Newcastle United and winning something; call it the great obsession, call it a ferocious yearning, call it part of the psyche, call it the ultimate contradiction, call it whatever the hell you want, but it hasn’t happened, not since 1955 for a domestic trophy of any significance, which almost seems careless. And now, let them call time on it, which is precisely what Becky Langley’s women’s team intend to do this weekend.
Their shoulders do not bear the weight of 69 pot-less years — 55, if we take Europe and the now defunct Inter-Cities Fairs Cup as the starting point — and do not deserve to. Newcastle’s women’s team have their own context and history to draw upon, although there are some caveats here. With the women no longer an afterthought after officially being brought under the club’s ownership two years ago, it is now one enterprise. The big idea is that success and pain are shared.
Should Langley’s side lift the FA Women’s National League Cup at Premier League side Luton Town’s Kenilworth Road, where they face Hashtag United tomorrow (Saturday), it would mean something and stand for something. Since the takeover at Newcastle in October 2021, resources have been poured into the women’s operation; this season, they became the first team in the third…
