Newcastle United players were shown clips of some of the most glorious moments in the club's history earlier this month by Eddie Howe and his staff, but the current crop do not have to look too far for gritty inspiration on how to get the job done at Prenton Park on Wednesday night. The last time Newcastle travelled to the Wirral, after all, the visitors defeated Tranmere Rovers to book their place in the semi-finals of the FA Cup back in 2000.
So many Premier League teams have come unstuck at Tranmere over the years, but not Sir Bobby Robson's side. Was it any wonder that a bare-chested Alan Shearer could not help but smile as the Newcastle captain embraced friend and team-mate Warren Barton at the final whistle following a 3-2 win? They were one step closer to reaching another final.
"There's a good picture actually of me and Alan," Barton told ChronicleLive. "We're smiling afterwards because we knew after that we had a chance."
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It was not to be Newcastle's year - the Magpies lost the semi-final against Chelsea - but defeating Tranmere was far from a foregone conclusion. The giant killers had already knocked out West Ham, Sunderland and Fulham to reach the quarters and the lower league side were also due to face Leicester City in the League Cup final a week later.
Yes, Tranmere were playing in the division below Newcastle at the time, but it was easy to see why Rovers had no fear ahead of the visit of the Magpies in February, 2000. Wayne Allison, Tranmere's captain at the time, said the pitch was a 'leveller' because it 'wasn't great' and the aim was to 'make sure Newcastle knew they were in a game' from the off. So did that involve using some of football's dark arts?
"Dark arts?! How dare you!" he told ChronicleLive. "We played the purest form, Sir. I don't think you'd class it as dark arts. The pitch wasn't for everybody. We played on that more than others so were used to it. Newcastle were more used to the carpets.
"We utilised what we had and what we had was effective. We knew couldn't out-football Newcastle - that would have been silly - but we just used what we had."
What Tranmere had was a powerful weapon: Dave Challinor's long throw. Players and staff's memories can understandably be hazy when they have been involved in hundreds of games over the years, but those in the Newcastle camp that afternoon all namecheck Challinor unprompted.
Nikos Dabizas recalled how Challinor was 'halfway up the pitch throwing the ball into our box literally every five minutes' - and it was not just the initial header Newcastle had to worry about. The second ball was just as dangerous as Tranmere always had players ready to capitalise on a weak defensive header on the edge of the area while a poacher like David Kelly, who the visitors knew all about, was always lurking and anticipating a knock-down.
To illustrate Challinor's remarkable reach, Warren Barton quipped that Newcastle did not even have anyone who could 'throw it as far' as the Tranmere defender in training 'so we just had to get someone to kick it in'. It was the sort of extreme set-piece threat Newcastle just did not face in the Premier League on a weekly basis.
So although Newcastle raced into a 2-0 lead at Prenton Park, following goals from Gary Speed and Didier Domi, the long throw always gave Tranmere a way back into the game and Allison ultimately pulled a goal back just before half-time after Challinor launched the ball into the box. Newcastle had practised such routines countless times in training, but even assistant manager Mick Wadsworth admitted it was 'difficult to deal with' come match day.
"We prepared but they still scored from it," he told ChronicleLive. "We had Alan at the front post. Duncan [Ferguson] even played so we had a lot of aerial power, but it was a hell of a weapon. It was a tough place to go then. A really tough place to go."
It was the worst possible time for Newcastle to concede and John Aldridge's side were reenergised in the dressing room at half-time. The visitors did not crumble, however, and Duncan Ferguson duly restored Newcastle's two-goal lead before the hour mark with a cool finish from Kieron Dyer's low cross.
It proved a pivotal strike. Gary Jones set up a grandstand finish after another Tranmere set-piece caused havoc, but Newcastle got over the line fairly comfortably in the end. Perhaps, before, Newcastle might have slipped up in a game like this when the togetherness and spirit was not quite right, but that was never going to happen under Sir Bobby. As Dabizas put it, there was 'no room for complacency in being unprepared for a trip like this because we knew the task ahead of us was big' and that is a secret that the current group of players can take into Wednesday night's tie.
"In these kinds of games, the most important thing is the mindset because the quality is there," he told ChronicleLive. "If you are not prepared, talent goes out the window.
"You have to be able to adapt in the special circumstances that the game required in terms of the physicality, set-pieces and the battle. It's not always about a nice game, but we had those kinds of players.
"We had big Dunc, Alan, Gary Speed. We had very strong characters. This is the most important thing in a dressing room."
Newcastle certainly have some strong characters of their own all these years later and Nick Pope, Dan Burn and Matt Ritchie are just some of those who have experience of battling it out in League Two. Eddie Howe has also managed at this level. For those players who have not encountered this sort of fixture before, like Sven Botman and Bruno Guimaraes, well, they need only look at Newcastle's giant killing at the hands of Cambridge United in the FA Cup last season to realise just what can happen when a Premier League outfit faces a lower league side.
Howe will do everything to ensure such defeats are consigned to history and the Newcastle boss has vowed to take the cups seriously at a time when Tranmere, remarkably, have reached a domestic final more recently than the Magpies. This is not an empty promise after so many years of the cups being neglected in the Ashley era; Howe feels he has 'everything in place to try and be successful' under the club's new owners.
Making it into the third round of the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night would feel like a small step in the right direction given Newcastle's dismal record, but Didier Domi is among those victors from the club's last trip to Prenton Park dreaming of something even bigger in the years to come.
"We all have that hope," he told ChronicleLive. "The atmosphere around the club is much better so it's just a matter of time until we can go to a League Cup final or an FA Cup final again with the Toon Army behind them. We just have to be patient."
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