At kick-off Newcastle fans unfurled an enormous banner emblazoned with the message: “Bad times don’t last but legends do.”
Those words were superimposed on giant images of Eddie Howe and his players as a manager and a team that spent most of last season fighting relegation completed one of football’s more remarkable transformations.
No matter that this was far from a weary looking Newcastle’s most convincing performance; the resultant point sealed a top four place and, with it, the glittering prize of participation in next season’s Champions League.
If many Tynesiders, mentally at…
