Jonny Stewart explains joining up with the ‘Mile High Magpies’ for best day of his life

Jonny Stewart is a bass singer, vocal arranger, and producer based in London, he is also a massive Newcastle United fan.

Quite literally, as at 6’5″ he is just an inch or two shorter than Big Dan Burn.

Despite not being born and bred on Tyneside, Jonny Stewart has supported Newcastle United from being a kid.

In a previous interview he explained why despite growing up down south, he has ended up a lifelong United fan; “A friend of my parents was involved in building the Redheugh Bridge during the early 1980s, and lived up in Newcastle; one of my best friends at primary school was a Toon fan.”

Decades later he cried as Newcastle United lifted the Carabao Cup nine months ago.

Jonny Stewart is bass singer with sea shanty folk supergroup The Wellermen, as well as being a Newcastle United fan.

Now he has been telling BBC Sport about how he lived his greatest ever Newcastle United day, in the company of the Mile High Magpies.

Jonny Stewart explaining that in mid-March 2025; “We were actually on tour in Colorado at the time, we had just done a show in Boulder and we had one in Denver the next day…I was frantically Googling where I could watch the game (Carabao Cup final) when we’d reached the final, and whether I could find anyone to watch it with me, because on Mountain Time it kicked off around 10am.”

The lifelong Newcastle United fan finding the perfect alternative to his usual routine when back in the UK; “I connected with the Mile High Magpies, the Denver area supporters’ club, and they said to come along to this bar. There were a couple of Liverpool fans in there, but more than 100 Newcastle fans were crammed into it, it was brilliant.”

None of us of course will ever forget that Big Dan Burn header on 16 March 2025.

Jonny Stewart one of the many…; “I had bought a Dan Burn Carabao Cup final shirt in the run-up to the game because I thought, if we win it is going to mean so much having the ultimate local lad on the back of my jersey. So, when Big Dan scored one of the best headers I’ve ever seen to put us 1-0 up, I cried so hard.”

Didn’t we all! The talented musician declaring; “Being away from home, and away from my best mate Angus, who I’d usually watch our games with, was hard – he was Facetiming me from this pub in Chelmsford which had about two people in, so I’d found a much better place.”

Does it get any better than this?

After all of those years.

To see Newcastle United finally win something, it felt…indescribable.

Jonny Stewart summing that moment up; “And then I saw us totally outplay the best team in the league, and end our trophy drought. It really doesn’t get much better than that.”

Now we are into yet another semi-final, Eddie Howe only one step away from sending us to a third cup final in four years. Sensational!

None of us will ever forget 16 March 2025, for most of the first time we had seen Newcastle United lift a trophy.

If repeating that experience only one year and six days later, just how special would that feel?