Newcastle United Trivia
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49 free Newcastle United trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
Newcastle United were born from a cricket club in Byker, took over a bankrupt rival's ground and have never dropped below the second tier since. This quiz covers the whole story: East End and West End, the rejected names of 1892, the 1900s side that would 'give any modern team a two-goal start', Hughie Gallacher's 1927 champions, the three Cups in five years of the 1950s, Joe Harvey and the Fairs Cup, Supermac, Keegan the player and Keegan the manager, the Entertainers and the 4-3 at Anfield, Shearer's world record and 206 goals, Robson and Dalglish, Mike Ashley and the Sports Direct Arena, Wonga, the Saudi takeover, Eddie Howe and the 2025 EFL Cup, and Isak's £125 million. Early questions suit anyone who has sung 'Blaydon Races'; later ones are for the Toon Army who know their Gallowgate from their Leazes: which colours the club wore before the stripes, why the shirt sponsor caused a player to refuse to wear it, who wrote the song the team walks out to, and what the city motto on the old badge means. Good for a supporters' club night or a Tyneside pub quiz. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's article on the club and its records, and each question shows its source.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Newcastle United trace their origins to an 1881 team formed by cricketers from which district?
Byker
Byker's Stanley Cricket Club started the football team in November 1881. Within a year it took a new name, because people kept confusing it with a club from Stanley in County Durham.
Q 02Newcastle United's forerunner took over the lease of St James' Park in 1892 after which rival club folded?
West End
West End were wound up in May 1892 after a dismal season. Their rivals took on several of their players, most of the backroom staff and the ground that is still Newcastle United's home.
Q 03Which of these was a rejected suffix considered before Newcastle chose 'United' as their name in 1892?
Rangers
Rangers lost out, as did Newcastle City and City of Newcastle. The club settled on United on 9 December 1892, hoping to win over the supporters of both of the city's old rivals.
Q 04Newcastle's first Football League match, in September 1893, was a 2-2 draw against which club?
Woolwich Arsenal
Woolwich Arsenal held them 2-2 in London. A year earlier the Tyneside club had turned down a Second Division place, fearing the gates would not cover the cost of travelling.
Q 05In 1908-09 Newcastle won the league title despite losing 9-1 at home to which club?
Sunderland
Sunderland won 9-1 at St James' Park on 5 December 1908. Newcastle shrugged it off and still finished the season as champions, nine points ahead of them.
Q 06Newcastle's first FA Cup win, in 1910, was against which club?
Barnsley
Barnsley, then a Second Division side, forced a replay before Newcastle won it 2-0. It was the club's fourth final in six seasons, and they had lost the first three.
Q 07Which prolific striker captained Newcastle to their fourth league title in 1926-27?
Hughie Gallacher
Hughie Gallacher stood only 5ft 5in, yet as captain he scored 36 goals in 38 league games in that title-winning season.
Q 08Newcastle's 2-1 win in the 1932 FA Cup final is known by what nickname?
The Over the Line final
The Over the Line final got its name from Newcastle's equaliser: Jimmy Richardson crossed for Jack Allen after the ball seemed to have gone out of play, and the referee let the goal stand.
Q 09Which Newcastle defender scored three goals in the two-legged 1969 Fairs Cup final?
Bobby Moncur
Bobby Moncur scored twice in the home leg against Újpest. In Budapest Newcastle trailed 2-0 at half-time until he struck again straight after the break, and they won 3-2 on the night.
Q 10Malcolm Macdonald said he loved Newcastle 'until' which manager took over and sold him to Arsenal?
Gordon Lee
Gordon Lee sold Macdonald in 1976 for a third of a million pounds. Within months the manager had walked out on Newcastle too, leaving in January 1977 to take charge of Everton.
Q 11Which manager took Newcastle up in 1984 with Beardsley, Waddle and Keegan?
Arthur Cox
Arthur Cox walked out within weeks of winning promotion to the top flight. He dropped two divisions to manage Derby County, who had just been relegated to the Third Division.
Q 12Which Argentine World Cup winner did John Hall replace with Keegan as Newcastle manager in 1992?
Osvaldo Ardiles
Osvaldo Ardiles was sacked in February 1992 with Newcastle in danger of falling into the third tier. Keegan, out of football since he stopped playing in 1984, kept them up.
Q 13Former Newcastle chairman Sir John Hall made his name developing which shopping mall?
MetroCentre
Q 21Which forward scored a hat-trick in Newcastle's 3-2 Champions League win over Barcelona in 1997?
Faustino Asprilla
Faustino Asprilla had arrived back late from international duty, then won and scored a penalty and headed in two Keith Gillespie crosses to put Newcastle 3-0 up.
Q 22Who was Newcastle's interim manager when the club was relegated at the end of the 2008-09 season?
Alan Shearer
Alan Shearer, the club's record goalscorer, left his television work to take charge of the last eight games after Joe Kinnear's heart surgery. He could not save them, and 16 straight Premier League seasons ended.
Q 23In 2011 St James' Park was renamed what, in an interim deal the sponsor paid nothing for?
The MetroCentre in Gateshead, which opened in 1986, was developed by Hall's company. Five years later he won a bitter boardroom battle for Newcastle, buying 79.2% of the club for an estimated £3m.
Q 14Which broadcaster labelled Keegan's attacking Newcastle side 'The Entertainers'?
Sky Sports
Sky Sports coined the name in 1993-94, when Keegan's newly promoted side attacked its way to third place, the club's highest league finish since 1927.
Q 15Newcastle lost a 4-3 thriller in April 1996, later voted the Premier League's match of the decade, at which ground?
Anfield
Anfield saw Stan Collymore score the home side's winner in stoppage time. Newcastle, 12 points clear of Manchester United in January, ended the season as runners-up.
Q 16Newcastle broke the world transfer record in July 1996 by paying £15m to which club for a Tyneside-born striker?
Blackburn Rovers
Blackburn Rovers lost the centre-forward who had fired them to the 1995 league title. He chose his boyhood club and repaid the fee with a club-record 206 goals.
Q 17Which manager quit Newcastle five games into the 1999-2000 season after falling out with senior players?
Ruud Gullit
Ruud Gullit left his two first-choice strikers on the bench for a home derby in August 1999. Newcastle lost 2-1, and three days later he resigned.
Q 18After losing their first three Champions League group games in 2002-03, Newcastle began their escape by beating which Italian champions 1-0?
Juventus
Juventus lost to an Andy Griffin cross that squirmed under Gianluigi Buffon. Newcastle then beat Dynamo Kyiv and Feyenoord to go through, which no team had managed after three opening defeats.
Q 19Graeme Souness broke Newcastle's transfer record in August 2005 to sign which striker?
Michael Owen
Michael Owen arrived from Real Madrid on a four-year deal that his chairman called one of his proudest moments. When it ran out, Newcastle had just been relegated and he left for nothing.
Q 20In which competition did Newcastle win their first European trophy since 1973, in 2006?
The Intertoto Cup
The Intertoto Cup had no final that year. Its trophy went to whichever of the summer tournament's qualifiers lasted longest in the UEFA Cup, and that was Newcastle.
The Sports Direct Arena
The Sports Direct Arena carried the name of owner Mike Ashley's own retail chain. A year later a new sponsor, Wonga, bought the naming rights and used them to give the old name back.
Q 24In 2010-11 Newcastle drew 4-4 at home with Arsenal after doing what?
Coming back from four goals down
Coming back from four goals down took one half. Arsenal led 4-0 at the interval, then had a man sent off, and Cheick Tioté's long-range volley, his only goal for the club, made it 4-4.
Q 25Which Newcastle player, having beaten testicular cancer, scored in the May 2015 win over West Ham that kept the club up?
Jonás Gutiérrez
Jonás Gutiérrez also crossed for the first goal that day. He was released days later, and in 2016 a tribunal ruled that Newcastle had discriminated against him over his illness.
Q 26Which striker refused in 2013 to wear kit bearing the logo of payday lender Wonga on religious grounds?
Papiss Cissé
Papiss Cissé, a Muslim, objected because his faith forbids profiting from interest, and he pulled out of the club's pre-season tour. Within days the two sides reached an agreement and he wore the shirt.
Q 27Which manager stayed with Newcastle after relegation in 2016 and won the Championship title a year later?
Rafael Benítez
Rafael Benítez, a Champions League-winning manager, chose to work in the second tier. He left in June 2019, when his contract ran out and the club could not agree a new one with him.
Q 28Which country's sovereign wealth fund led the consortium that bought Newcastle United from Mike Ashley in 2021?
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund put up 80% of the money in a £305m deal. The Premier League approved it only after assurances that the Saudi state would not control the club.
Q 29Newcastle's first league win of 2021-22 came at the 15th attempt, 1-0 at home against which fellow struggler?
Burnley
Burnley lost to a Callum Wilson goal on 4 December 2021. Newcastle then won 12 of their last 18 games to finish 11th; no Premier League side had survived 14 winless games at the start before.
Q 30What is the title of Amazon's documentary series about Newcastle United's 2022-23 season?
We Are Newcastle United
We Are Newcastle United follows a side that secured a top-four finish and a Champions League place. Only a season earlier the same club had failed to win any of its first 14 league games.