With the 2022 World Cup finals in Qatar well under way, we're looking back at previous tournaments, recalling the Newcastle United connections, and remembering what else was going on in those years.
So far, we've covered the World Cup finals from 1950 to 1966. The 1970 finals took place in Mexico at the dawn of a new decade when, for the first time, some folk were able to watch the action unfold on newfangled colour television.
Mexico ‘70 became a benchmark for the so-called beautiful game, symbolised by the brilliant yellow of the Brazil team in all their glory. For football fans in pubs, workplaces and schoolyards, it was more or less accepted who the world’s best players were at the time. If the likes of George Best, Bobby Charlton, Eusebio and Franz Beckenbauer were high up the list, it was Brazil's number 10, Pele (already a World Cup winner in 1958 and 1962) who by general consensus was the finest player on the planet His legend would be cemented during the 1970 World Cup finals.
READ MORE: Newcastle United at the World Cup: 1950 - Wor Jackie and George Robledo
Closer to home, Joe Harvey's Newcastle United enjoyed a solid season in the league, finishing seventh in Division One, but again managed to tumble out of the FA and League Cups in the early rounds - to Southampton and Sheffield United respectively. Huge crowds, meanwhile, flocked to St James' Park to watch the Magpies defend the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup they had brilliantly but unexpectedly won at the end the previous season. The team, featuring Wyn Davies, Pop Robson, and Bobby Moncur, battled bravely through to the quarter-finals where they succumbed in the dying minutes to Belgian side Anderlecht after a late away goal at a raucous St James'
Away from football in 1970, Ted Heath's Conservative party unexpectedly won the General Election; The Beatles broke up; and the world watched and waited as the Apollo 13 astronauts on their way to the moon survived exploding oxygen tanks and power failure, then somehow managed to steer their stricken craft back to earth.
For folk living their daily lives 52 years ago during a time when the average weekly wage was around £32, a loaf of bread cost 9p, a pint of lager in your local was 20p, and a trip for two to the cinema cost less than 90p. Home buyers could expect to pay £4,975 for a house, while the Range Rover, which was launched in 1970, could have been yours for £1,998.
When the 1970 World Cup finals kicked off on May 31, any Newcastle United involvement was strictly tenuous. The Ashington -born Charlton brothers Bobby and Jackie, alongside Gateshead -born Norman Hunter, and County Durham-born Colin Bell, were in the 22-man England squad attempting to regain the trophy won so memorably four years earlier.
The Brazil team, featuring Pele, Jairzinho, Rivelino, Tostao and Carlos Alberto, which beat Italy 4-1 in the final to lift the Jules Rimet World Cup for the third time, is still seen as arguably the greatest of all time On the way to the final, they beat an England side with a clutch of world-class stars of its own, including Bobby Charlton, Bobby Moore and Gordon Banks.
England bowed out in the quarter-finals, losing 3-2 to West Germany who avenged their Wembley final defeat of 1966. Some of the blame was apportioned to goalkeeper on the day and future Newcastle United coach Peter Bonetti who was replacing the sick Banks between the sticks and truly had a game to forget.
Finally, a couple of footnotes. Later in 1970, on September 30, more than 56,000 fans turned out at a floodlit St James' Park to watch Newcastle United beat Italian giants Inter Milan 2-0 in a pulsating, sometimes violent Inter Cities Fairs Cup clash. Four of Inter's players that night - Facchetti, Burgnich, Mazzola and Boninsegna - had played in the Italy team which lost to Brazil in the World Cup final just a few months earlier. Read about it here.
On June 4, 1972, United were in the Far East on a four-match end-of-season tour when they lined up against the crack Brazilian club side Santos for an exhibition match at Hong Kong's Happy Valley Stadium. The great Pele, by then 32, starred for the Magpies' opponents that day, scoring a 15-minute hat-trick. Read about it here.
READ NEXT:
- Newcastle United at the World Cup: 1954 - The sometimes-forgotten Magpies striker
- Newcastle United at the World Cup: 1958 - three Magpies and the arrival of Pele
Newcastle United at the World Cup: 1962 - The infamous 'Battle of Santiago'
Newcastle United at the World Cup: 1966 - the Magpie who nearly made the England squad
