Eddie Howe is confident his Newcastle team will not feel “burdened by history” as they aim to end the club’s 54-year trophy drought.
Newcastle have not won major silverware since lifting the Fairs Cup (later the Uefa Cup) in 1969 but their manager hopes to introduce a new, long-awaited trophy to the St James’ Park boardroom after Sunday’s Carabao Cup final against Manchester United.
“I don’t feel the players are burdened by history – they feel it as a potential motivation,” said Howe. “We made them aware before the start of this competition that there’s been a long wait for a trophy and I think they all understand that. I think it’s a great thing we have that as a motivating tool.”
A lot of big-name managers, Sir Bobby Robson, Kevin Keegan and Rafael Benítez among them, have failed to win trophies for Newcastle in recent decades but Howe is adamant any triumph against Manchester United should not be regarded as being primarily about him.
“It would mean the world to me but it would be more for the supporters, for everyone connected with Newcastle, if we were able to do it,” he said. “They’ve had a long wait and I know just from my dealings with people around the city, the love they have for the football club. I’d love to return that love with a trophy. Since coming to Newcastle, from day one, I’ve felt good. I feel an inner contentment here. I feel comfortable in my surroundings.”
Howe, 45, never envisaged managing a Premier League club when a knee injury forced him to retire as a player with Bournemouth in 2007. “I thought there was absolutely no chance I could possibly do that,” he said. “I felt I was far too shy and introverted.”
Unprecedented success as Bournemouth’s manager eventually led him to Newcastle in November 2021. “I was initially surprised this club hadn’t won a trophy for so long because of its size,” he said. “But Newcastle’s history is still very impressive. The football Kevin Keegan’s 1990s team played was incredible.”
Howe has a chance to stick a metaphorical two fingers up at critics who claimed he would flounder away from his Bournemouth comfort zone. “Of course there are personal things,” he said. “But my motivation isn’t to prove anyone wrong. Genuinely, it isn’t. Hopefully my work over time will prove I’m good enough but I think there’s a bigger picture here. This is for Newcastle.”
Howe’s late mother, Anne, whose sudden death in 2012 affected him deeply, will feature prominently in his thoughts.
“She’s in my thinking before every game but she’ll be there even more,” he said. “She took me for a tour around Wembley as a five- or six-year-old, lifting the fake FA Cup, walking out with the fake crowd noise. It was every kid’s dream, walking up those steps, pretending you were a player. I’ve never forgotten that day. Wembley for me was an amazing place, a place I was desperate to come back to in some football capacity.
“ My career is all down to my mother really, so I’ll be thinking a lot about her and the part she played in my life.”
