so our Aussie manager Big Ange Instead keeps his job for now. Probably be gone by Easter. The whole trophy thing is a bit laughable. I’d love to win one, but it’s not the be all and end all. West Ham won one recently, good for them, they sacked that manager too and are still crap. We were amazing between about 2015-2020, and that team should have won the league in 2017, but it wasn’t to be, it doesn’t stop that team being the stuff of legends in my mind. That Champions League run, woof. Newcastle in the mid-90s, also the stuff of legends. Not only did they have some of the best kits, but their fantastic manager Kevin Keegan (who I actually met in Charleroi in Belgium when he was England manager) had players playing the most entertaining of football, all passing and crossing and scoring fantastic goals in baggy shirts, your Ferdinand, Ginola, Asprilla, Andy Cole in the early days with the Asics kit, then Shearer later on. No defending whatsoever, except big Charleroi-local Philippe Albert booting balls away, I loved it. (Incidentally Charleroi is another coal town that plays in black and white stripes and wins absolutely nothing). They were everyone’s second team, well except for Sunderland fans. I remember when they played Spurs and our fans were singing “you’re just a small town in Scotland!” and the Geordies replied, “you’re just a small town in Arsenal!” Fair play. So well done Newcastle, you’ve got your trophy, your first domestic one since the 50s. Now we’ve got to get one too.