FAIR’S FAIR
(to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Newcastle United’s Inter Cities Fairs Cup win on June 11th 1969).
The Blue Star shone in Budapest
as West met East on Europe’s streets;
the night the Magpies skinned the Magyars
and the Fairs Cup was ours.
Across the desert of thirty five years,
the Inter Cities trophy glitters,
like a beacon in the wilderness,
all that burnt energy, just this success.
And what a crazy night it was;
the shorts flowed in black and white bars:
away goals, of course, counted double
and, after a few, we were seeing double!
We’d danced through Feyenoord and Zaragoza,
skipped from Setubal to downtown Glasgae;
and we came back singing through it all,
with Clarkie, Craigie and McFaul.
It was the golden day of three-goal Moncur,
of Scottie, Gibb, Sinclair,
of Wyn the Leap and Bryan Pop,
and little Benny Arentoft.
Finally, we had a Cup to show
and the Toon’s faces shone aglow;
no longer drowning in our self-pity,
at last, Fair’s fair, Newcassel’s a European City!
by Keith Armstrong
who was in Budapest that great night
