I AM immensely proud to have finished my professional career as a ‘one-club man’ after playing 270 games for the team I supported as a boy. To get to fourth on the Falcons’ alltime appearance list is great especially with the company I am keeping. My good mate Will Welch has 275 appearances and could potentially have gone on and got 350 had he decided not to retire this year; Tom May is an absolute legend who was someone I was thrilled to play with and looked up to; and top of the lot, Micky Ward, is, of course, a Geordie hero.
I did come very close to leaving the club twice, for Northampton on each occasion. The first time was when I was about 21 and Jim Mallinder was in charge at Saints. It was very tempting but at that age I was established at Newcastle and starting week in, week out and I felt that, potentially, I might be stuck behind Bruce Reihana and not get much game time. I nearly went down there again, a bit later on, but, for whatever reason, I had a last-minute chat with Dean (Richards) and managed to stay.
I obviously have a great affinity with Newcastle but I don’t know if the club has fulfilled its full potential and, to be honest, I don’t know if I as a player fulfilled my potential. Who knows what would have happened had I decided to move away and taken a different path. Most of my time at Newcastle was spent fighting relegation but, for one glorious season (2017-18), we reached the play-offs and lost to a very good Exeter side down at Sandy Park in the semi-finals. More on the secret of that success in a bit…
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