Hope springs eternal

Magnificent history-making stuff in Holland last night - a brace from Bellamy, brilliant on his return to the side after injury and suspension, Dyer back to some semblance of form, and a backs-to-the-wall rearguard action to repel wave after wave of Feyenoord attacks. As ever with Newcastle, though, it was far from plain sailing. A night of high drama, as we squandered a two goal lead (the equaliser scored by Lurling, a player who could have been booked five or six times and got away with a single card) only to find a winner in the last minute - the second time this Champions' League campaign we've had cause to thank an opposition goalkeeper for applying the finish, after Juve's Buffon slapped Griffin's cross in the net a few weeks ago to get us some points on the board. And it would have all meant nothing if Juve, already safely qualified, hadn't done us a huge favour by beating Kiev in the Ukraine with a vastly depleted side to record their first away win in the competition for four years (19 matches). Cheers lads! Black and whites stick together!

From here on in, we're up against the REAL big boys - it's looking like one of Real Madrid, Barcelona or Valencia, one of Inter or AC Milan, and one of Leverkusen and Dortmund. More massive games to come, then. And a defiant two finger salute to all those (mainly national journalists) who wrote us off after our campaign started with three defeats, labelling us naive, inexperienced, out of our depth and (effectively) just in it "for a laugh". WE were actually WATCHING those matches. What were YOU doing, you sad bunch of tossers?