A year or two before I was appointed Newcastle United manager in 2009, my father stopped going to St James’ Park. He loved the club and always had done — one of the lucky few who actually saw the team win a trophy — but he didn’t like it very much when Mike Ashley was the owner. He wasn’t alone in that, of course, because the place was a mess.
Chaos. Worse. And he wouldn’t go to matches, he said, not while Mike was there.
Advertisement Let me explain something fundamental about my dad: that didn’t change, even when I got the job. In my naivety, I assumed he would come to games when it was my (ill-fated) turn to stand by the dugout, but my assumption was misplaced. He said no.
He said, “I’ve made my decision and I’m sticking to it.” I could only laugh because it was perfect in its own way. He was stubborn, determined, immovable, principled.
And, looking back, he had a point. I told that story for Dad’s eulogy in May and on a day that felt entirely wrong, that part of it felt right. It was him to a tee.
Along with Will, my son, I’d carried his coffin into the crematorium — the hardest thing I’ve ever done — as the Match of the Day theme blared out, jaunty and loud. The music was his decision too, although he pinched that idea from my mam, telling us shortly before he died that this was what he wanted. He was not a poetic man, my dad — he was as grounded as they come, a bloke’s bloke, a Geordie grafter — but when I was a kid, we’d sat arou.