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'Ambition was to stick two fingers up to everyone critical of us'
By Liam Heagney
Dean Ryan, Rob Andrew and Tony Underwood have delivered a compelling insight into how Newcastle Falcons made history 24 years ago by becoming English Premiership champions in 1997/98. With the sport having turned professional, the second-tier Gosforth were snapped up by John Hall, the local businessman and owner of Newcastle United Football Club, and renamed the Falcons.
Soon they were laying waste to the elite in the English top tier, reaching the pinnacle when they beat Saracens in the race to become champions at a time when the league was decided by the first-past-the-post system rather than a playoff final at Twickenham.
That breakthrough by the transformed Newcastle has now been recalled in the latest episode of Rugby Stories, the BT Sport documentary series featuring all 13 of the current top-flight clubs.
The documentary opens colourfully with Ryan, the current boss of the URC Dragons in Wales, outlining the Newcastle ambition. “Our ambition was to be successful, our ambition was to prove everyone wrong. Our ambition was to stick two fingers up to everyone that had been critical of us.”
Fellow England international Andrew, a teammate of Ryan’s at Wasps prior to their move to Newcastle, opened: “It was 100 years of amateurism going to professionalism overnight, so nobody knew what it meant. I did describe it as the Wild West, simply because there were no rules.
“People then started buying clubs which was where John Hall came in at Newcastle. The football club bought the rugby club. They then started signing players… Nobody had a contract so I could go and talk to anybody (and say) ‘I’ve got a contract here that is going to pay you to play rugby, probably something you have done for the last decade for nothing. Do you want to get paid for it?’ and everyone was like, ‘Where do I sign?’
“It was absolutely fantasy rugby. I’d signed up all these guys; Doddie Weir, Gary Armstrong, Tim Stimpson, Pat Lam. Newcastle (United) had just bought Alan Shearer, a world record fee and I always remember Sir John saying to me, ‘We’ve got the most expensive footballer in the world playing for Newcastle I want the most expensive rugby player to play for my club’. I said I know exactly who that is. It’s Inga (Tuigamala). That’s how fantasy it was.”
What unfolded from there was a magical mystery ride that culminated in Newcastle winning the Premiership, leaving Ryan to sign off: “We proved everyone wrong because no one believed we could do it.”
- BT Sport’s Rugby Stories documentary series continues on Friday night with A New Dawn, the story of the 1997/98 Newcastle Falcons season. Tune in from 10pm on BT Sport 1. For more information and details on how to watch Saturday’s Gallagher Premiership semi-finals, visit bt.com/sport
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Latest Comments
oh ok, seems strange you didn't put the limit at 7 given you said you thought 8 was too many!
Why did you say "I've told you twice already how I did it but your refuse to listen" when you had clearly not told me that you'd placed a limit of 8 teams per league?
"Agreed with 4 pool of 4 and home and away games?"
I understand the appeal of pools of 4, but 6 pool games might not go down well with the French or the South Africans given already cramped schedules. I do still think that you're right that that would be the best system, but there is going to be a real danger of French and SA sides sending b-teams which could really devalue the competition unless there is a way to incentivise performance, e.g. by allowing teams that do well one year to directly qualify for the next year's competition.
Go to commentsFoster should never have been appointed, and I never liked him as a coach, but the hysteria over his coaching and Sam Cane as a player was grounded in prejudice rather than fact.
The New Zealand Rugby public were blinded by their dislike of Foster to the point of idiocy.
Anything the All Blacks did that was good was attributed to Ryan and Schmidt and Fozzie had nothing to do with it.
Any losses were solely blamed on Foster and Cane.
Foster did develop new talent and kept all the main trophies except the World Cup.
His successor kept the core of his team as well as picking Cane despite him leaving for overseas because he saw the irreplaceable value in him.
Razor will take the ABs to the next level, I have full confidence in that.
He should have been appointed in 2020.
But he wasn’t. And the guy who was has never been treated fairly.
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