Karl Darlow redemption story keeps Newcastle United heads above water

IT is exactly a month since Martin Olsson fired a shot into the Newcastle goal, past Karl Darlow, in the 93rd minute, for victory, and Carrow Road clacked their clackers.

It was Darlow’s second Premier League appearance. The first had also ended in defeat, at West Bromwich Albion, when a malaise took hold of Newcastle United so severely that Steve McClaren, no matter what he tried, could not quell.

By the time Rafa Benitez led his new football club to Norwich, Newcastle were on their third goalkeeper. The first choice, Tim Krul, had damaged his cruciate whilst on international duty with Holland.

When the same fate befell Rob Elliot, the good folk of Tyneside knew they were being mocked by the footballing Gods as they headed towards the Championship.

Darlow, part of a £7 million deal that also saw Jamaal Lascelles signed from and then loaned back to Nottingham Forest in the summer of 2014, bore the look of a man heading to the gallows. He conceded three times at Norwich, the third, from Olsson, in that 93rd minute.

He looked beaten. A football club looked beaten. A city appeared lost. The gap to Norwich City and their happy clackers was six points. It was a month ago remember, we are not talking late 2015 and it would get worse (somehow) before it got better, when a capitulation of even greater magnitude took place at Southampton.

Newcastle were sinners against the Saints that day but it gave Benitez full autonomy (if he did not have it already) to rip up a dressing room and a team and a rotten malaise and bring a quiet revolution to a football club with a handful of games remaining in a season.

From a starting point of zero, for Darlow, the third choice goalkeeper Benitez had to turn to, came a clean sheet against Swansea, and against the European Cup semi-finalists, it was only a linesman flag that did for the goalkeeper. There were two at Liverpool, but that first half showing was so poor it could have been 10. Yesterday came another clean sheet.

No one ever talks about the first brick but finding a foundation, in the midst of complete chaos, was vital to providing the most unlikely of starting points for the most unlikely of revivals.

Still, none of that compared to the penalty save that was in front of the Gallowgate End, when Newcastle led one-nil through a superb Andros Townsend free-kick, and only 20 minutes remained. It was about the moment goalkeepers must dream of, rather than those, like at Norwich, for which they must dread, when he dived to his left when Mike Dean had given a penalty for a stray Moussa Sissoko arm that few, if any, actually saw, and he stopped the goal that would surely have deflated so much of the Benitez revival.

At that moment, Newcastle’s support seemed, genuinely, to begin believing that there could yet be a miracle at the end of their misery.

“Do I feel like a hero? No I don't! Not at all,” said Darlow. “There is a long way to go, three points was the main objective and Andros's goal was unbelievable, and that keeps us going for the rest of the season.

“Was it the most valuable save I’ve made? Possibly. In football you have different moments in your career that you remember and that will definitely be one of them if it keeps us in the division.

“I don't have a clue what went on with the penalty.I thought he had blown up for a foul on one of our defenders so I was just getting ready to take a free kick and then he pointed at the spot. Thankfully I guessed the right way.

“There wasn't much going through my mind. It was one of those where I had just picked the way to go and then dived hard and then reacted to the ball. Hopefully I went the right way and then the ball was there and I made the save. It was a good moment for me and those three points could be massive come the end of the season.”

They were three points that moved Newcastle two clear of Norwich, an incredible eight point swing in just a month.