Orient humiliation was foundation for success
NO ONE was smiling as Newcastle United's players filed out of Brisbane Road back in July.
Back then, the Premier League seemed a million miles away.
Heads down, they walked out in silence, reflecting on a truly embarrassing defeat.
Chris Hughton's side had been soundly, and deservedly, beaten 6-1 by lowly Leyton Orient, and the club's forthcoming Championship campaign looked in disarray before a ball had even been kicked in anger.
The club was unsold and seemingly unwanted, and no one – let alone the players and caretaker manager – knew what was going on, such was the state of paralysis at St James's Park.
Yet a little over eight months later, United are back in the top-flight, and smiles are back on faces in the dressing room – and more importantly on the terraces.
And what has happened since has everything to do with that sorry afternoon in East London, the result having galvanised the players who were committed to the black and white cause, and hastened the exit of those who weren't.
Since the likes of Obafemi Martins, Sebastien Bassong, Habib Beye and Damien Duff have left, good players as they are, the club hasn't looked back.
From the opening game at The Hawthorns, the players have had each other's backs.
There have been disappointments along the way, but in a 46-game season Newcastle were always going to lose games.
But those nights at Glanford Park and Bloomfield Road, as painful as they were for a proud club, are long forgotten.
However, this season – like the last promotion year in 1992/93 – will live long in the memory, and for the right reasons, too.
There are still more questions than answers off the park, with owner Mike Ashley seemingly as unloved as ever on the terraces.
And this team, as good as it has been at Championship level, needs strengthening if it's to thrive, and not just survive, in the Premier League.
But the club's moving forward, and that's something we haven't been able to say in a long, long time.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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