Newcastle United 1 Sunderland 1

Sunderland fans travelled to this game with carrier bags from a sports shop to wave over their heads before kick-off. For them, and you will have to take my word on this one, this was Quite Amusing. Practical too: anybody who ever went on a big school trip will remember that, when not being wafted in the face of your rival in a slightly apologetic and embarrassed manner, the carrier bag doubled up as a superb lunch box- one that can be immediately discarded upon completion of meal, unlike a standard lunch box which you would be stuck traipsing around with all day. The reports of home fans in the Leazes end being hit with objects, though, perhaps indicates that they should be a bit more careful with their crumbs in future.

Everything was horrible in the first half. We are a better team than Sunderland, we have better players everywhere on the pitch, but they were winning every battle and it was sickening to watch. Cattermole should have been red carded in the first minute, but wasn’t, and so O’Neil’s gamble on the early fouls was a good one. McClean should have went for a two footed lunge on Simpson, but it was evident we were rattled by our reaction: had Krul stayed where he was and Simpson stayed down, the (inept) referee would have had to work hard to justify not showing red. But when we needed nous we showed nerves, and the diversion saved McClean.
For all this, Sunderland are an awful football team, and needed a penalty to get the goal that we, in turn, needed to wake us up. The whistle was in Dean’s mouth and everybody in the ground had worked out that he had given the penalty before the away fans did. They followed a horribly delayed cheer- Niall Quinn’s concerns about their fans watching games on the internet and in bars was obviously valid; they’re so used to watching feeds delayed by two or three minutes that they’re doing them at the match now. Krul was unlucky to not save the penalty.

Right, bollocks to this, let’s have them, we all thought, but for five to ten more torturous minutes they remained on top. Corners and free kicks flashed across our goal, their fans sang their silly O’Neil songs. At some point we take a foothold, put some passes together, then an entire move. Collocini draws a save from a corner, and Ba’s header comes crashing back off the bar.

The second half continues where we left off, and it’s only football that has the queer effect of making something seem all the less likely by virtue of its sheer inevitability. We simply had to score and because of that you just knew that we weren’t going to. Ben Arfa was ripping their ten men to pieces (they had had a player sent off for a crass elbow, which Martin O’Neil was good enough to confirm afterwards are not actually allowed) and the only time the ball was away from their box was so everybody in the crowd could have a breather. Even Tim Krul’s double save, priceless in retrospect, at the time felt like we were wasting time fannying about with it on our goal-line when it needed to be in their half.

Then we got a penalty and I knew we would miss that too.

In November 2000, Alan Shearer stepped up at the Gallowgate End to take a penalty against Tommy Sorenson. What happened next is the only time football has gone in genuine slow motion (I still remember watching the ball travel and saying to myself ‘It’s in’), and it has scarred me ever since. I have since that day been of the opinion that any player celebrating the awarding of a penalty should be fined two week’s wages, and any fan doing it should have their season ticket confiscated until they have demonstrated the correct way to acclaim a spot kick: a hunched posture and a declaration to your companion that ‘He’s going to miss this.’ Pardew’s response on the touchline when the whistle went doomed us, even if Demba hadn’t foolishly changed his mind as he ran to hit it.

Our team at this point were as desperate as we were to score. There was a fantastic spell, which for obvious reasons I only appreciated the next day, after the save when we won every ball and kept steadily going. We did not do this in 2000, despite the penalty minutes coming in the exact same minute.

Last minute now, somehow, and the ball is floated over where Williamson flicks on. Before anybody notices that something quite beautiful is about to take place Shola has smacked the ball of their keeper and, though sheer force of will, it has found itself nestling in to the Gallowgate net as our players run off and we go collectively demented.

It’s easy to say Sunderland would have taken draw beforehand, and it’s true that we should not be dropping cheap points against opposition as poor as this, but this was just delicious in its cruelty. We keep finding new ways to fuck with them.