Like Kevin Keegan and Sir Bobby Robson, Eddie Howe is building something special at Newcastle

Something powerful is stirring at Newcastle United, which has not only enlivened and embolden a football club, it has awoken and invigorated an entire city. This has happened before and for those who know their history, the rest of the Premier League should be wary of what might happen next.

To walk through the city centre after Newcastle’s exhilarating 5-1 win over Brentford on Saturday night was to see and hear a city coming alive - confident, outgoing and happy. It was boisterous and loud, not to everybody’s taste, but it had good time vibes. The pubs and bars were packed, the streets were littered with smiling and laughing people of all ages, in various states of intoxication. 

This is why they call Newcastle a party city, but there was something else fuelling the joy other than alcohol in this grand northern town with a wild side. It was also the team in black and white stripes, the usual Saturday crowd’s numbers bolstered by almost 50,000 fans singing their way out of St James’ Park, heading down the hill and into the city to continue the party.

It was not about the one-year anniversary of the club takeover by a Saudi Arabian-led consortium either. Thoughts about sports washing and human rights in a distant Middle East Kingdom, at least for a moment, can be parked. This was just a city and its people having fun, young and old celebrating a night on the town and their football team which has scored nine goals in the last two games and, unexpectedly, sits fifth in the table. 

It was fans marvelling at a player called Bruno Guimaraes, who wears the No 39 shirt and dyed his hair peroxide blonde, for delivering a magnificent midfield performance, scoring twice. It was a celebration of a manager Eddie Howe who has captured the zeitgeist of what this football club means, what it needs to succeed and what needs to be done to get there. In his 11 months, he has already created a team the fans are proud of and have embraced, but this feels like the start of something rather than a climax. 

It reminded those of us who are old enough to remember it, of Newcastle United under Kevin Keegan in the early- to mid-90s and the renaissance that followed under the expertise of Sir Bobby Robson at the turn of the century. 

In the 90s, Newcastle started to revive itself from a depressed, downtrodden industrial city scarred by high unemployment and the traumatic loss of its heavy industry into a party city, renowned for its nightlife. It was hugely popular with university students (I should know, I was one of them). The most obvious expression of its regeneration and returning confidence was its football team taking the Premier League by storm immediately after promotion, playing in Europe, narrowly missing out on the title in 1996.

The names from that era, Alan Shearer, Rob Lee, David Ginola, Les Ferdinand, Tino Asprilla, Phillipe Albert are chiselled into the memory banks - the team dubbed the Entertainers. In the early 2000s, Newcastle surged again, huge infrastructure projects were built on the banks of the Tyne, including the Baltic art gallery and the Sage concert hall. It was not named it, missing out to Liverpool in the vote, but it had become a capital of culture and with it one of the most popular weekend city breaks in the UK.

Tourism had come to Tyneside as well as a thrilling young team and Champions League football. The Premier League era's greatest centre forward, Shearer was still the figurehead, but so too were a new generation of stars: Laurent Robert, Gary Speed, Kieron Dyer, Craig Bellamy, Nolberto Solano and Jermaine Jenas.

As with then, Newcastle have risen from the depths. They were almost relegated to the third tier in Keegan’s first season. Robson took over a team in the bottom three of the Premier League and took them up to third in the Premier League, as well as reaching the semi-finals of the Uefa Cup and beating the likes of Juventus in the Champions League.

The energy feels similar under Howe, whose first job last term was also to save the club from relegation. Under both Keegan and Robson, Newcastle spent heavily in the transfer market to assist the manager. They are doing so again under Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, with £200m spent in just two transfer windows.

But Newcastle’s revival is about far more than money. It is the synergy between city and club, the unleashing of dormant passion and energy in the stands. It is about a special bond being formed and the weight of a city coming behind a club and a group of players on a matchday.

St James’ Park has become a fortress, a frightening place to play.  Not even Manchester City could win there this season and there has been just one defeat on home soil in the last 15 matches.

Newcastle United have momentum and ambition; and it is gathering pace. They are never more powerful than when this occurs and just as they did under Keegan and Robson, they are playing entertaining, effective attacking football which captures the imagination. 

A top 10 finish was the aim this season - and still is - but the Magpies might just end up back in Europe in May if they carry on like this. The city will revel in every moment and its people will walk tall, heads up, chests out. And the rest of the country will look on and wonder what they all have to be so happy about. The Geordies will like that too. They always have done.