Malcolm Macdonald: ‘Without Tueart the monkey might not have been on Newcastle’s back for quite so long’

Malcolm Macdonald will never forget the extraordinary contrast of pain and perfection. To this day, the memory leaves him torn between angst and awe. On 28 February 1976, Dennis Tueart left Macdonald and his Newcastle teammates shattered after scoring the most exquisite winning goal imaginable in front of 100,000 fans at Wembley as Manchester City won the League Cup final 2-1.

“It was the most perfect overhead kick, the timing of his jump was absolute perfection,” recalls Macdonald. “He was right over the ball, slammed it downwards and the strike was lethal. It’s probably the best bicycle kick I’ve ever seen and Dennis had to choose to score it against us.”

Coincidentally Tueart was a boyhood Newcastle fan who grew up in Heaton, one of the city’s suburbs. “At the final whistle Dennis put a Newcastle shirt on and, when he tried to go up to collect his winner’s medal, a steward turned him away, saying: ‘It’s not your turn yet,’” says Macdonald. “He was trying to explain: ‘I’ve swapped shirts.’ But they wouldn’t let him through.”

Later Tueart dropped into the Newcastle dressing room. “We were all saying: ‘You lucky bastard,’” remembers Macdonald of his fellow England striker. “We’d been so confident that I still have a strong feeling that, without Dennis Tueart, we’d have won the cup and the monkey might not have been on this club’s back for quite so long.”

Macdonald, 73, was born in Fulham and spent much of his early life in London, at one point starring for Arsenal, but for the past three decades he has lived in the north-east where, thanks to invariably candid analysis and an excellent broadcast voice, he enjoyed a successful career in local radio.

With his resolutely home counties delivery unaltered by even the merest hint of a Tyneside accent, Macdonald may still sound like an outsider, but a man who proved almost as sharp behind a microphone as he once did in front of goal agrees he is “an adopted Geordie” these days.

He has been a St James’ Park cult hero since the 70s when, in the course of scoring 138 goals in 258 appearances for Newcastle, “Supermac” routinely bewitched locals and bewildered opposition defenders.

Dennis Tueart scores the winning goal for Manchester City in the 1976 League Cup final with a spectacular overhead kick. Photograph: Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy

Back then Newcastle were known as a decent cup side – he was also part of the team that lost the 1974 FA Cup final – but much of Macdonald’s media work has involved analysing the failings of assorted Tyneside teams who all too often seemed synonymous with underachievement on the pitch and soap opera-style drama off it.

Now, though, he senses the club’s first trophy since Bob Moncur lifted the Fairs Cup in 1969 is within touching distance, 16 months after the Saudi Arabian-led buyout of the unpopular former owner Mike Ashley in October 2021. On Sunday Newcastle face Manchester United in their first League Cup final since 1976.

“In recent years some of Newcastle’s football has been appalling but since the takeover and Eddie Howe’s appointment as manager, the turnaround has been remarkable,” he says. “Everyone involved should be congratulated and no one more so than Eddie.

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“In 1976 we got to Wembley no thanks to our manager, Gordon Lee, but reaching this final has everything to do with Eddie’s management. Where Gordon Lee, who could be an idiot, wanted dressing-room splits and creative tension, Eddie is a real team man who works to get the very best out of individuals, looks after everybody and has created a wonderful team spirit. I really think his side can beat Manchester United.”

Macdonald’s caveat centres on Nick Pope’s suspension, after the England goalkeeper’s red card for handling outside the area during Newcastle’s 2-0 Premier League defeat at home to Liverpool last Saturday. “The sending-off and the defensive performance have given the whole of Tyneside collywobbles,” he says. “I was quite shocked, I don’t even think Eddie Howe understands quite what happened. It was extraordinarily out of character. That’s why we’re all so horrified.”

Pope’s absence and the ineligibility of his cup-tied deputy, Martin Dubravka, dictates that Loris Karius seems scheduled to start in goal, almost five years since his Champions League final debacle for Liverpool against Real Madrid and two years after the German played his last competitive game.

“Marcus Rashford will be rubbing his hands in glee but let’s hope it’s a redemption story for Karius,” says Macdonald. “He’s got the experience and the ability to consign 2018 firmly to the past.”

As a former No 9, Macdonald would select Callum Wilson ahead of the £65m Sweden striker Alexander Isak but only if the England forward’s suspect hamstrings are sufficiently robust to permit him to use his dramatic change of pace to “make the sudden turns and sprints which turn him into such a danger”.

In 1976 we got to Wembley no thanks to our manager, Gordon Lee, but reaching this final has everything to do with EddieMalcolm Macdonald on Eddie Howe

Macdonald suspects his patience might have worn thin had he been playing alongside Allan Saint-Maximin. The maverick Frenchman is adored on Tyneside but does not score or create the number of goals his unorthodox talent demands.

“Saint-Maximin doesn’t cross early enough,” he says. “I’m sure I would have had almighty rows with him in the dressing room at times and maybe even on the pitch too! When you get a winger who comes to cross and then turns back and beats another man and then another man, the centre-forward ends up making runs for nothing.”

In 1976 at Wembley, Macdonald’s incisive cross prefaced Alan Gowling’s goal which cancelled out Peter Barnes’s opener. Then, in the 46th minute, Tueart struck. “Suddenly all their players felt six inches taller,” says Macdonald. “But, this time, I really think Newcastle can win. It would be lovely to get that monkey off our back.”