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Is this English football’s greatest ever escape?Image source, ShutterstockImage caption, Gateshead took 31 points from a possible 45 to dramatically climb up the National League table to safetyByAdam LaniganBBC Sport, North East & CumbriaPublished1 hour ago6 Comments
On Valentine’s Day, few Gateshead fans would have been feeling their love for their team after another miserable afternoon.
The home defeat by Brackley was a 16th successive loss in all competitions stretching back to 1 November, and a 13th in the league.
Bottom of the National League, they were toast. Finished. Relegation certainties. Regional football beckoned.
They were 11 points adrift – albeit with three games in hand – but were on a winless league run stretching back to 30 September.
Anyone predicting the bottom four at the end of the season would have written Gateshead down in permanent marker pen.
Now as the National League’s regular season comes to an end on Saturday, the Tyneside club’s fate is already known.
Why? Because they have pulled off one of the greatest ever relegation escapes, safety assured with two games to spare.
“It’s an incredible achievement,” manager Rob Elliot told BBC Sport.
“It probably redefines what is possible if you have that belief and mentality and that’s what the group did.”
Image source, BBC SportThe bottom 10 in the National League on 14 February and how the table looks now
The central figure to this story is manager Elliot. The 39-year-old returned to the club in January for a second spell, trying to recapture the magic of the first.
Under Ellliot, Gateshead had finished sixth in the National League in 2024, only denied a play-off spot because the club had failed to meet the entry criteria for joining the English Football League.
But they shrugged off that disappointment to beat Solihull Moors on penalties to win the FA Trophy at Wembley a fortnight later.
He had Heed fifth again the following season when League One Crawley Town made him their new boss, but for both Elliot and Gateshead, the ensuing period was not a success.
The former Newcastle United and Republic of Ireland goalkeeper lasted only five months with Crawley, while his old club had tumbled from fifth all the way to the bottom when he was reappointed.
“There were still some really good people at the club, but there had been a lot of changes for different reasons, upstairs and behind the scenes,” mentioned Elliot.
“I felt the club had lost its identity and culture in terms of what it actually is.”
Image source, ShutterstockGateshead lifted the FA Trophy for the first time under Elliot’s tenure in 2024
Image source, BBC Sport/ShutterstockThe return did not get off to the best of starts, either.
Five straight defeats added to the malaise that had developed at the International Stadium, although behind the scenes Elliot was working hard to change the mentality, while remaining consistent in his messaging and his principles to a squad which had been bolstered by new additions.
But something needed to change and quickly. It came in a few days in February as Gateshead, from nowhere, pulled off successive away wins at Halifax Town and Truro City.
Rather than more misery on coach journeys back up the A1, the mood had changed, particularly on the mammoth 457-mile trip back from Cornwall.
“The win at Halifax was massive,” mentioned Elliot. “We hadn’t beaten them for 20-odd years. We’d done something some very good Gateshead players and teams had not done for a long time. So if you can break that, you can go on to create something.
“Going to Truro, we were on the bus all day Thursday, spent all day Friday together, the game Saturday and back on the bus until the early hours Sunday morning.
“The team effectively got a mini pre-season. That helped everyone to gel and then you win and it becomes a special moment.
“Those back-to-back wins changed the whole culture and changed the direction.”
Image source, ShutterstockVictory at Truro in February took Gateshead off the foot of the National League
Victory at Truro took them above the Cornish side and off the bottom, but still 10 points short of safety and with lots of work to do.
Across the next month, Gateshead played eight games and collected 12 points and while they had started to improve, other teams, notably Brackley, had hit the wall.
Their next visitors were York City, one of the two clubs with over 100 points in the division along with Rochdale. On paper, a certain three points for the Minstermen.
But Gateshead produced the shock of the season with a deserved 3-1 victory, which catapulted them out of the bottom four and dented York’s title chances.
However, for Elliot, the next game at home to Yeovil was even more crucial.
“Sometimes when you’re chasing, there’s no pressure because you’re already in the relegation zone,” he mentioned.
“When we climbed two points out of it, it was a test of whether we were a proper team or not, to have that pressure.”
They defeated the Glovers 2-1 with a performance that was “everything I wanted” according to Elliot.
“That was the sign this squad was good enough to stay up.”
With momentum on their side, two more wins and a draw, culminating in the triumph at Aldershot on 11 April, ensured a fifth successive National League season for the Tyneside club.
Now with US-based businessman Stephen Paylor coming in a co-owner, there is hope that the club can avoid lurching into such deep relegation trouble as they had been and move from “survival mode” as Elliot calls it to something more sustainable.
“To secure our status considering where the club was on and off the pitch was pleasing,” he mentioned.
“We’ve now got the responsibility to not let that situation occur again, and be looking forward for the club, rather than looking behind us.”
Image source, Getty ImagesPaul Jewell led a great escape with Bradford in 2000 and then saved Wigan on the last day in 2007
With Gateshead pulling off this escape act, we’ve delved into the archives and pulled up five other teams and moments for whom hope seemed lost after terrible seasons.
Oldham Athletic (1993): With six days of the inaugural Premier League campaign remaining, Oldham were eight points behind Crystal Palace with three matches to play. All over bar the shouting seemingly.
But Oldham produced wins over Aston Villa, Liverpool and Southampton as Palace claimed only one point from their last two games, meaning Joe Royle’s side stayed up on goal difference.
Carlisle United (1999): Two words – Jimmy Glass. In injury time of the last game of the season, Carlisle were set for non-league football.
They won a corner, goalkeeper Glass went forward as a last resort and swept home the goal that kept Carlisle up in the old Division Three at Scarborough’s expense.
The North Yorkshire club were relegated instead and they have never returned.
Bradford City (2000): It looked like being one season and out of the Premier League for Bradford, when they were six points adrift with five games to go.
But Paul Jewell’s Bantams produced a memorable run of 10 points from those matches to send Wimbledon down, culminating in a last-day win over Liverpool, which cost them a place in the Champions League.
West Ham United (2007): A chaotic season at Upton Park seemed to be heading in only one direction after a traumatic 4-3 loss to Tottenham left them 10 points shy of safety with nine games to go.
But inspired by Argentina star Carlos Tevez, the Hammers reeled off seven wins in that finish, capped by victory at champions Manchester United on the final Sunday.
The Hammers’ unlikely Old Trafford triumph turned the match between Sheffield United and Wigan Athletic into a relegation shootout, which the Latics won.
Leicester City (2015): There would have been no title wonder of 2016, if not for their great escape the season before.
The Foxes more than doubled their points tally in the final nine games as they produced seven wins and a draw to climb from 20th to 14th, creating momentum that carried over into the following season.
Of the 13 players who secured safety in the penultimate game at Sunderland, 11 would be collecting winners’ medals 12 months later.
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