‘We walked out of the ground and even the stewards were saying ‘look, it’s those fellas off the TV,’ recalls Dylan Brett, one lad from a group of Newcastle United supporters who went viral after wearing Hawaiian shirts with Joelinton’s face included in the design.
If they thought the attention towards their brave fashion choices would stop at a few thousand retweets and being noticed by the West Ham stewards, they were very wrong - it’s gone right to the source of the design, Joelinton himself.
The Brazilian not only got in touch with Dylan, a lifelong Newcastle fan, but even organised to meet him to say thanks for the support. Dylan along with his friends Oliver Gallant, James Mitchell, Luke Maskell and Joe Armstrong, all met up with Joelinton at Newcastle’s training ground. The club’s number seven posed for pictures and handed them all a signed shirt.
READ MORE: Joelinton's Newcastle transformation is named 'one of the stories of the season'
“He put his window down immediately when he clocked us,” Dylan told Chronicle Live, “and said ‘nice shirt, I want one myself'. He was so nice about it. You probably hear this a lot about him, he was so, so nice and really down to earth.”
But the plan to meet up with Joelinton was a week in the making with the Brazilian getting in touch after Newcastle’s 1-1 draw with West Ham United at the London Stadium. Dylan and his friends had travelled down from Newcastle to the capital and although they had been applauded by fellow fans on the train, never expected the reaction from across the world nor from Joelinton himself.
“It’s been crazy,” Dylan conceded. “It’s one of those things you could never have imagined happening. I would never have believed anything like this happing. Already when we went into the ground, one of the lads who wasn’t with us had tagged us and Joelinton’s other half saw him and got a photo with him, so we thought there might be a slight chance he picks up on it.
“It was when we got back on the train at Kings Cross, the second we got through the barriers, I saw a reply from Joelinton on Instagram saying ‘nice shirt - I’d like to give you a Newcastle one each'. There was just disbelief, I froze, said a certain expletive and then everyone swarmed round my phone and started howling at what they were reading! At first I took no notice of it, I thought it was a fan account!.”
Dylan finally replied back and Joelinton promised to organise some signed shirts - even going as far to message him later in the week to promise that he hadn’t forgotten but that he had been busy, and that he would hand-deliver them to Dylan’s home. Joelinton then asked Dylan and his friends to come to the training ground.
“I was buzzing to meet him. I have been all week. I barely slept last night [Monday] – all I could think about was how sound he was going to be. On message, he seemed so nice. It’s been back and forth, after he scored against Brentford, I messaged him to say ‘great header’ and he replied back to say thanks! Even just little things like that - he just gets it.”
WATCH AS FANS SERNADE JOELINTON
The plan for the shirts is actually something Dylan looked at doing a couple years ago after stumbling across, as he puts it, a ‘hideous’ floral top with the Newcastle crest on it that was available on the club’s website. The idea was to get the group to wear these but they, somehow, had sold out, and over time the idea came around that they’d buy up Hawaiian shirts and pick a player to join them.
“I was sold on that but we didn’t have a clue who to put on it! So then we thought there is no better person at this time than Joelinton as he’s gone from nowhere to a fan favourite. After that, it was about which photo to use - using one of him angry wouldn’t have been as good as one of him with a gleaming smile. It was when we were on the train, I posted it on my Twitter, it was then picked up!
“We didn’t think anything of the reaction when we were on the train. People were walking past saying ‘yeah that’s mint that’ but they had seen it from us on the train as opposed to social media. It was only when we got off at Kings Cross and onto the underground that we realised how far the picture had gone.
“It was just luck that we were at the front row of the London Stadium and got spotted. Even in the ground, we thought the most that will happen is that Serena [the club’s photographer] will take a photo and it’ll get posted at half-time. We walked out of the ground and even the stewards were saying ‘look, it’s those fellas of the TV' and then we opened up our phone and it was just messages and notifications from everywhere!”
The group have been swamped with requests from people to buy the shirts - even from Joelinton himself, with Dylan organising one for the Brazilian. In may ways the good reaction to the shirts sum up the good feeling around Newcastle.
“Two or three of my mates were in the beer garden before the game and every two minutes they kept coming back in saying people were asking about the shirts! We’ve had so many people since - to the normal person, people would say too many! We were talking about if this had happened under the Ashley and Bruce era. It could never have happened. The closest we got was Saint-Maximin replying to people on Twitter and people were losing their minds at something so simple as that!”
And what of Joelinton? A man largely criticised in his first two seasons at Newcastle but now arguably the first name on the teamsheet following a transformation under Eddie Howe. But while some had lost all hope Joelinton could become a Premier League player, Dylan maintains he was one of those who never did.
“As much as people will be saying this over the next few months, I’d always kept the faith in him. After that Rochdale cup game, people were hammering him and people can have their view on whether it was right or not but I made so many excuses and stuck by him. It’s so nice to see him getting appreciated.”
Listen to our latest NUFC podcast from the team at Everything Is Black and White
