NEWCASTLE United’s first-team squad were due to start training at 10.30 yesterday morning. Most were running late. Apparently there was a programme on television that they could not bear to miss, and if such flagrant disregard of club rules would usually leave Sir Bobby Robson incandescent, there the old fellow was, jostling for his place around the set. They settled down for what turned out to be a repeat. But what a story.
The convoluted, caveat-heavy draw for the second group phase of the Champions League did not make for the most scintillating show, but the pairing of Newcastle with Barcelona was enough to make adrenalin surge. Robson’s boyhood club — “My roots, my home” — against the team he coached for a single, trying,