'You could feel the 12th man's energy feeding the players'
I just love football and everything that comes with it. Except social media meltdowns. But everything else!A week ago, I was worried about Newcastle's second leg in the semi-final after a poor performance against Fulham and an excellent Arsenal showing against Manchester City.I had serious concerns that this fixture was ours to mess up, even though we went into it with a 2-0 lead. What folly!We find ourselves here, a week or so later, in our second cup final in three years. We also advanced to the last 16 of the FA Cup for a bit of extra fun.My nervousness about last Wednesday's fixture was less about the players and the performance they were going to put in, and more about the atmosphere at St James' Park. Newcastle are renowned for atmosphere but, for myriad reasons, it is not consistently the completely raucous cauldron it can be.For some games, it has felt like the crowd has gone in complacent, thus quiet. But for this one, I was worried we would be worried.What a buffoon I was to even consider that. The moment I got near the stadium the atmosphere was electric, and I could tell everyone was up for it as I was walking in.It is a cliche to call the crowd the 12th man, but who cares? We were.You could feel the energy feeding the players - fans roaring at every tackle, every ball won, every free-kick.The joy carried through to Birmingham at the weekend - a different type of game, but one we found a way to win nonetheless.As it stands, we have to simply beat top-of-the-table Liverpool for us to raise our first domestic trophy in 70 years. If we can generate that kind of atmosphere at Wembley, we might just do it.Find more from Charlotte Robson at the True Faith: Newcastle United Podcast, external
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