EDDIE HOWE hailed his Newcastle United “history makers” as the Magpies finally ended their 70-wait for a major domestic trophy at Wembley.
Newcastle were crowned Carabao Cup winners as they beat Liverpool 2-1 on a historic occasion for the club.
Dan Burn headed the Magpies into a deserved first-half lead, with Alexander Isak doubling their lead as he fired home early in the second half.
Federico Chiesa ensured a nervy finale when he scored in stoppage time, but with more than 30,000 of their supporters inside Wembley, Newcastle held on to claim their first piece of major silverware since the 1969 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup.
When Bruno Guimaraes and Kieran Trippier lifted the trophy in the royal box, they ended a wait for a domestic cup success that stretched back to the 1955 FA Cup final.
“We were well aware of the history and we wanted to do the club proud,” said Howe, who, like his players, has now etched his name into Newcastle’s record books. “We wanted to score, we wanted to perform and we wanted to win.
“We are breaking new ground. I thought we were magnificent today. I am very, very emotional and have been all day, which is unlike me.
“We knew what was at stake today for all of our fans – we wanted to do them proud and win the trophy. I am so, so pleased with the result and the performance – we deserved to win today.”
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Howe was delighted to see Burn opening the scoring, with the defender capping a fine week that also saw him secure a maiden call-up to Thomas Tuchel’s England squad.
“We worked consistently for two weeks on set-plays just for this game and if you had seen us in practise, you would have said we had no chance,” said Howe. “We couldn’t believe Dan Burn scored – he didn’t train like that! He was a colossus for us.
“Both teams were quite direct and we dealt with that really well. Nobody wanted to make a mistake, there wasn’t much pretty football played but we were effective in both boxes.
“We didn’t want to show our hand when we played them a few weeks ago, we still wanted to win that game, we just did it in a different way.”
Howe was part of some emotional post-match scenes that saw Newcastle’s players and staff celebrate in front of the club’s euphoric supporters.
Newcastle’s fans packed out Covent Garden on Saturday evening and created some memorable scenes inside Wembley as they twirled their black-and-white scarves above their heads.
The partying will continue long into the night, and while some of Newcastle’s players will have to get straight back into action as they play for their respective countries during the forthcoming international break, Howe is going to take some time to ensure the enormity of today’s achievements properly sinks in.
“I want to enjoy this first,” said the Magpies boss. “I am always about tomorrow, but I’ll put the coaching books away for a few days.”
