That Biarritz defeat also cost players.  John Bentley and Tim Stimpson were dropped after that game, and between them played only seven more games for the club.  In his book ‘The Newcastle Rugby Story’, Alan Hedley states:-

“…there were rumours that both Stimpson and Bentley were unhappy with the forward-orientated style of the Falcons play and had had frank discussions with Andrew, Ryan, and [Steve] Bates…and there would only be one winner in that argument!”

First victims of the Andrew Elbow?  Maybe, but Bentley’s cause would not have been helped by having to play more games at Halifax after the Lions and England tours, thus limiting his chances to have a summer break.  In his autobiography, Bentley says:-

“Physically, I felt just about OK but mentally I was shattered.”

Consequently, after a couple of games for Halifax, he got a rib cartilage injury that at one point was suspected to incorporate a punctured lung.  He then says that he played whilst injured when back at Falcons, became a scapegoat after that Biarritz game.  The relationship between Bentley and the management subsequently got worse, and he sums it up as:-

“He [Steve Bates], Dean [Ryan] and Rob ran an extremely tight ship, too tight in my opinion.  It was like a master/slave relationship.  Do as they say or else you’re out.”

(Quotes taken from ‘John Bentley – My Story’ by John Bentley with Neil Squires, first published 1999)

Bentley subsequently returned to league and Halifax, via a loan stint in union at Rotherham, at the end of the season.  In Stimpson’s case, the emergence of Stuart Legg at full back was an unexpected bonus for Andrew, if not for Stimpson.  He went off to just over five years at Leicester, where he became the first (and so far only) player to play in five successive championship winning sides (1 at Falcons, 4 at Tigers), and became the all time leading scorer in the Premiership (a record that Jonny Wilkinson will hopefully break in this coming season.

The championship race developed into a two horse race as Bath and Leicester, both victims of their own grounds of the Falcons twelve match winning start (and haven’t the Tigers in particular made us pay ever since!), fell off the pace being set by Saracens.  The winning run was ended by Richmond in match number thirteen, just weeks after exiting the Tetley’s Bitter Cup 17-7 at Northampton, a second quarter-final defeat in successive seasons.

The 30-17 loss at Richmond left Falcons two points behind Saracens with two games in hand, but after a December postponement, both games against Sarries (and to that matter, the champions, Wasps) awaited in the last nine games.  Consequently, the 30-25 victory over Sarries, as described elsewhere by Leipziger, put Falcons on top on points difference and very much in the driving seat.  Trouble is, when you get to the top, you’re a target, and the next four games saw that target emblazoned over Falcons hearts as the arrows rained in.

The Wasps home game saw tries for Andrew and Legg, a very narrow 20-13 lead, and massed Waspie pressure before a late, vital tackle by Tony Underwood clinched the points.  I recently asked the referee from that night, Ashley Rowden, of his memories of the game:-

“It was the first time that Wasps had encountered Rob Andrew, Ryan and Steve Bates since their acrimonious departure from Wasps, and was in the days when we were playing league games on Wednesday evenings.

I knew that it would be a tough match for the all the above reasons, revenge, evening game (matches under lights are always harder!) and of course the lovely Newcastle weather -raining and windy!

There were 21 penalties in the match and 8 (yes 8) were for some form of foul play, so it gives you an idea.  The first one came in the opening two minutes when RA put a kick up and Peter Scrivener late tackled him, that set the tone for the evening!

Rob and Lawrence [Dallaglio] also spent the night having a "running" verbal match along the lines of - LBND "Rob shut up, you’re not playing for England now", RA "Lawrence, why don't you grow up"

Two other observations, the official assessor's report stated that "the best decision of the match, was the opening penalty for foul play, it sent the right message to the players"

In the shower afterwards, chatting to Doddie Weir, he didn't realise referees were amateur, he couldn't believe we were only paid £210 match fee, and he was gobsmacked that I would be back at work at 8.30 the following morning in Reading!”

Gloucester away – the Shed baying for blood, Sky cameras, Barnes talking rubbish (and it being proved to be so), and the unlikeliest of victories.  John Pearson, Mr Tommy Tightpants himself, gave Falcons a penalty try; awarded another try when Andrew cut inside, recovered from a tap tackle and scrambled over (something which Barnes criticised Pearson for at the time for a double movement, but it was a decision which was proved to be right at half time); let stand a Peter Walton try after the whole of Gloucester thought Dean Ryan was offside in snagging Scott Benton at a ruck straight from a kick off; and then the clincher, when Paul Van-Zandvliet took out Mark Mapletoft as he looked to chase his chip and score a potentially match winning try.  Hedley describes them as decisions “which sent the Gloucester crowd into a paroxysm of near hysteria”.  And there I was thinking that they were always like that.  With a late Mapletoft drop goal attempt going wide, Falcons hung on 29-27.

Saracens away – another close one, in front of a then record crowd of 19,674.  Pat Lam finally broke the Sarries’ defensive line with ten minutes to go to make it 10-9 to Falcons, but Michael Lynagh won the match in injury time with a drop goal as the two best teams in England fought themselves to a standstill.  There would be worthy champions in either side, but with the teams now on 30 points apiece, who would those champions be?

Falcons now had just the one game in hand, but not one they’d choose.  Four days after Vicarage Road came Loftus Road, and an epic against the outgoing champions.  Falcons sneaked 17-13 in front, but Mike Friday went under (almost literally) a five metre scrum in the corner to put the home side in front.  Andrew, the man who left and left a lot of upset behind him, then had two penalties in the last five minutes to win the game, the first right in front from about 35 metres out, the second on the angle from 45 metres.  Both were missed, amidst an understandable cacophony of booing, and Wasps had hung on for a victory that was greeted with a roar that did not just say that a match had been won; this was a roar along the lines of “stuff you Judas, let’s hope you’ve lost the title”.

The difference now was one of a 32 points advantage for Falcons.  Just when it looked likely to be going down to points difference, another slip.  Saturday 25^th April saw Sarries drawing 10 all with Leicester, and Falcons took advantage on the following day by beating bottom side Bristol 43-18 to go clear at the top.  Subsequent Sarries wins over Harlequins (28-26 after Ceefax originally posted the score as a Quins victory) and London Irish put them back in charge, but if Falcons won their last three matches, then the title would go north of Leicester for the first time.

There then followed the Gateshead experiment.  In trying to maximise crowds, Falcons had switched the league game against Bath back in January to the Gateshead Stadium, sold all 11,000 tickets, but then the game was postponed just three hours before kick off due to a waterlogged pitch.  So it was then, with the Bath rearrangement still to come, that the Leicester match was switched to Gateshead from Kingston Park.  Falcons won 27-10, but that was only half the story, with Ed Morrison carding Darren Garforth, Graham Rowntree, and Richard Arnold, and sending off that renowned hard man of English rugby Will Greenwood for headbutting Andrew near the end.  It was something which still disturbed Greenwood seven years later, for writing in his autobiography, he said:-

“The match was more of a brawl than a sporting contest and, after a series of running scraps, it erupted into a free-for-all shortly before the final whistle...I did my hardman bit as it broke up and placed my forehead to Andrew’s face in my ‘Don’t-mess-with-me-I’m-from-Blackburn’ mode…Even Andrew himself afterwards had the good grace to admit that it was more of a kiss than a headbutt’.”

(Quotes taken from ‘Will’ by Will Greenwood, first published 2004)

Saturday 9^th May – Saracens won the Tetley Cup 48-18 over Wasps, and still led the league by a point.  Two days later, on a rainy Gateshead night, Bath came to town as Falcons played their game in hand.  On a tense evening, a brilliantly worked move between Ryan, Lam and Armstrong sent Tony Underwood flying down the wing to score the first try, and a superb break by Jonny Wilkinson, leaving Matt Perry for dead as he stood him up and surged past, allowed Jim Naylor and Lam again to set up Richard Arnold for a bulldozing charge over the line.  Jon Callard kicked five penalties for Bath, but it was the two late ones from Andrew, and feverish defensive work in the eight minutes of injury time that saw Falcons hang onto a 20-15 win.

At the very worst, Falcons would need a point from the last game of the season at Quins.  If Sarries were to lose or draw at home to Northampton on the Thursday night though, then the title would be wrapped up early.  The comfortable 43-20 win would mean that the drama would go right down to the last day, and the last league game of the season at the Stoop. 

For the second season running, skipper Ryan was missing when it mattered, following up his broken arm of twelve months before by having suffered a concussion in the Bath game.  With the travelling support boosted by dejected Toon supporters after the previous day’s FA Cup Final defeat, Falcons went 17-0 up thanks to tries from Armstrong and Arnold, and from then on it was a case of doing the basics.  The try scorers that day could easily be a list of Falcons legends – Armstrong (2), Popplewell, Arnold, Lam, and Andrew.  44-20, with seven of the twenty coming in injury time, and the title was going to Kingston Park.  Andrew’s first move at the final whistle was to go to his lieutenants, Ryan, Bates and Steve Black, and share the moment.

“They went there when it was just quicksand, they built a skyscraper in two years…” (Stuart Barnes on Sky, Sunday 17^th May 1998)

Referee that day?  That Rowden bloke again, and Ash’s recollections are:-

“The end of season game was special for obviously a number of reasons; live on Sky; title decider; Tommy Tightpants was running touch and looking after me; the culmination of Sir John Hall's master plan; and Inga Tuigamala giving me a huge bear hug before the game! (Of course there will be spectators around the country who say I've not got the respect of the players!!!!)

Just a fantastic day all round, I think it is one of the few games I've kept on tape.

The ironic fact was that my summer holiday had been planned around the matches being played on the Saturday and Sky moved it to Sunday, so when I should have been with the family at Stansted waiting to fly to Corfu, I was arriving at the Stoop for the biggest club game of the season, that is what you call commitment! All as a "part time" official…

From a playing point of view, the Falcons pack was awesome…”

Only one thing remained, the end of season champions versus a World XV game at Twickenham, and amazingly a 41-19 deficit was transformed into a 47-41 win against a team featuring future Falcons Andrew Blades and Marius Hurter, mainly thanks to a masterful performance from Premiership Player of the Season Pat Lam.

Elsewhere, Bath became the first English club to win the Heineken Cup, beating holders Brive 19-18 in a Bordeaux classic, whilst France took a second successive Five Nations grand slam.

At the point of greatest glory, it should have been the end of the beginning for this Falcons side.  Instead, and as we shall see in the next part of the story, it was the beginning of the end…

---

Acknowledgements

I’ve been helped out very much in this part of the story by extracts from three books:-

‘The Newcastle Rugby Story’ by Alan Hedley, first published in 2000;

‘John Bentley – My Story’ by John Bentley with Neil Squires, first published 1999;

Will’ by Will Greenwood, first published 2004;

all three of which are excellent reads which I heartily recommend – Hedley’s for the club history to the end of 1999/2000, Bentley’s for some very forthright views on his time in both codes, and Greenwood’s for grabbing the heartstrings and very much pulling at them.  You’ll know what I mean if you read any of the books.

Thanks also go to Ashley Rowden for proving that he has got a photographic memory and producing, off the top of his head, his memories of the Wasps and Quins game, and also to the work done many years ago on the then Falcons unofficial site.