It feels like I’m finally waking from a two-decade Knight-mare
Updated . First published at
It's been a tough few years.
COVID? Cost of living crisis?
Knights fans are a loyal bunch. Getty Images
Nah. It’s been a tough few years supporting Newcastle.
It's a funny thing, being a sports nut.
You pick your teams at a young age and then let their fortunes dictate your mood for seasons on end, year after year.
I was six when the Knights won the 1997 premiership - “down the blind, Andrew Johns, inside for Albert, Albert will score! Newcastle have won the grand final!“.
I wasn't from Newcastle. I was a kid from the bush, hundreds of kilometres from the nearest city and with no geographical ties to any NRL team.
But I loved rugby league, I needed a club to support, and the Knights were the obvious choice.
They were playing finals, winning titles. They had Joey Johns. And most of the cool kids at school were already wearing the red and blue of the famed steel city.
I jumped right on the bandwagon and rode it to another premiership in 2001.
They were the halcyon days.
Then the slide came.
In 2004, we missed the finals for the first time in seven years - the first since I became a fan.
Andrew Johns was the hero in 1997 and 2001, but it’s been a lean run since. Nine
In 2005, we collected the wooden spoon. Little more than a year later, Joey called it quits.
The halcyon days were over. Welcome to reality, kid.
Then the rot well and truly set in.
Financial difficulties gripped the club. Mining magnate Nathan Tinkler appeared as the white knight, but proceeded to turn the team into his own personal play thing.
Super-coach Wayne Bennett was parachuted in with the promise of restoring the side to its former glory.
We played a preliminary final in 2013 but missed finals either side of that.
The Bennett era was a failure. Tinkler stopped paying players and staff, and shut up shop in 2014. They left the club in disarray, needing the NRL to bail us out.
Dane Gagai of the Knights celebrates with fans. Getty Images
The club was on its knees. Three consecutive wooden spoons from 2015-17 tested loyalties like they had never been before.
Things were grim. But Knights fans don't throw the towel in so easily.
Even during those junk seasons the supporters kept showing up, filling the seats and flying the flag.
The average crowd figure at Hunter Stadium only dipped below 15,000 once, during the second wooden spoon season in 2016.
The average crowd has been above 20,000 for the last four years, back to what it was following the 1997 triumph.
Most other NRL clubs could only dream of that kind of on-the-ground support.
“The one common denominator every week, the ground will be nearly sold out, even when they were struggling,” Johns, the eighth Immortal, told Nine’s Freddy and the Eighth this week.
“Going through those tough times, makes the sweeter times even better.
“I got sent so many things on Instagram, videos of people at the pubs after they won (against the Warriors on Sunday), people dancing on tables.
“It goes to show how much it means to people.”
When the siren sounded at Eden Park on Sunday it was an odd feeling. I was in disbelief. A state of shock, almost.
A preliminary final? We’ve only experienced that once since 2001 when we went all the way. The Knights haven’t made it this far in the season since 2013.
In the moments after we beat the Warriors, fans flooded the NRL website to snap up tickets to this week’s game against Penrith.
As of Wednesday, Newcastle fans accounted for about 65 per cent of tickets sold to the game in Sydney.
Whether we beat the Panthers or not doesn’t matter. Knights fans are feeling a sense of pride and belief that has been foreign to us for so long.
Justin Holbrook is the white knight Tinkler and Bennett failed to be. He took players down the mines in pre-season to remind them who they play for, who fills the seats at Hunter Stadium every weekend.
The steel is back. It feels like 2001 again. Wheel out Silverchair and stick Joey on a skateboard.
And if we do win on Sunday? Well, that will be better than Lego.
