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“Is this the man to save United’s season?”
It was perhaps, a measure of the lack of flair in Kenny Dalglish’s reshaped Newcastle squad that the Evening Chronicle chose to issue such a headline just a single game into the 1998/1999 campaign following an uninspiring home stalemate with the forever average Charlton Athletic.
Despite bringing fans the emotional high of a debut Champion’s League victory over Barcelona and leading them to their first FA cup Final in decades, ‘King Kenny’s’ first full season at Newcastle had ended in what was then considered to be an extremely disappointing 13th place; Newcastle’s worst showing since returning to the top-flight.
With the Scot seemingly keen on replacing the carefree, caution to the wind flair of Keegan’s entertainers with grim‑faced, stubborn grit and determination, the silky skills of Peter Beardsley, David Ginola and Tino Asprilla had been shown the door and Newcastle’s brand of football had gone from being the envy of the Premier League to something that at times was only mildly more exciting than watching paint dry.
Dalglish’s answer to the void of creativity in his team was to sink the modest sum of £2,480,000 on a relatively unknown Peruvian playmaker by the full name of Nolberto Albino Solano Todco.
With typical Geordie enthusiasm, 8’000 of us delayed the kickoff of the Toon’s next reserve match as we squeezed into the Milburn stand to watch the man soon to be rechristened “Nobby” make his second string debut. The diminutive midfielder had arrived on Tyneside with a glowing appraisal from another small-of-stature genius; his former manager at Argentinean giants Boca Juniors, Diego Maradona. The man Maradona had christened “Maestito” certainly didn’t disappoint, pulling the creative strings from midfield and opening a 5-1 victory over Stockport County with a belting 20 yard drive that sent us all home happy.
Dalglish only lasted one more game, a disappointing 1-1 away draw with Chelsea (how expectations differed back then!) but the Peruvian, along with Shay Given and Gary Speed, turned out to be part of the more positive legacy Kenny left the club with.
Amid the sea of mediocre foreign players that were brought in and eventually shipped out in the years that followed, Solano became a constant for us to rely upon. Much in the way we had embraced Pavel Srnicek before him “Nobby” became one of an elite group of overseas players welcomed into the black and white family as an “adopted Geordie”. It was easy to see why; adaptable, two footed and blessed with vision and technique as well as a mean dead-ball ability, it also became apparent that Solano genuinely loved playing his football on Tyneside and his rapport with the fans grew while his phenomenal crossing ability continued to lay on goal after goal; with Solano second only to Thierry Henry in 2000/2001 for Premiership assists. It was small wonder that, in his native Peru, Nobby was already regarded as the country’s most famous export, appearing on a postage stamp and having his wedding broadcast on national television.
Sadly that love for his country cost us his services from time to time as he regularly flew half way around the world to represent the South American minnows and in 2004, with Solano coming out of a self imposed international retirement, Sir Bobby Robson felt the player was not honouring the terms imposed on him before he had signed his new 5 year contract and the player was controversially sold to Aston Villa.
The end of Solano’s first spell in Toon had brought the return of Champions League football to Tyneside and, if he wasn’t already enough of a fan-favourite, Nobby had managed to seal the deal by converting the winning penalty against Mick McCarthy’s record-settingly-bad Sunderland team the previous year to permanently inscribe his place in Geordie folklore. As a result, many fans, myself included, were unhappy with the decision to sell the club’s top playmaker (especially as his ready-made replacement was the odious Lee Bowyer) and popular fan website nufc.com neatly summarised this feeling, commenting that Solano’s departure felt akin to losing “another piece of our soul”.
Solano, meanwhile, was just as big a hit for Villa, which didn’t exactly make fans feel much better about the meagre £1.5 Million we had gotten in return for him and after just one season his performances had begun attracting attention from the likes of Liverpool. Thankfully it was Newcastle, now under the reigns of a second dour, disciplinarian Scot in the form of Graham Souness, who were able to beat them to his signature, recapturing Solano for the same 1.5M fee, with James Milner heading the other way on loan. It was a measure of Nobby’s enduring popularity on Tyneside that as fans gathered inside St. James to welcome record signing Michael Owen’s arrival as a Newcastle player it wasn’t the scouser’s name they chanted but that of the little Peruvian, as rumours of his return filled the stand.
Solano’s St. James’ swansong lasted a further season and a half, during which he made the right‑back position his own under Glenn Roeder and even picked up some elusive silverware...well, if you count the Intertoto Cup! In the summer of 2007 Nobby reluctantly asked for a transfer to a London club in order to be closer to his children who were now living in the capital. It was a measure of the respect we had for the player’s character and service over the years that I can’t recall a single fan questioning the motives for this decision.
That wasn’t quite the end for Nobby at Newcastle, however. Away from the football pitch and inside Tyneside’s growing Latin-American community, Solano had become something of a cult figure playing the trumpet in his band “The Geordie Latinos” and wowing the local Samba fans. Keen not to let the popular player leave without a final goodbye, Solano’s fans put together a final, Latino themed night of honour for the playmaker at St. James Park.
The evening, hosted by the BBC’s Jeff Brown, gave fans the opportunity to say a proper goodbye and thank you to the little maestro and Nobby spoke movingly on stage about his feelings for the club and the people of Tyneside, even busting out a “Wey-aye” when asked if he now considered himself a Geordie and hinting he would consider a third coming at Newcastle “maybe as manager”.
Down to earth and genuine, Solano was happy to mingle with fans for much of the night before climbing on stage to perform with his band. I keep it as a fond memory that I got to meet this talented, amiable legend before his departure and although I enjoyed his trumpeting that night, I still prefer to remember him doing his stuff on the pitch; laying on goal after goal for big Al, running half the length of the pitch with that brilliant solo effort against 1860 Munich, the screamer against Troyes, the penalty against Sunderland and, aside from the 48 goals in 314 appearances, the way he always did it all with a smile on his face and a real affection for the fans and supporters of this great institution during some of the highest and lowest times I’ve had watching Newcastle.
All of these factors combine to make Solano a firm favourite of recent times; a player with heart, head, soul and skill who genuinely understood what it meant to play in the famous black and white shirt for the passionate hordes who cheered him on.
While many have had the former qualities over the years, in my book it’s the latter that marks a player’s transition from merely “great to watch” to something approaching “hero”. Cheers for everything, Nobby; you were a special player and will always be welcome on the streets of Tyneside.
