Newcastle United suffered a 6-1 pre-season defeat against Leyton Orient in 2009 and Kevin Nolan did not hold back in the dressing room afterwards as he 'unloaded' on his team-mates
Kevin Nolan
Kevin Nolan
Kevin Nolan has revealed that he turned down the chance to leave Newcastle United because he wanted to put the club's relegation 'right'.
With the club supposedly up for sale, no permanent manager in place and question marks surrounding the futures of a host of players, the signs were not exactly looking good after Newcastle went down in 2009.
Newcastle were even hammered 6-1 by Leyton Orient in a pre-season friendly just a couple of weeks before the start of the new Championship season.
Nolan previously told ChronicleLive that he knew 'a lot of players on that day didn't want to be there' and the manner of the humiliating defeat at Brisbane Road ended up proving a turning point.
Nolan 'unloaded' in the dressing room afterwards and told his team-mates that he would help them leave if they wanted to go because there was 'no way he wanted to be sitting here with players who don't want to play'.
By the time the transfer window shut, Habib Beye, Sebastien Bassong, Damien Duff and Obafemi Martins had all moved on while Geremi would follow a few months later. Nolan, however, was always going to stay.
"I did really have an opportunity to go back to Bolton at the end of the relegation season," he told talkSPORT.
"Gary [Megson] was asking about me coming back. I didn't want to. I'm a great believer that you've got to put something to bed and I didn't want to go back.
"I had lots to prove to Newcastle. I wanted to prove myself at Newcastle and wanted it to be a successful spell. I didn't want to look back at my career and think, 'I jumped'.
"I was part of that relegation even though I didn't play as much as I would have liked and I wasn't part of the first six months of the season, but you're still part of it and I wanted to put that right and thankfully I was able to."
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