Newcastle Falcons vs Sale Sharks Match-Day Programme

BY MARK SMITH - NEWCASTLE FALCONS MEDIA MANAGER
Almost 20 years ago to the day, Newcastle Falcons and Sale
Sharks met at Twickenham in front of 48,500 supporters to
contest one of the best cup finals English rugby has ever seen.
surroundings of our team hotel next to a roundabout in Slough,
but thankfully the squad decamped to stylish Kensington for
the post-match party.
We all probably have our own stories from April 17, 2004, when
the Falcons prevailed in a 37-33 thriller.
Current Sale Sharks director of rugby Alex Sanderson started
in their back row. One of Newcastle’s try-scorers, Joe Shaw, is
now head coach of Premiership champions, Saracens. Another
Falcons scorer, Phil Dowson, is director of rugby at tabletopping
Northampton Saints, while current Falcons star Ben
Redshaw wasn’t even born!
From my own side, this was actually the first game I ever
worked for the Falcons, and I was only a loan signing at that
stage! I’d been working at Leicester Tigers and had already
accepted a summer move to the Falcons, but when they
qualified for the final they contacted Leicester to try and get
me out of the last month of my contract. A compromise was
reached and I was lent to Newcastle for cup final week, with
the victorious team bus stopping at M1 Junction 21 to drop me
off on their way back to Tyneside the morning after the final.
The game was a classic and I’ll never forget the lads parading
the trophy around Rugby HQ, with thousands of jubilant
Geordies belting out the Blaydon Races. The cup itself went
missing for a few moments in the mayhem, only to be found
under a pile of shirts in the changing room, and the post-match
press conference was fun in regaling tales of a phonecall from
then Newcastle United manager Sir Bobby Robson, wishing the
lads well as they drove to the ground.
The night before the game had been spent in the unglamorous
As you can imagine there was an appropriate amount of revelry
from the squad and support staff, with BBC Newcastle commentator
Kevin Williams taking the sensible step of removing
the trophy from the function room to avoid a repeat of Dean
Richards’ Calcutta Cup escapades. The only problem was, he
hadn’t told anyone, so when a frantic search was launched to
find the Powergen Cup, it wasn’t until the next day when the
silverware re-appeared from the boot of his BBC Peugeot in
the Kingston Park stadium car park, ready to hand over to the
returning team bus.
The night had continued in great spirit, and memories include
Epi Taione fetching his guitar into the residents’ bar for a sing
song in the wee small hours. I’d nipped over to the 24-hour
newsagents to buy the early editions of the Sunday papers, the
majority of which had a photo of our waterboy Jonny Wilkinson
on the front page - the World Cup winner missing the game
through injury. I couldn’t help feeling that showed a certain
disrespect to our starting ten, Dave Walder, who had actually
masterminded the result, but such is the way with Fleet Street
picture editors.
On my way to breakfast the next morning I encountered a
Falcons player asleep in the hotel lift, wearing nothing but his
underwear and his cup final winner’s medal. He must have been
going up and down to all levels of the building for hours! But for
all of us the hangover was well worth it. Fantastic memories
from a great day.
FROM THE PRESS BOX - WITH MARK SMITH
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