RANKED! The 10 greatest Newcastle players ever

Back in the Champions League after a 20-year absence, Newcastle are once again aiming for greatness — and a new gene…

Back in the Champions League after a 20-year absence, Newcastle are once again aiming for greatness — and a new generation of players could emulate some of the club’s greats of yesteryear.

Big silverware may have eluded this famous old club since the 1960s, but big players haven’t — and not before that long, long trophy drought, for that matter.

Some true football icons have emerged in black and white over the decades and endeared themselves to the ever-loyal Toon Army with goalkeeping heroics, rock solid defensive displays, midfield dynamism and prolific form in front of goal.

Here, FourFourTwo trawling through the history books to try to determine the 10 best Newcastle players EVER…

10. Malcolm MacDonald

‘Supermac’ scored 95 league goals for the club in 187 appearances (Image credit: Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Malcom Macdonald’s Newcastle career was relatively short — he spent five seasons at St. James’ Park — but he managed enough goals (138) to still be the Magpies’ fifth-highest scorer of all time .

Macdonald, who joined from Luton in 1971, wasted no time in endearing himself to the Toon army and scored a hat-trick on his home debut against Liverpool — which was certainly a sign of things to come: the England international with 14 caps scored at least 24 goals in each of his five Newcastle campaigns.

9.Paul Gascoigne

Gazza made 92 league appearances for Newcastle, the same amount he amassed for Tottenham (Image credit: Danny Brannigan/Hulton Archive)

England have produced few more entertaining footballers than Paul Gascoigne — who broke into the Newcastle first team just over a month before his 18th birthday after leading the Magpies to victory in the 1984–85 FA Youth Cup.

Problems off the field meant that Gaza’s career was never as spectacular as it should have been — but his time at Tyneside is remembered fondly — not least his fine 1987/88 season which saw him earn a then British record £2.2 million to Tottenham.

8. Robert Lee

Keegan famously tricked Lee into signing for Newcastle ahead of Middlesbrough by telling him that Tyneside was closer to London than Teesside (Image credit: Ben Radford/Allsport)

Rob Lee was promoted to the Premier League in his first season with Newcastle — and spent the next decade donning the iconic black and white kit, playing a vital midfield role for Kevin Keegan’s ‘Entertainers’ side.

Capped 21 times by England — for whom he played in the 1998 World Cup — Lee made 267 Premier League appearances for Newcastle, placing fourth on the club’s all-time list in the competition.

7. Shay given

Given played 12 seasons at St. James’ Park (Image credit: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)

One of the most outstanding goalkeepers of the Premier League era, no one between the posts has been a greater servant to Newcastle than Shay Given.

No goalkeeper has made more appearances for Newcastle than Given’s 463 — making him third in all positions to ever play for the club — and no one has made more appearances for the Magpies in Europe than the safe Irishman (54).

6.Kevin Keegan

Despite being born in Yorkshire, Keegan was inspired by his father Geordie to sign for Newcastle (Image credit: Danny Brannigan/Hulton Archive)

Kevin Keegan made fewer than 100 appearances for the club he would later become famous for, but 85 games was all he needed to cement his place among Newcastle’s greatest ever players on the pitch.

After scoring 49 goals in two seasons with the Magpies, the 1978 and 1979 Ballon d’Or winner ended his playing career at St. James’ Park in 1984 (well, until he briefly came out of retirement for the shortest stint with Australian outfit Blacktown City the following year.

5. Bobby Moncur

Moncur is the latest Newcastle captain to lift silverware for the club (Image credit: Mirrorpix via Getty Images)

Bobby Moncur last donned a Newcastle shirt in 1974, but almost half a century later, the legendary defender is still the club’s last captain to lift a major trophy: the 1968–69 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup.

It’s an honor the ex-Scotland international — who also played for Newcastle’s arch rivals Sunderland — would rather not have: “I’m in a club I don’t really want to be with,” he admitted ahead of the Magpies. Carabao Cup final defeat to Manchester United in February.

4.Peter Beardley

Beardsley was a hugely entertaining player at the club during two separate spells in the 1980s and 1990s (Image credit: Shaun Botterill/Allsport)

Peter Beardsley’s mazy dribbles are a staple Premier League year episodes from the 1990s — much of which the ex-England striker spent at Newcastle — having previously left his boyhood club for Liverpool in 1987.

Beardsley, a key creator of Keegan’s ‘Entertainers’ after rejoining the Magpies in 1993, made 185 Premier League appearances for Newcastle and was involved in 91 goals — scoring 58 and assisting a further 33.

3. Hughie Gallacher

Hughie Gallacher’s life, just five feet tall, would fit into a movie script (Image credit: Kirby/Getty Images)

It’s been nearly a century since Newcastle were last crowned champions of England — and Hughie Gallacher was an integral member of that 1926/27 title winning side, scoring 36 goals over the course of the campaign, still a club record for league goals in a single season.

Gallacher scored 143 goals in 174 appearances in five years with Newcastle in total before moving to Chelsea — and he was even more prolific for Scotland, netting 24 times in 20 caps.

2. Jackie Milburn

Milburn was the cousin of Jackie and Bobby Charlton’s mother (Image credit: Allsport Hulton/Archive)

Affectionately known as Wor JackieJackie Milburn’s goals helped Newcastle to three FA Cup triumphs during the glorious 1950s.

Born into a footballing family in Ashington, Northumberland, Milburn spent most of his career at Newcastle, scoring 200 goals in 14 seasons at St. James’ Park — more than any player in Magpies history than Alan Shearer.

Honored with a stand named after him (and a steam locomotive — like you…), and no fewer than three commissioned statues, the legacy of this true titan of Tyneside sport can hardly be more guaranteed.

1. Alan Schelder

“Just the son of a sheet metal worker from Gosforth”, Shearer famously described himself after being revealed as the world’s most expensive footballer in Newcastle in 1996 (Image credit: Mark Thompson/Allsport)

Would anyone else ever top this list? Few would dispute that hometown hero Alan Shearer is Newcastle’s greatest player of all time — and one of the greatest players of the Premier League era.

The Toon legend turned around Match of the day pundit still holds the all-time goalscoring record in the Premier League with a staggering 260 goals (and 200 for Newcastle in total) — and with Harry Kane possibly on his way to Bayern Munich, it could be some time before Shearer surpasses us.

Shearer has never won a major trophy during his career, but there’s no denying his influence on some really great Newcastle teams, including St. James’ Park legends Kevin Keegan and Sir Bobby Robson.

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