OPINION
The only thing better than a hero is a cult hero. It’s easy to love a player who was consistently sublime, but it takes real courage to be head over heels for a player who built a career on being hit and miss. Take Demba Ba. The Senegalese international was, without a doubt, one of the most lethal strikers Newcastle United have had since Alan Shearer’s retirement, with 58 appearances in black and white yielding 29 goals in all competitions. Naturally, he was loved on Tyneside, but his time elsewhere in England was much less successful. Spells at Chelsea and West Ham, while promising, never really got off the ground, and it’s arguable that his biggest lasting impression on the English game was scoring the goal that compounded Steven Gerrard’s infamous slip in 2014. On Tyneside though, he is still absolutely adored. and on the anniversary of him signing for the club, the Toon Army took to Twitter to express their love when the Premier League posted a video of some of his best moments on Twitter. In the period since he left, there’s probably an argument that the closest Newcastle have come to a replacement is Salomon Rondon, just last season. The moral of the story is that players like Ba don’t come around too often.
Nothing but Newcastle have gathered some of the best tweets below:
