If they work like that and play like that again, they've got a chance You never know.. especially with Kieron Dyer's pace. They were one down and then all of a sudden - bump, bump - it's 2-1 and game over. They're such a fantastic side."But Newcastle played very well at Southampton They were brilliant. "It'd be nice to see 'em do it, but when you've got players like Van Nistelrooy, Giggs and Scholes playing as they are at the moment, they can cut you to pieces I watched Manchester United on the telly last weekend too. He is 52 now, living in his native Barnsley and happily working as a technician for Rexam Glass. Having sat down the Saturday evening before last to watch Newcastle win at Southampton for the first time since his 1972 winner, he will be in front of his television set again this afternoon, in hope rather than expectation that Shearer, Dyer, Robert and company can beat Manchester United at Old Trafford for the first time since his assist and clincher of 1972."It's going to be hard," he said, with an intake of breath.

Tudor's header silenced the Stretford End after 35 minutes of the taunting dirge, "Hereford, Hereford".Barrowclough chuckled at the memory "The chanting spurred us on," he said Barrowclough was 20 back in 1972. "I crossed the first for John Tudor to head in at the Stretford End," Barrowclough reflected, again with perfect recall. I can picture the one at Old Trafford too - Tony Green crossed it and I stuck it in."That was the second of Newcastle's two goals in that 2-0 win at Old Trafford. Barrowclough, a will-o'-the-wisp right- winger, hit the 72nd-minute winner against the Saints. "He beat Jimmy Gabriel with a superb rising cross-shot," the Newcastle Journal reported."I can remember it, yeah," Barrowclough said "I didn't score many I can remember 'em all.

Newcastle's 3-0 win at St Mary's eight days ago was their first success at Southampton since that very same month, February 1972. Joe Harvey's men won 2-1 at The Dell a fortnight after their 2-0 victory at Old Trafford. Thirty-one years and 11 months later, it remains their last."I really can't believe it's that long," Stewart Barrowclough said. "There was a similar thing with Newcastle at Southampton too, though, wasn't there?"There was indeed.

It was their first win against Manchester United away from St James' Park since 1950. "We just have to accept that crazy results happen sometimes in football." Quite.Having been sunk in the Hereford mud by a collection of butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers on the afternoon of 5 February 1972, Newcastle went to Old Trafford seven days later and beat a Manchester United team featuring George Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton. Considerably greater reason, in fact. The previous Saturday, Newcastle had gone to Hereford for that now-historic FA Cup third-round replay. Malcolm Macdonald had told the world he would hit double figures and break Ted McDougall's nine-goal record in an FA Cup tie.