You have all seen it. Once. Twice. Maybe even three times by now. It is not so much a launch video for Newcastle United’s new home shirt, but a celebration of all things black and white by Dan Emmerson, whose father, Peter, was among those supporters ‘going nuts for it’.
“He was just over the moon,” the director told ChronicleLive. “He sent me a message that pretty much made me tear up.
“He said, ‘Best yet, Dan. Only a Geordie could really understand what it represents. Any football fan will recognise how powerful the identity is with the team and the city. Puts a lump in my throat. Well done.’ Messages like that make it all worth it.”
Emmerson, unlike his father and older brothers, does not have a Geordie accent these days after the family moved away when he was just six, but the filmmaker was born in Jesmond and remains a match going Newcastle fan to this day. While shooting, Emmerson made sure to let players and staff know that he was ‘not just some Cockney who was swanning around telling people what to do’. The director even had a Newcastle tattoo to point to if they needed any further proof.
A few days on from the launch, you can still hear the pride in Emmerson’s voice about being involved in the project – even if the premiere came a little earlier than planned.
“It was quite mad seeing that leak on Thursday night,” the 37-year-old said. “We were sort of panicking, wondering, ‘How did that happen?’
“It was meant to be Friday morning and then, suddenly, all the production started messaging on our email thread: ‘Oh my God – someone has leaked it!’ They then just decided to put it out there and then but, hey, we all love a bit of drama at Newcastle. It’s the typical Toon way, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.”
In truth, the early release of the video only raised excitement further on the eve of the launch of the club’s first home kit with Adidas since 2009. So how did it all come about?
Well, it was several months ago now that the Midnight Club agency approached Emmerson with a loose script and an idea for the film, which the director had to bring to life in his own way. The aim was to create a film that would not only resonate with Geordies but with football fans in general, too, with a ‘real love and passion for people of the North East’ running through it.
There was a lot of history to pull from, as seen with the archive footage of Sir Bobby Robson, Kevin Keegan and others, which helped with the ‘scale and wider appeal’. However, as much as the production team wanted to pay tribute to the club’s heritage, they also wanted to ‘bring it to a new audience’ with the help of the current men’s and women’s players. Most importantly, they wanted to capture the ‘ubiquity’ of the shirt.
“It isn’t just a once a week shirt like [Alan] Shearer said – it’s a second skin,” Emmerson explained. “You really feel that when you live in Newcastle and you see the black and white stripes wherever you go.
“That was the starting point. I wanted to lean into some of the culturally iconic memes that we all recognise like Alexander Isak walking his dog and Shola [Ameobi] and the apple. All those little touches we were hoping Geordies would go mad for and they seem super into it.
“It was all about reinstilling that pride in the area and the club because we have a lot to be proud of going forward. It’s amazing to see.”
Rather than being a typical studio shoot with just the players, the club wanted ‘proper filmmaking techniques’ in the words of Emmerson and the budget ended up being ‘quite a decent number’. The considerable production team set out to ‘really stretch that budget’ – running around like ‘mad men’ to shoot as much as they could in three days – and a handful of scenes even had to be left out of the final cut. These include one of a little boy and his mum in the Grainger≈ Market.
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