Is there any better way of spending your day off than watching The Premiership Years on Sky Sports? Whether it was a player you’d forgotten, a goal you can’t believe you’d missed or a game you remember being at, the program provides it all. One thing that I did notice was that, in every episode, Newcastle United seemed to provide cracking viewing. Alan Shearer in his prime, classic games against Liverpool or even Temuri Kestsbaia’s ridiculous attack on an advertising board after scoring a goal. They’ve had it all, and boy am I glad they will be back next season.

Let’s be honest, Newcastle are a club who belong in the Premier League. St James’ Park, with its 52,000 seats, is not a stadium that should be hosting the likes of Peterborough and Doncaster. The stadium deserves to be graced by Rooney, Drogba and Torres rather than Bogdanovic, Cresswell and Duguid and, next season, they will have that chance.

Credit must go to the Newcastle fans who, despite the clubs relegation, have turned out in their thousands to support the club all season long. I have no doubt that the stadium will be packed to the rafters for every home game next season. Could it be that relegation was a good thing for Newcastle given their immediate return? It might be a stretch to far to say that but, should they achieve success next season with, for example, a European place finish, then some critics may argue so.

One thing that is for sure is that Newcastle need to spend this summer. The difference between the Championship and the Premier League is one that they will have found out this season and, given that only a handful of players in the current squad possess the quality required, they will need to bring in some considerable talent.

The likes of Kevin Nolan, Fabricio Coloccini and Steve Harper have all shown the desire to do well for the club and are all players who can play at the top level. The hope is that the board show faith in manager Chris Hughton and acknowledge the job he has done this season. The players obviously believe in him, so the board should do so as well and resist the temptation of bringing in a ‘proven’ manager.

Bring on next season!