Inter Cities Fairs Cup

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Overview: Inter Cities Fairs Cup
	P	Won	Drew	Lost	F	A	GD
Home	12	11	1	0	26	3	+23
Away	12	2	5	5	11	18	-7
Total	24	13	6	5	37	21	+16

The Inter-Cities Fairs Cup represented Newcastle's very first foray into European competition. They qualified via a quaint rule of "one city, one team" rather than on merit - and only went on to win the thing!

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Played between 1955 and 1971 the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup was the brainchild of Swiss pools supremo, Ernst Thommen, Ottorino Barassi from Italy and the English FA general secretary, Stanley Rous. Originally set up to promote "international trade fairs", hence its name, the competition was only open to teams from cities that hosted trade fairs and was played on a "friendly" basis.

It soon became quite popular and then became a competition in its own right rather than a series of friendlies. Once it became a competition the rule regarding 'trade fairs' was dropped and entry was to be based upon League position

During the early years of the 'competition' it had a quite peculiar rule of "one city, one team" which allowed Newcastle to enter the competition - their first venture into European competition, even though they finished ninth in the league. This was at the expense of Everton who finished third, but with Liverpool finishing second could not enter, Chelsea and Spurs who finished fifth and sixth respectively but with Arsenal finishing fourth could not enter, so it was Liverpool (2nd), Arsenal (4th), Southampton (7th), and Newcastle United (9th) that got the places.

Newcastle went on to win the competition, beating Ujpesti Dozsa of Hungary 6-2 on aggregate in the two-legged final.

The following season Newcastle reached the Quarter-Finals but were eliminated on the "away goals" rule against the eventual competition winners, Anderlecht. In the final season of the competition, 1970-71 Newcastle were eliminated in the second round by Pecsi Doza who won on penalties after everything was equal after both legs and extra-time had been played in the second leg.

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Inter Cities Fairs Cup : 1968-69
V	Date	F	A	R	Opposition	Notes	Venue
H	11/09/1968	4	0	W	Feyenoord Rotterdam	Round 1, 1st Leg	St James‘s Park
A	17/09/1968	0	2	L	Feyenoord Rotterdam	Round 1, 2nd Leg	Stadion Feijenoord (de Kuip)
A	30/10/1968	1	1	D	Sporting Clube de Portugal	Round 2, 1st Leg	Estadio Jose Alvalade
H	20/11/1968	1	0	W	Sporting Clube de Portugal	Round 2, 2nd Leg	St James‘s Park
A	01/01/1969	2	3	L	Real Zaragoza	Round 3 - 1st Leg	La Romareda
H	15/01/1969	2	1	W	Real Zaragoza	Round 3 - 2nd Leg	St James‘s Park
H	12/03/1969	5	1	W	Vitoria Setubal	Round 4 - 1st Leg	St James‘s Park
A	26/03/1969	1	3	L	Vitoria Setubal	Round 4 - 2nd Leg	Estadio do Bonfim
A	14/05/1969	0	0	D	Rangers	Semi-Final - 1st Leg	Ibrox Park
H	21/05/1969	2	0	W	Rangers	Semi-Final, 2nd Leg	St James‘s Park
H	29/05/1969	3	0	W	Ujpesti Dozsa	Final, 1st Leg	St James‘s Park
A	11/06/1969	3	2	W	Ujpesti Dozsa	Final, 2nd Leg	Dozsa-Stadion, Budapest