The Newcastle United Blog

This is a brand new site for news, analysis, comment and discussion on the great Newcastle United Football Club.

We began the Newcastle United Blog last April 23rd, 2007 and in mid-November we broke away and became an independent site. Before that we were linked with the SoccerLens site.

I have been a fan of Newcastle United for getting close to 60 years, and since retiring as an IBM executive in August, 2004 I now have time to pursue my true passion, Newcastle United Football Club. There have been references to the spelling on this site being American-English and that’s right - so let’s explain this through a short biography.

I am an exiled Geordie having been born and bred in Newcastle (St. Anthony’s Estate) and went to London University (BSc) and Newcastle University (PhD). In 1973, IBM transferred me to the USA where my wife (Madeline - also a Geordie) and I have been ever since. My father was an avid Newcastle United fan before me - and supported the team home and away during the fifties when we won three FA Cups (1951, 1952, 1955).

My parents (now deceased) were both at the 1955 FA Cup Final when the legend Wor Jackie scored (with a header!) in the very first minute. I watched that game on TV at my Aunt Jean’s in the old Walker estate prefabs - and still remember that goal so very vividly. We all thought it must have been Vic Keeble, since Jackie could never head a ball. My older brother Rod still lives in Newcastle in Kingston Park, fairly close to where Newcastle Reserves play.

Well, that’s why the spelling is American - we are over here in the USA in Wake Forest, North Carolina with our three grown up kids. It’s just outside of Raleigh, NC. We have twin boys and a daughter who are all in their early 30s.

I let it slip today on 14th March, 2008 that I was on the books of Newcastle United in 1960, I’ve been asked by several of our readers to expand my personal bio - so here it is. Also for those readers who have continually questioned my Newcastle heritage - here it is.

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Dr. Ed Harrison is a recently retired IBM Consulting Group Executive who now has time, lots of time, to write about his lifelong passion - Newcastle United Football Club.

Ed was born and bred in Newcastle and watched his first game at St. James’ Park in 1949 as a 4 year-old with his Mother and Father. He was told to look out for number 9 - Jackie Milburn - Wor Jackie.

In football terms Ed was a goalkeeper and played for Warrier Street Primary School and Newcastle Minors (Newcastle Schoolboys Under-11), in 1956 and went on to play for Newcastle schoolboys and Northumberland schoolboys (Under 15) in 1959.

Ed was also an England Schoolboy Trailist that year, and in January 1960 played a full game at Highbury stadium, in a trial for Arsenal.

He was at Newcastle United for a couple of years from 1960 as an amateur, and played with Bob Moncur, David Craig amongst others for the Newcastle Juniors side (Newcastle N’s in those days) for season 1960-1961 which of course saw Newcastle relegated (it wasn’t my fault - honest).

He attended Heaton Technical and Manor Park schools and then went on to study at both King’s College, London (BSc) and Newcastle Universities (PhD). He played for Newcastle Universities and England Universities from 1967 until 1970 and in the English team Steve Heighway was probably the best known player he played with at that time.

The Newcastle University side of 1967-1969 was probably one of the strongest ever and the team reached the UAU finals twice, beaten by Swansea in 1968 and then drawing with Loughborough Colleges the following year. Alan Brown and Stan Calvert were the Newcastle University coaches in those days.

In local football the Newcastle University team reached the final of the Norhumberland Senior Cup in 1968, after beating Ashington at Ashington in the semi-finals. I cannot remember the score (think it was 1-0) but we had drawn 0-0 at Cochrane Park and we were told Ashington would kill us at their place. So you can understand our interest in this cup and following NUFC Reserves progress this season.

The University was well beaten in the Northumberland Senior Cup Final Final at St. James’ Park by Blyth Spartans (3-0?) in April of 1968, but we had several of our best players missing because the final was between terms. That was always a problem with the University football team, because we only had our best players during the terms.

Ed had a very serious double fracture (fibia and tibia) of his left leg at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough stadium when playing for England Universities against the England Amateur side in April, 1969. That was effectively it as far as his University football, and he was out of action for 10 months.

But it did have some positive impact on his time at the University, since it allowed him to concentrate more on what he was really at Newcastle University for - as his tutor Dr. Scoins kept telling him - to get a PhD. He got his Doctorate in Computer Science from Newcastle University just a few months after he joined IBM in 1970, after 3 years of work on Computer Graphics research.

Within a short 3 years Ed was moved by IBM to the USA, where he remains today with his beautiful Geordie wife, Madeline, a daughter Elaine and twin boys, Paul and Neil, all now in their thirties. One of his sons Neil continues the tradition of Newcastle support in the family and is an avid Newcastle United fan, and a little depressed, like most of us right now.

Ed lives just outside Raleigh, NC and is an exiled Geordie, fully committed to the cause.

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On this site we will provide you with analysis and hopefully some good insight on the current football stories surrounding Newcastle United.

We cannot compete with news organizations to get you the news stories first - but we will analyze the news, from a Newcastle fan’s perspective, and we will always invite you to add your comments to our stories. We will also try to ascertain whether the stories are true - but we’ve found that to be extremely difficult. Quite a few of the stories are simply made up to sell newspapers (there - I’ve said it!).

We are very excited about this new Newcastle United Blog - and of course we hope to make it a newsworthy and exciting site for fellow Geordies - and even non-Geordies, throughout the world. Our demographics show that we are attracting readers from across the world with just 25% from the UK, so we hope we are helping to build the Newcastle fan base world-wide.

One of our primary goals is to attract worldwide fans to the Newcastle United Football Club and we are certain the club will be one of the top clubs in Europe within 5 years. The site has articles with my own insight and analysis, but that’s just 50% (maybe less) of the content. The rest, and probably the more interesting and important piece comes from you, our readers, and we’ve had many comments complimenting the site on the wisdom and foresight of the readers’ comments, which follows each article.

Don’t be shy about leaving comments on the articles - this is your site as much as ours. We would just ask that you be civil and as courteous as possible to your fellow readers. Remember our views are not necessarily facts - well apart from mine that is

Try to keep the language decent. So all I ask is to be courteous to other readers’ opinions and keep the language respectable because we want this site to be accessible by our younger generation of Newcastle supporters.

Many Thanks,

Ed Harrison