AFTER 78 minutes, man of the match Kayode Odejayi collected JJ Melligan’s pinpoint through ball. As he had done for the previous 77 minutes, he bamboozled the hapless Jean-Alain Boumsong before speeding past Celestine Babayaro and, with a dainty skip, rounding Shay Given. The goal beckoned, but Odejayi, hot at the moment cool was required, found only the side-netting.

With that, the home side’s feisty challenge was finally over and if Odejayi’s big moment had gone, visiting manager Graeme Souness, victor of the 12.30 at Cheltenham, was grateful his moment of truth never came.

“The overall feeling is one of relief,” he admitted before citing conditions (ie a mild breeze) as mitigation for his team’s stuttering performance. “Cheltenham must be very proud of themselves,” he said. “I’m not under pressure because I don’t put myself under pressure. Whatever’s going to be said in the future has already been said.”

Taking nothing for granted, Souness had prepared his team with the diligence he would have accorded a Champions League match at the Nou Camp in better days. On Tuesday evening he, plus coaches Terry McDermott and Dean Saunders, trooped to Whaddon Road to observe Cheltenham’s LDV Vans Trophy exit to Colchester United, one of five times the League Two club were scouted.

On Friday, Souness took his troops on a reconnaissance mission, visiting the tiny ground, so his team would not be fazed by “unfamiliar surroundings”.

Poor Cheltenham. Having clawed their way past Carlisle United, Oxford United and Chester City to the biggest game in their 104-year history, the impish gods of football served them England’s second-best supported team. Then, Town discovered their moment in the sun was overshadowed by the fog on the Tyne.

Cheltenham began as if they understood they might never have another day like this. The spring-heeled Odejayi tore into Boumsong with relish. The Frenchman, all £8m of him, would never get close to the Bristol City discard. Indeed, before 10 minutes had passed, Boumsong had been turned three times, the first forcing the defender into a penalty- area challenge that bordered on rash, the second ending in a cross across the face of Given’s goal that neither defenders nor forwards could read and the third climaxing in a shot that flashed wide of Given’s left-hand post.

If Newcastle were unsettled by Odejayi, they were lively in midfield and not without striking intent and when Michael Chopra burst into the penalty area after six minutes he was foiled by last-ditch tackles, first from Jerry Gill, then from Michael Townsend. Cheltenham were destined to fall, but they would never lose heart.

With the game a third of its way through, Cheltenham’s early fire had been briefly doused. Alan Shearer should have done better than tamely nod Nolberto Solano’s free kick into Shane Higgs’s arms. Then Cheltenham reignited their flame, Odejayi forcing Boumsong into another flimsy header before shooting wide from a too-tight angle while three sides of the ground were serenading Souness with: “You’re sacked and you know you are.” At least the travelling contingent didn’t join in.

Somehow, the visitors were two goals to the good before the interval. Foraging from Shearer and Solano found the overlapping Babayaro in the penalty area. Higgs blocked the subsequent shot, but the ball spun upwards for Chopra to head into the empty goal.

Then Peter Ramage charged down the right. His cross was vicious but Gill’s powerfully-struck clearance hit Scott Parker, rebounded into goal and the hosts were as good as defenestrated.

“We lost it in that mad five minutes,” acknowledged home manager John Ward. “My players have had experiences I could never give them on the training field. Now we have to pick ourselves up for Peterborough next week.”

Admirably, home heads remained high after the restart and seven minutes into the second half, Town created the chance of their afternoon when impressive captain John Finnigan unleashed Steve Guinan down the inside-right channel. The erstwhile Nottingham Forest starlet outpaced Titus Bramble and shot low and hard, only for Given to dive to his left and reassume his all-too-familiar saviour role.

This was Town’s pomp. Even with Melligan rampant down the right, they invariably struggled to get enough men forward to counter the blue-shirted hordes. Odejayi’s late miss notwithstanding, Given was not seriously called on again. Even so, Higgs was as redundant as Given until the 69th minute, when Shearer should have finally netted his 201st club goal and made the record he shares with Jackie Milburn his own. Alas, with Higgs beaten, he failed to connect with the lively Charles N’Zogbia’s cross from two yards out.

Yesterday was not the time and Whaddon Road not the place for record-breaking, merely for making do and scraping though. For Souness, that was more than enough.

STAR MAN: Kayode Odejayi (Cheltenham)

Player ratings. Cheltenham: Higgs 6, Gill 7, Caines 6, Townsend 6, Armstrong 6, Melligan 8 (Vincent 84min, 5), Finnigan 8, Bird 6, Wilson 6, Odejayi 8, Guinan 5 (Spencer 73min, 5)

Newcastle: Given 7, Ramage 6, Bramble 6, Boumsong 4, Babayaro 5, Solano 7 (Emre 58min, 5), Parker 6 (Luque 75min, 4), Clark 5, Ameobi 5, Shearer 5, Chopra 6 (N’Zogbia 65min, 7)

Scorers: Newcastle: Chopra 41, Parker 43

Referee: M Riley

Attendance: 7,022

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