Newcastle United legend Alan Shearer FaceTimed an “emotional” Sam Fender after Sunday’s historic Carabao Cup win.
Fender’s home team took home their first domestic trophy in 70 years on Sunday (March 16) after beating Liverpool 2-1 in the Carabao Cup. Thousands of fans headed to Wembley to see the club lift their first European Inter-City Fairs Cup since 1969 and first domestic trophy since their 1955 FA Cup victory.
On the day, the ‘Hypersonic Missiles’ singer was on stage in Berlin, marking the occasion by switching up aspects of his live show to pay homage to his club. He walked out to NUFC anthem, Mark Knopfler’s ‘Going Home: Theme of the Local Hero’, and altered the lyrics to his song ‘Little Bit Closer’ later in the set.
He changed one of the lines from “I never found him” to “his name is Dan Burn” – which came after the player sent Newcastle United one ahead at the Carabao Cup Final with a header in the 45th minute.
On the most recent episode of The Rest Is Football, Shearer – who Fender named his guitar after – touched on the musicians reaction to the historic win. “I was with his agent yesterday and we FaceTimed Sam just after the game. He was crying,” he said.
“The tears were real tears of joy and happiness and everything else. Because Sam’s song ‘Seventeen Going Under’ was blasting out of Wembley, and all the Newcastle fans were singing it. The players were dancing to it. So, you can imagine from his point of view as well why he was so emotional — as were we all.”
Shearer had previously surprised the Tyneside musician at North Shields’ King Street Social Club, with Fender saying in 2019, singing his namesake black and white jazzmaster in a moment Fender said was “the best day of my life”.
The legendary England striker has also shared Fender had given him an invite to his gig in Amsterdam tomorrow (March 19), the penultimate date of Fender’s UK and European ‘People Watching’ tour.
As for ‘People Watching’, the album arrived last month and landed the biggest UK opening week for a British act since Harry Styles‘ ‘Harry’s House‘. It also marked Fender’s biggest ever opening week, selling more units than 2019’s debut ‘Hypersonic Missiles‘ and 2021’s ‘Seventeen Going Under‘ combined.
In a four-star review of ‘People Watching’, NME wrote: “Reflective, analytical and vulnerable, ‘People Watching’ does exactly what the title may suggest: takes stock of the characters, friends and loved ones who have made Fender the person he is today. He approaches each track with sensitivity as he looks back on his life so far – perhaps even with an inkling of guilt – and contemplates who he may be next.”
In other Sam Fender news, the musician recently teased another new album, saying that he is “desperate” to lean into more of a punk-inspired sound going forward, and used his BRITs speech to celebrate the people of Newcastle.
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