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 least, appear already in the airport departure lounge, passports at the ready as, after a 20-year absence, they prepare for a series of European adventures, Leicester are contemplating countless impending trips to rather less glamorous second tier destinations.
The 2016 Premier League Champions may not quite be relegated, not yet anyway, but their slender survival hopes are dependent on Everton…
This article was written by Louise Taylor at St James’ Park and originally published on www.theguardian.com