ON THIS DAY

Newcastle United fans thought of a novel way of protesting against their manager, Alan Pardew, on an away-day Premier League visit to Swansea City. They unveiled an apt banner - 'Not a Welsh town, our form in 2014' - which detailed their poor playing form in 2014, mainly Ls and Ds. It proved to be an immediate hit with the media although a few newspapers did spend far too long listing all the Welsh towns that don't have a vowel in their name! For the record it was another D that day (2-2) while Pardew stayed in the job for another 3 months before deciding that a move to Crystal Palace would benefit his career.

In the Premier League match between Newcastle and Tottenham at St James' Park Spurs started the second half with a bit of a disadvantage - they were two players short! Les Ferdinand and Ruel Fox - both former Newcastle players - had lost track of the time and missed the kick off as they were still in the toilets!

Matt Busby is best known as a manager of Manchester United but as a player he made over 300 League appearances for United's great rivals Liverpool and Manchester City. He also made one full international appearance for his native Scotland - on 4th October 1933 - a 3-2 defeat by Wales in Cardiff in the Home Championship.