Newcastle United & the FA Cup

Ahead of this weekend and the FA Cup 3rd round tie at Vicarage Road, I look back at the last five seasons, looking for any highlights at all in what has been a very much love/hate affair with what is a wonderful competition. 2010/2011

The first part of our “highlight reel” takes us to Stevenage, a club that were playing their trade in the fourth division of English football, managed by Graham Westley. We were dominated all game with the only positive taken from the game being the fantastic strike of a certain Joey Barton. We went on that season to finish 12th, in our first season back in Premier League. 2011/2012

This season would be the only one of the last five in which NUFC managed to make it past the 3rd round. A certain Hatem Ben Arfa weaved his way through the Blackburn defence before finding the net at St James Park in that game showing just a glimpse of what he was capable of.

We then travelled to Brighton in the 4th round, and for the second season in a row, the great Mike Williamson scored an own goal to inflict a 1-0 defeat at the Amex Stadium. Newcastle went onto finish 5th in that season, with a man called Papiss Cisse showing unstoppable form after moving from Freiburg. 2012/2013

In the January of 2013, we were sent back to the Amex Stadium to face a Brighton side who were flying in the Championship and heading towards the play-offs. This tie sticks out to me more than any of the games in the last five years, mainly because I found myself on a coach at 2:30am in order to make it to the South Coast in time for kick off.

It was an absolutely miserable game, we were shocking in performance, and we were deservedly beaten 2-0. We can only hope that if Hughton brings Brighton back into the Premier League, that we’ll be able to break our current record at the Amex. 2013/2014

After the past few years in the FA Cup, I’m sure many fans were hoping for a reasonable home tie in order to really push on for a good cup run to end our trophy drought, and I’m sure many would have been happy when we were drawn at home to Cardiff City. However, despite Papiss Cisse giving Newcastle a lead with less than 30 minutes to go, goals from Craig Noone and Frazier Campbell left Newcastle shocked and waiting another year for the chance of silverware. 2014/2015

I debated whether to put you readers through the trauma of flashing back to last season. The Pardew/Carver combination was absolutely horrific and regardless of our current problems, I’m not sure it can ever be as bad as it was then. We were drawn away to a Leicester side who, like NUFC, weren’t secure as a Premier League side.

Given that, you’d expect the game to be very close. However, after the 'best coach in the Premier League' made a number of changes, we were beaten 1-0 and that was only just the beginning of what was a miserable reign under Carver. It remains to be seen what sort of team and performance we will give at Vicarage Road, but as fans, it would be nice to finally experience a cup run!