NEWCASTLE UNITED V ATHLETIC - A DIFFERENT WAY TO LIVE FOOTBALL

Written by John Hird

November 1st 1994 was the first time I visited San Mamés, ‘the Cathedral of football’ as Athletic fans modestly call it. I was there to see Newcastle United play the second leg of the 1994/95 UEFA Cup second round.

In the first leg Keegan’s swashbuckling team had taken a three goal lead with goals from Fox, Beardsley and Cole. Newcastle continued to attack, faithfully following Kevin’s mantra, ‘if we score three we want four!’ Unfortunately Athletic pulled two back with goals from Ziganda and Suances Begueria.

At San Mamés I had a ticket for the Athletic end but once I explained I was from Newcastle the stewards let me join our fans. In a close match Ziganda got a goal and Athletic went through on away goals. Outside the stadium waiting for my lift, a guy called Ernesto Valverde came up to me and said: ‘I’m  sorry.’ Ernesto went on to do quite well for himself in football.

There was an incredible atmosphere in the build up to that match in Bilbao with thousands of Newcastle and Athletic fans mixing together in the bars around the stadium. A sea of black, red and white everywhere, drinking and singing their songs.

Fans of both teams instinctively celebrated the similarities between the two proud clubs. Newcastle and Bilbao are northern working class cities, formerly based on shipbuilding and engineering and back then both cities were regenerating after their basic industries had been devastated by Neo-liberal policies. We have our Geordie dialect and the Basques have Euskara which has nothing to do with Spanish/Castellano.

We had our Geordie captain Beardsley and other Geordies in the team but the Athletic team that day was completely made up of Basques. The policy means playing exclusively with Basque players, born there or those who have trained at a youth academy in the Basque Country.

Basque journalist and Athletic fan Rayco Sánchez summed up the feeling between both sets of fans in an interview with NUFCFAS:

“The heritage of football is based on transmitting values and experiences to the future generations, and one of those unforgettable moments were the UEFA Cup ties between Athletic and Newcastle United.”

“If you ask any 30+ year old Athletic fan about Newcastle, they will draw a smile on their face. It was probably one of the last amazing meetings between different sets of club fans Bilbo (the Basque language version of Bilbao). The pictures of how the both sets of fans mixed in Bilbao, singing, drinking and overall enjoying the new friendship is still in our collective memory. At the final whistle, Athletic fans invaded the pitch to go to Newcastle fans to give them an ovation in front of the away stand. This summed up the experience. It was one of the most emotional moments at the old ‘Cathedral’ (the way we refer to our stadium, San Mamés).”

“In the days after the match, I remember being envious when I saw different guys wearing Newcastle shirts that they exchanged at that game. In my opinion we should organise a fan reunion between Athletic and Newcastle every year!”

Thirty one years on how similar are we now?

Athletic continue to follow their Basque only player policy while Newcastle United are now owned by one of the most despotic and bloody regimes on the planet. Athletic Club is not a sports limited company. It is the property of the ‘socios’, (members) who have the right to decide the present and future of the club, like voting to choose the president (neither the president nor the directors of the club receive a salary) and the decisions about the club, the policy, the investments, or proposing topics they want to speak about in the annual assembly.

Fellow Newcastle fans will say that is laudable but the harsh reality of the Premier League is different and the price of success is to be owned by a human rights abusing dictatorship. But is that true? 

La Liga is one of the toughest and best football leagues in the world. Athletic haven’t done too bad with their fan based ownership model. As Rayco says: “We won the Spanish Cup (La Copa) this last season, and we showed to the whole football world what it is like to be an Athletic fan, celebrating the title with close to 1 million people receiving the  players in ‘La Gabarra’ (a traditional tugboat used in the past to move raw materials up and down the river which flows through Bilbao). Since 2009 we have played in 6 finals - 5 Copas and 1 Europa League  and we have never been relegated in 125 years.” 

“We are successful with our different way to live football, so why are we going to change that which makes us proud and special? I think there is presently no debate in Bilbao to change our  philosophy.”

Athletic fans continue to take a principled stance on football and other matters. At the Champions League match vs Arsenal, fans displayed an enormous banner in support of the Palestinian people. The banner read: 'We will be by your side from today until the last day’. They have also done the same in La Liga matches and in their Champions League tie against Borussia Dortmund they marched to the match with Palestinian flags. On Saturday, October 4th, Honey Thaljieh, Athletic Club’s 125th anniversary ambassador, a group of Palestinian refugees in the Basque Country, and representatives from UNRWA received a show of support at San Mamés before the Athletic Club vs RCD Mallorca kick off. This was announced on the club’s official website.

Newcastle and Athletic fans have something else in common and unfortunately it is Saudi Arabia.

On 11 September 2019, the RFEF (Spanish Football Federation) signed a contract with Saudi Arabia for €40 million to move the Super Cup there for the next six years, with a total value of €240 million to be shared between Federation, clubs and intermediary agency. In the contract signed with Sela, the Saudi public company, (also a major sponsor of Newcastle United) the Federation was guaranteed to receive 40 million euros for each edition, while Kosmos Holding - the company of Gerard Piqué (former FC Barcelona footballer) - gets four million euros for each of the six years signed.

This dirty deal was made without regard for football fans and has linked Spanish football to the despotic Saudi regime. Another example of how Saudi dictators use football to divert attention from the many serious human rights violations.

Amnesty International criticised the decision to hold the competition in Saudi Arabia and accused the RFEF of “collaboration in this ‘whitewashing’ of the image of Saudi Arabia”, and said there had been very little improvement in “the systematic abuse of homosexuals and continued discrimination against women.”

In 2022 the only player to speak out against taking the games to Saudi Arabia was Athletic Club forward Rául García, when he focused his criticism on the inability to play in front of his team’s fans because the tournament is played thousands of kilometres away and is almost impossible for supporters to attend due to distance and cost. 

Cadena SER radio host Àngels Barceló, whose morning show is followed by nearly three million listeners in Spain, was more direct in his criticism of the decision to sell the rights of the Super Cup to the Saudi dictatorship. He called the federation and the clubs hypocrites.

“No regime would pay millions of dollars for someone to come from abroad to change a regime that has no plans to change itself,” Barceló said. “Spanish soccer tarnishes itself with this competition, as do the teams that participate in it. Afterwards, they will all have more money in the bank, but from now on just don’t let them tell us about values and fair play.”

Now Athletic fans are mobilising against the Spanish/Saudi Super Cup. Five days before Athletic come to Newcastle, fans are demanding that they be allowed to debate the issue of the club’s participation in the ‘Saud’ Super Cup. They want the club to demand that Spanish football authorities pull out of the deal and play the matches in Spain.

The example of the Athletic Club ownership model shows that fans can make a difference. This is in stark contrast to the official Newcastle United fan groups who have a shoulder shrugging ‘what can we do?’ attitude, despite the pre-Saudi takeover commitments to ‘keep talking about human rights’.

The match between Newcastle and Athletic will be a footballing celebration, a coming together of two sets of fans with a history but also an opportunity for Newcastle fans to learn some things about principles and a chance to right some wrongs.

"If we felt that the Saudis were abusing women's rights, we would consider a display featuring a female fan in a black and white top," a Wor Flags representative told DW in 2020.

Saudi women continue to be horribly oppressed but five years on there has been no display in solidarity with them, although Wor Flags have featured Newcastle United chairman Yasir al-Rumayyan, also a Saudi minister and right-hand man of Mohammed bin Salman.

The ultimate owners of our club are arresting Saudi citizens and Palestinians for opposing the genocide.

“Agence France-Presse correspondents confirmed on 13 October that they witnessed Saudi police tying up a worshiper who had chanted, “Speak about Palestine; Gaza is under attack,” to the imam during Friday prayers. Police vehicles were positioned in front of other mosques throughout the city, according to the news agency.”

"The Saudi authorities’ denial of citizens’ freedoms to peaceful assembly and demonstration is notable when it comes to Palestinians and Palestinian solidarity efforts in the country. Saudi authorities have launched campaigns of arbitrary arrests against Palestinians in recent years, and the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has confirmed that depriving these people of their freedom is discriminatory as it is based on their Palestinian national origin.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if Newcastle and Athletic fans came together to oppose the genocide in Gaza and to support human rights in Saudi Arabia?

Over to you, Wor Flags…..

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