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I would like to nominate Benny Arentoft as my cult hero on the NUST website. I made my first trip to St James' Park as a six year old in August 1966 and my memories of that game and subsequent games that season, are all, appropriately in black & white! England had of course just won the world cup, but that didn't register much with me at the time. I was more interested in making sure I caught the bag of peanuts sailing towards me from the only fast-food vendor at that time.
Now Benny, as he was affectionately known, did not appear for Newcastle until 1968/69; however I can't remember any of players making any sort of impression on me until that fantastic season when we last lifted a competitive trophy, with Benny getting his name on the scoresheet in the second leg. I remember him as being short and squat and not looking much like a footballer, but they were all shapes and sizes in those days and he became a popular player very quickly. He cemented his popularity a year later by playing in goal when McFaul got himself injured against Man Utd and we still went on to win 5-1. His career with us was short-lived and he left form Blackburn Rovers in 1971, but he will always be my cult hero.
FAIR’S FAIR
(to celebrate the 35th 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
