You played 354 times for Newcastle across 12 years, yet the only trophy you lifted in the North East was the Championship title with Sunderland, during a loan spell early in your career. Isn’t that ironic?
I suppose it is. In fact, it’s a bit embarrassing! I was a kid on loan [from Blackburn] when Sunderland won promotion under Peter Reid, and did fairly well there. I’d love to have won some silverware at Newcastle, but the way I look at it now is that countless outstanding players have entire careers without winning a thing, and that doesn’t make them any less great. The bottom line is that most of the teams I was in weren’t quite good enough to win anything. That sounds
