Ad victorem spolias

Whenever people who doubt my authenticity as a football fan ask why I (a man born in the south west of England) support Newcastle United (a team based about as far away from my own town without actually crossing a country's border), I've always been safe in the knowledge that I couldn't be accused of being a glory-hunter.

"They haven't won a single trophy in my life," I've proclaimed with a perverse kind of pride.

So does this pose me with a problem?

No. It might be the first new thing the St James' Park cleaner has had to polish in a generation, but I don't believe outlasting a bunch of European also-rans earns us the right to call ourselves victors.

The purpose of entering the Intertoto Cup is to get into the Uefa Cup, and we still have teams to beat in that particular competition. Saying we're better than Zurich Grasshoppers and Ethnikos Achna is worth nothing when the likes of Benfica, Rangers, Tottenham and a dozen other teams are all still gunning for the same prize as us.

So please, someone wake me up when we've won something real.