THE mutual affinity between Scotland and the Geordie nation is well known. Newcastle is only 120 miles from Edinburgh, while the distance to London is around twice that.
Not only have Scots been invading Newcastle intermittently from the 12th century onwards, as recently as 2014, when we were immersed in our own referendum debate, polls and petitions of inhabitants of the North East of England indicated that they too quite fancied leaving England to join a 'new Scotland'.
From Bobby Moncur to Roy Aitken, Mark McGhee to Stephen Glass and Duncan Ferguson, Scots are also writ large in the history of the city's football club, Newcastle United, even if that connection has run dry in the last decade or so.
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Prior to this season Steven Caldwell, who departed St James' Park for Sunderland in 2004, was the last Scot to ply his trade in front of the Gallowgate, but Newcastle have gone Scottish with a vengeance again this pre-season with the recruitment of Matt Ritchie and Grant Hanley from Bournemouth and Blackburn Rovers respectively.
Stuart Findlay, the former Celtic central defender, is another Scot who has joined up, even if his primary focus for now is Peter Beardsley's development squad. But Ritchie and Hanley will be as integral to Gordon Strachan's hopes of reaching the World Cup finals in Russia in 2018 as they are to helping Rafa Benitez's big spending Magpies back to Barclays Premier League big time next season.
Ian Cathro, the former Dundee United youth coach who now has stints as assistant manager under his belt with Rio Ave and Valencia, insists all this is somewhat co-incidental and not down to any parochial personal influence. Brought in originally as part of Steve McLaren's coaching team, Cathro was delighted to be retained under Benitez, the experienced Spaniard who guided Valencia to two La Liga titles and took Liverpool to an epic Champions League win.
It took around £12m of Mike Ashley's money to take Ritchie to the North East from the South coast. While the arrival of £15m man Jordan Ibe was a factor, Cathro praises the 26-year-old for being prepared to drop down a division in order to buy into the potential of playing in front of 50,000 people each week.
"Matt is strong minded, very clear in what he wants to achieve and he is an ambitious guy," says Cathro. "He truly saw the potential of this club, the potential of the moment we are in. Progress needs to take place, growth needs to take place but ultimately the potential is here and he is strong enough to say 'I will go there and lift it back up'. It takes a very strong man to make that choice and I am very respectful of Matt for that. He can be a real great driving force for us, he has good game intelligence and thinks about football. When you add up those things he is definitely someone who can play an influential role for the team."
Newcastle may be blessed with the most expensive squad ever assembled in the SkyBet championship but even that doesn't guarantee you a promotion procession. In addition to Ritchie, the club splashed out on Dwight Gayle, Mohamed Diame and Jonjo Shelvey this summer, with Daryl Murphy of Ipswich likely to be the next to arrive. Shockwaves were reverberating around this one-club city when the season started with back-to-back defeats to Fulham and Huddersfield, but the Magpies have quickly reeled off four straight wins in all competitions and now sit fourth in the table.
"This is not an easy stadium to play in," explains Cathro. "You genuinely need to be strong and able to feel comfortable in what can become quite a pressured environment because there is a demand for the team to be constantly on top in a game, and obviously that is never the case in the course of a 90 minutes. In the moments when that is against you, you need players with character, strength, the type of confidence and concentration, where nothing else which enters their mind and affects their decision making. There's not that many of those players around, or not as many as you would think anyway."
Hanley - who has three thirtysomethings in the form of Gordon Greer, Russell Martin and Christophe Berra for company in Gordon Strachan's Scotland squad - is another strong personality. While it would be overstating things to say he is universally adored by the Tartan Army, by the age of 24 he already has 200 first-team championship appearances under his belt, not to mention 23 caps for his country.
"Grant is very comfortable standing up in physical combats against even the tallest, strongest strikers," said Cathro. "You are talking about quite a young centre back, with an awful lot of experience at a very competitive level. He is improving constantly, and naturally takes a leadership role, that is just how he is.
"Obviously this a different club, a bigger club, with different expectations, bigger expectations," he added. "It will be a challenge for him, because he will have to play in a slightly different way. At Newcastle when we go onto the grass you have to assume the responsibility where 'we have to win this'. That is going to be important for Grant in his progress. But everything he has done thus far suggests he will make good steps in his career here."
The same applies to Cathro himself, who is still just 30, but building up quite a bank of experiences to bring with him when he finally gets a big chance to embark on his own managerial career. "I'm working under a top class manager who has an excellent staff which I have been welcomed as part of," says the 30-year-old, who was linked with Rangers among other clubs last year.
"They all have specific roles and tasks so there are a lot of lessons for leadership and how the manager guides the entire football club. That [being a manager in his own right] is something which will happen, when I don't know, it will depend on making the right step at the right moment. But there is no rush aspect to it right now."
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