The emotions, several whirlpool’s worth, were felt by the thousands present, hundreds of thousands watching from Tyneside and millions worldwide. Something changed. Forever. For some, it shifted everything, a collective of friends, family, loved ones and strangers, all bound irreversibly together.

Societies and cultures form around football and this was football. This was community. This was art and the game is art. Yes, it remains a hobby, a sport, still primitive despite all the detail. But it is both natural and man-made, abstract and pre-planned, full of colour and, of course, black and white. Pure, unadulterated emotional oblivion.

16th March 2025. Wembley Stadium. Newcastle United. Carabao Cup Winners.

Each person’s take, the lens through which they viewed the victory, was unique. Over the August Bank Holiday weekend, the club attempted to capture a fraction of this on the first floor of the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art. Across four days, 20,000 supporters passed through the exhibition, each leaving with their own takeaways.

It was on returning from United’s open top bus parade that club photographer, Serena Taylor, and Head of Brand and Marketing, Natalie Raine, chatted. Taylor explained that scores of fans had contacted her requesting access to her photos. She floated the idea of a coffee table book and Raine loved it. “But when I took a giant step back, I thought, ‘well, if you're going to do that, why would you not have an exhibition?'” Raine said.

Raine’s creative cells began whizzing and, while some suggested an in-house show, she identified the gallery by the Quayside as the perfect spot. “This was about putting the work in the right place and offering fans the chance to see it for free.

“The Baltic was the obvious place in Newcastle, and I’d worked really closely with them previously. It’s a charity, so it's giving back to the community, which we know is really important to Newcastle fans, and it's a contemporary art space, so it made complete sense to work with them.”

The most common conversation Raine had over exhibition weekend was with supporters who had never visited the space. This was music to her ears. “People sometimes think art is a barrier, they think ‘oh no it’s an art gallery, it’s not for me’,” she explained. “But actually, it is a community space. The Baltic has a café, the views, a restaurant, loads for kids. I think we showed that art is for everybody – not just the upper-classes.”

****

As every story has a beginning, so does every artist’s journey.

A 14-year-old Taylor, who initially dreamt of cooking professionally in Bendigo where she grew up, grabbed her mum’s camera and scuttled off to her friends’ basketball game. The blurry outcomes disappointed but did not dishearten her. Taylor’s first full-time job was in a local camera shop. She then lived in London briefly, toured the world for several years and, since Valentine’s Day 2004, has called Newcastle home.

Having left school at 16, Ewen Spencer earned his keep in restaurants, shops and factories. Doors slid when, having hit his early 20s, Spencer enrolled in an art course at Newcastle College “just to change my circumstances – it was a little one-dimensional at the time”.

A year on, he was studying at Brighton University’s School of Art. Soon he landed his first major gig: photographing Massive Attack for American alternative rock-and-roll magazine Ray Gun. “They were really kind and generous to us,” he recalled. Three decades away from Tyneside has barely melted his accent. “We got a lovely set of pictures. They invited us into their world.” Now he is an award-winning photographer and videographer, who directed United’s first kit launch stills after rekindling its Adidas relationship.

Tom Nipper is now one of the club’s videographers. He recalls being inspired by time spent watching his Grandad Tom photographing landscapes on the Quayside. A journalism degree at Salford University was the obvious choice and, having narrowly missed out on a job at Manchester United, he came home.

As a bairn, Jimmy Turrell would doodle while sat on the floor. His childhood canvases were “rolls of carpet inners” that his old man supplied. “From when I was two or three, I’d sit and create these huge narrative structures,” he said. “A stick man to start with but then it would become Star Wars or Indiana Jones, whatever I was into at the time. Pencil, crayon, paint.

“It was like when you buy a kid a really expensive present, but they play with the cardboard box for hours. This I could create myself. I didn’t need someone else’s narrative or pre-conceived ideas. You’re at the coalface.” He later studied at Central St Martins School of Art and is now a decorated graphic designer.

Together Raine, Taylor, Spencer, Turrell, exhibit designer Will Knight, Nipper, Taylor’s all-female photography team of Harriet Massey and Michelle Mercer, Nipper’s colleagues Laurence Munslow and Michael Dicks, and an army of others pulled the show together.

Of the non-club staff Spencer, Turrell and Knight, Raine explained: “They are all prestigious in their own right and they’ve all come back to the region. Together they brought that juxtaposition between football, fashion, culture and music. It was all very authentic.”

A final guest artist was South Korean illustrator and graphic designer Joonho Brian Ko. He interpreted the exhibition using the Magpie, which is, as well as a symbol representing United, is his country’s national bird. The exhibition was taken to Seoul as part of the club’s pre-season tour.

The exhibition also paid tribute to Diogo Jota and his brother André Silva who tragically passed away over the summer.

****

The old Baltic Flour Mill stands adjacent to the River Tyne on the Gateshead side and is accessible from Newcastle via the tilting Millennium Bridge.

Float west a few hundred yards and the Tyne Bridge, the face of so many pictures of the city, perches high up, peering down at all below it. Travel east past Byker, Wallsend and Howdon on the north bank, Jarrow and Hebburn on the south, and eventually the North Sea appears, the river mouth flanked by North and South Shields. For centuries a hive of activity, a major route for coal export and, later, a hub of shipbuilding expertise, the river is much quieter these days. History though, still rises from the water.

It is preview night and newcastleunited.com is present to chat to those involved in bringing the exhibition to life. On exiting the lifts, Spencer begins strolling around. He and Turrell are a pair of local artists, boys done good, who curated the exhibition. They were set loose, able to “rifle through all of the photography from the whole cup run,” Spencer explains.

From thousands of images, only 80 made the cut. It was a new look for football photographs, which are generally found exclusively in a selection of newspapers and online publications, the club’s official website and social media. The gratification is necessarily instant. The odd snap gets re-used but the overwhelming majority sit in a virtual cloud never to be viewed again. “We wanted something a bit more intimate,” Spencer continues. “We wanted to find pictures that spoke to the whole family and the idea of the club.”

What surprised Spencer was “how many live actions shots I liked”. He gesticulates at a photograph Taylor bagged of Joelinton from United’s victory over Nottingham Forest in the second Round. The Brazilian’s muscles bulge beneath his skin and both feet hang mid-air. It looks like he is levitating.

After pausing for thought, Spencer points at an image of Sandro Tonali interacting with a young supporter after the game finished. The Italian returned at the City Ground following his 10-month suspension and was serenaded by the away end all night. “I thought it would be more about this, but we found so many great moments of celebration, jubilation, joy amongst the players.”

Once photographs had been selected, Spencer and Turrell turned to the running order. “It was not tightly chronologised and we wanted to capture a mood,” Spencer says, while standing before a triptych from United’s fourth round win against Chelsea in October.

An Editorial Photography graduate, he cites the influence of American photojournalist W. Eugene Smith: “People like him crafted the art of an editorial running order and the process behind that. A great opener, some quieter, more intimate moments to draw you in, and then more explosive and heart-warming moments. The idea was to capture those principles.”

Spencer’s description could be applied equally to any gig, any piece of literature and many football matches, albeit sporting outcomes are not pre-determined. It could be used to describe United’s trophy winning campaign.

Theoretically, Spencer knew exactly what he was arriving to view, but in practice he is seeing his and Turrell’s plan come to fruition in real time. As he chats to newcastleunited.com, Jimmy Nail’s Big River provides the backing track, and he breaks his flow only to pass comment. “I love this entangle of legs. It’s lush. Really poetic,” he says suddenly, voice and cadence both raised. After all he has done, all he has achieved, this still raises the pulse.

Spencer stops next to a snap of Dan Burn doing his infamous dressing room dance. United had just secured their Wembley spot. A handful of other players are visible in varying focus levels. Each looks ecstatic. “This is here for a reason. It’s a pause. It’s a fun little image.”

Spencer is asked how he and Turrell account for the fact that most people don’t view art in that way. “It could be in your subconscious,” he explains. “It’s really apparent to Jimmy and me that it will work like this. And the wonderful thing about any art form is – whether a book, a piece of literature, a poem, a single picture, or a group of pictures – it is open to a personal interpretation. It’s all subjective, isn't it?”

Why does Spencer love photographs? “They can alter your perspective on things. It challenges your prejudices, that’s what it does. One single still photograph can alter your judgment. I think it’s good to do that.”

A metre further on, an iconic black and white image of Guimarães, arms aloft, hangs to the wall. Between Burn and Guimarães is a young lass cradling a home-made doll with the Brazilian’s face affixed to it. A lad, presumably her brother, wears an expression that screams pure, unfiltered ecstasy. “We’ve all been in this lad’s moment,” Spencer says. “Total escapism and also community.” Then his attention switches to the girl. He reaches to tap on the glass frame but then catches himself. “She’ll never forget this, man.”

Spencer watched United’s victory over Liverpool at home with his girlfriend. They had returned from holiday just in time. “She had an objective point of view on my reaction. She could see how important it was!”

****

“What is a club in any case? Not the buildings or the directors or the people who are paid to represent it…It’s the noise, the passion, the feeling of belonging, the pride in your city. It’s a small boy clambering up stadium steps for the very first time, gripping his father’s hand, gawping at that hallowed stretch of turf beneath him and, without being able to do a thing about it, falling in love.” Sir Bobby Robson, My Kind of Toon

The glue binding every exhibit, every visitor, all those inhabiting the city and Mags world-wide is Newcastle United Football Club.

For some, the club seeped into the subconscious from early. Turrell’s ears first heard the St James’ Park turnstiles click aged four. United lost to Derby County but he remembers no details of the match. Imprinted in his mind though is standing in the Strawberry while his dad enjoyed a half-pint with his old pal [Richie Foster].

“I was hooked,” he explains, his eyes half-closed, nose visibly twitching. The sounds, smells and sights all coming back to him as he speaks. “The fans and the noise… to see that amount of humanity in front of you…it was visceral, and it was visual. I was in. I’d just started playing and, even at that age, you get that connection – ‘wow, it could lead to that one day’.”

“If you're born here, that's it,” Spencer adds. “There's only one club here so it’s in you anyway. The ground being in the city centre means you can’t really avoid it, and what is there to avoid anyway?! It’s great. It’s part of the culture of the city.”

Spencer first attended as a teenager with “a bunch of shit kickers from round my way.” His pals, in other words. Having lived on the south-coast since the 1990s, he has a close friendship group who meet to watch games together. “It’s even stronger isn’t it,” he says of the bond. “You're going to pubs to watch the match, surrounded by Arsenal fans.” He explains, wearing a broad grin, that they always buy tickets in the home end for United’s trips to Brighton, but they are, despite best efforts, always easily identifiable.

Nipper is much younger, still in his 20s. A South Shields lad, he had a season ticket in the Sir John Hall Stand before he worked at United. He misses the “family aspect” of match days, these days having to settle for giving his dad and brother “a little wave”. But his view is very different now: he is part of the team responsible for Match Cam and is, along with his videography colleagues, responsible for much of the footage available in the darkened cinema room found off the exhibition’s main corridor. “The angle I have now is something you cannot pay money for,” he says, eyes doing a merry jig. Pitch side. Behind the Goal.” Magic.

The club’s journey to Taylor’s heart is vastly different. After several years as a photographer on cruise ships, love brought her to Newcastle. One day she clocked a small advert in the classified section of a newspaper advertising for an assistant photographer at a local sports club. There was a number to call. She called it. Twenty one years later, Taylor is arguably the club’s most recognisable figure outside the playing and coaching staff.

All those who featured in the Baltic - the sons, daughters, mums, dads, brothers, sisters, friends, loved ones, strangers who leapt around in joy or caught each other’s eyes in moments of tension - have their own start line. Each is distinctive. Each is glorious. Each is Newcastle United.

****

"If they want a quick game, coming here, let's f***ing give it to them! Let's blow them away with our running, let's be intense in every action that we do.... let's go!" - Eddie Howe, Newcastle United manager, 2 April 2023

Turrell stands proudly before what was, a matter of hours previously, a giant white wall. It made for an intimidating canvas. But in the nick of time, it had been covered in peeling, coarse, layers of green, blue and yellow. Viewing eyes would flicker from quotes to lyrics to pictures, of Guimarães and Joelinton, of Howe, of Anthony Gordon (“added just an hour before everyone arrived…I hope it is dry!”) and, slap, bang in the middle, even larger than in real life, Burn.

Turrell’s working life began with Mixed Mag where he illustrated its Parallel Universe column. The protagonist travelled the world taking illegal drugs and Turrell had to provide the pictures.

When he was 22, the Prodigy called asking him to create the album cover for Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned. It was the next record after The Fat of the Land, which reached number one in 17 countries. Turrell therefore assumed his friends were prank calling him, but it really was band co-founder Liam Howlett on the line.

But that, and what he has achieved in his career, are light years from home, the place where he attended the same school as United legends Andy Carroll and Paul Gascoigne. “They had to create a new set for me in maths,” he jokes before he pivots under Burn’s giant shadow.

“He [Burn] is the ultimate Geordie dream. It’s Roy of the Rovers stuff. I knew Dan was going in the middle, Eddie on the right and Bruno and Joelinton up there on the left. Everything else was on the fly.” The colour palette is that of Brazil, but also “the aesthetics of the Byker Wall are in my blood.”

He is big on primary colours, so yellow and blue are favourites. He sketches out his ideas and then puts it all together later. He is more analogue than digital so leans into the skills of others where necessary. However, he rarely travels anywhere without a pad and pencil.

Artistic blood did not run in the Turrell family. Jimmy and his brother John, the founding member of Northern Funk group Smoove & Turrell, certainly had pints of the stuff but dad fitted carpets and was a fireman, while mum worked as a cleaner and then a fitness instructor. “They even say ‘what is going on here’. It must have skipped a generation!”

Turrell doesn’t say it and he doesn’t have to: United and his family are clearly his world. In the early hours of opening night eve, his dad is present as he ascends a cherry picker to pull everything together. During a Q&A session the following evening, Turrell points his mum out in the audience. Both parents sported proud looks brighter than anything Turrell uses in his work.

They, and the subconscious draw of the city and its football club, are why, after 15 years in London, Turrell came home. “I’d been back for a match and to see my folks,” he began. “As I crossed the Tyne Bridge on the train I got a single man tear. The next day I was stuck on the tube with a sweaty arm pit in my face. I was done."

Of the giant collage behind him, Turrell explains “I wanted it to feel energised and dynamic. And I wanted that to feel like layered energy. That’s why I leave stuff hanging off. I wanted it to feel like it’s a billboard where a lot has happened before.” He has perhaps created a physical manifestation of the 56 barren years, the relegations, the shattered hope, the broken dreams, that came before that Wembley day.

The Geordie “grit” to Turrell’s work stems from some “super dark” days in Deckham, two miles due south of where he stands speaking to newcastleunited.com. His dad had caught a teenager robbing their neighbour and hauled him into the family home. A sob story followed but the police had already been called.

“That's when the bricks came through the windows,” Turrell recalls, his voice’s metronome noticeably slowing. “People would turn up with baseball bats smashing our cars up. It just went on and on. I was studying at university in Liverpool at the time and it was very difficult to navigate through that. It bled out in my work.”

Turrell’s favourite part of his creation is a quote from Howe before victory over Manchester United in April 2023. It is nothing to do with the cup victory, but art has few rules, and rarely are they followed.

Turrell didn’t attend the final. A ticket was within his grasp “but that would have meant going on my own.” His brother travelled to London, taking it in at Covent Garden, but he headed to his parents’ house in Long Benton. “Me mam was hiding in the other room – she thinks she jinxes it,” he cackles. “When that final whistle went it was something next level unbelievable. I never thought it would happen in my lifetime. Everybody was crying.”

****

“I'm only a sheet metal-worker's son from Newcastle." Alan Shearer, August 1997

The humility that slipped out of Alan Shearer at his Tyneside unveiling is common across the city. If a man – no, not a man, the man – our number nine, United’s record goal-scorer, can remain two-footed on the ground then it stands to reason the rest will, too.

“I’m just the girl who takes photos, that's all I am,” Taylor says in response to a question about how she handles her own mini celebrity amongst supporters. “People recognise me because I take their photo, and they want me to take their photo, but I'm just a regular person.” She is most likely oblivious to the way in which her words echo those of Shearer; his 1997 return home would not have even scratched her consciousness.

Turrell puts across a similar sentiment when explaining his deep love for his work and how it consumes every thought not occupied by United. “I dream about it in the morning, and I think about it when I get up.” He pauses to draw breath. “I’m just a kid from the Byker Wall.”

Spencer shows the same trait when sat on a panel that also includes former Entertainer Rob Lee and current women’s star Shania Hayles. That pair, like Taylor, started as outsiders before rapidly reaching the inner circle. Hayles reveals a tattoo marking her winner in last year’s Tyne-Wear derby. She might be a recent addition to the region, but she gets it already.

Spencer is thrown a starter for ten: what attracted you to the project? The chance to be “set loose” in United’s photo archive “rather than looking at me own stupid pictures” was too good to miss, comes his instant reply. Those “stupid pictures” have graced a half-dozen exhibitions, a similar number of books, NME, and adverts for the likes of Apple, Footlocker and Smirnoff.

Had one engaged any of the 20,000 souls who passed through the exhibition, they too would likely have played themselves down, in doing so self-inflicting injustice. But they at least would have done so in the knowledge that the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne’s power comes in its collective. It is written on one of the flags draped from the ceiling as part of a series from Wor Flags who ran a mini workshop on the Saturday. Made out of two clubs. To form United.

It is what makes Geordies recognisable even when far from home. Spencer recounts a tale containing Sam Fender by way of example. He was socialising with the band Fontaines D.C. in a Brighton watering hole when Fender arrived. The musician had been pre-warned there was one of his own amongst the group. He surveyed those present and “he goes ‘him, he's the Geordie’ and I said ‘aye’. He later told my friend that she’d made a good choice because we are ‘warm people’. That was lush.”

****

A photographer’s job is to be seen but not disturb. That is a difficult task when their remit involves capturing absolutely everything. True, the camera itself is critical but the human holding it must anticipate history before it occurs.

As Taylor treads the gallery’s wooden boards, it is as if she is viewing the pictures for the first time. True, her colleagues were responsible for a gaggle of the pictures displayed, but she will have seen most before. The unseen part of her gig is the hours spent after each game filtering down between 3,000 and 5,000 snaps. At Wembley in March, some 15,000 pictures were taken.

On matchday, Taylor carries three Nikon Z9. One has attached a 400mm lens for distance shots, another a 20-70mm one for when play approaches the penalty area and, finally, a 14 to 24mm lens for close ups. She must switch rapidly between them and lugs, by her own estimations, approximately her own bodyweight in kit around with her.

Her matchday routine, home and away, involves rocking up five hours early. Even then she does not always catch Howe’s arrival. “I like to set up before the other photographers get in,” she explains. “At away grounds I need an ethernet cable so I can send my photos. Some have a limited amount available so it’s a case of fighting for them!” WIFI won’t do? “No, absolutely not,” she responds between chuckles.

In and around the dressing room Taylor is conscientious as she does not want to intrude on the players’ private space. It does not feel like a dream for her. “I don’t know if I can say this or not, but I’m not a football fan. I’m a fan of this club. It’s been the only consistent thing in my life since I moved here, and it means the world.” Taylor wells up as the words pour out.

Taylor does not love football, nor is she originally from the area, yet she adores Newcastle United as much as any local. The club is, alongside her two teenage daughters, one of whom is a season ticket holder, her family. “My heart is this,” she explains. Taylor is both funny and eloquent but does not need words to portray her emotions. One suspects she would be a poor poker player. More tears appear as she says “my heart is producing memories for people that will go into our history book and be there forever…that's what it means.”

Taylor is a conduit between the club and the supporters, capturing raw moments, the bits that fans might otherwise miss. Naturally, she cannot remember every photograph she takes but she points at one of Nick Pope and Sean Longstaff celebrating. “I remember that one,” she says.

“I’d come all the way down from our end to do the pens. I was sitting there, and Nick was here.” She gesticulates to a spot two metres away and continues. “I was like ‘c’mon, Nick, c’mon,’ trying to rev him up. I get really emotional. I wanted him to have the confidence, to know there was another person backing him. That was awesome."

On away trips, Taylor sits near the United fans for the second half, but her positions are sometimes influenced by the players themselves who have direct access to her images. That Alexander Isak and Anthony Gordon were both running towards Taylor after their goals in the semi-final win at Arsenal was no accident.

Perhaps Taylor’s most important role these days is the post-victory group photo. It was a tradition started after Howe’s first win as Newcastle manager.

Burnley were defeated 1-0 back in December 2021 and Taylor was packing up her stuff in the Gallowgate when she got a call from her boss. Howe wanted her in the dressing room. Now. She sprinted across and “at the end of his team talk, Eddie said, ‘right everyone, let's get together (for a) photo’.

“Me being me, I don't like being in front of people. I’m not a centre of attention type of person so I ran across to get into position. But I didn't realise my shoelace was untied and as I jumped up onto a bench a my right foot stood on my left shoelace. I've gone to get up, but that foot didn't clear the bench, and I've gone smack bang straight into a shirt hanger.

“I hit my arm, smashed the lens on my camera and fell over. I turned around and only Miguel Almiron and Security Glen had seen it. Glen came over and picked me up, I took the picture and went outside to collapse on the floor. I had a small hairline fracture on my wrist. I walk over now - they can wait for me!”

Taylor watched the final pitch side at Wembley. United celebrated Isak’s second and ultimately decisive strike in the opposite corner, but she got a shot of Jacob Murphy who flashed before her as he headed to join his teammates. “And then just sat with my hands in my head just crying. Some of the fans got pictures of me crying. It was a lot to do with us having won a trophy, but in reality, it was ‘oh f**k, how much work have I got to do now?!’”

****

Where were you on 16 March 2025? Go on, tell us. We know you remember.