'I set up Tino Asprilla for a few goals... he paid me back by coming all the way to Bangor!' - KEITH GILLESPIE reveals the untold stories of the night Newcastle beat Barcelona

When Keith Gillespie walked into Bangor Golf Club for a quiet birthday meal with his partner, he did not expect to be met by a roomful of friends — and the first face he saw was the biggest surprise of all.

‘There was Tino!’ says Gillespie, who was celebrating his 50th birthday in his native Northern Ireland earlier this year.

He and Faustino Asprilla will forever be synonymous with one of the greatest nights in Newcastle United’s history, the 3-2 victory over Barcelona in the club’s first Champions League fixture. Twenty-eight years later, their connection on the pitch remains just as strong off it.

‘I walked in and the "Happy Birthday" music started playing and my daughters ran and hugged me,’ says Gillespie. ‘But all I’m thinking is, “How is Tino in Bangor?!”.’

Asprilla had flown 5,000 miles from Bogota, Colombia to be there and spent the day trying to stay undetected.

‘He was with John Beresford and Darren Peacock — and trying to keep Tino under wraps is not easy! I’m told he was posting things on Instagram and FaceTiming Alan Shearer, Kevin Keegan and all of our old team-mates. I didn’t have a clue.

‘But to have him there was special, to make that effort. I should really go to see him in Colombia. There’s an open invite, but I’m worried I wouldn’t make it home — me, Tino and Bogota scares me! 

'There’s never a dull moment around him. He got up and did a speech at the party — the odd swear word — and was dancing and smiling all night.’

Nothing compares to the smiles of September 17, 1997, though, when Asprilla scored a hat-trick and Gillespie laid on two of the goals with crosses for the striker to head in.

‘I was up against Sergi, who was one of the best left backs in the world. Not that I knew that. When the Spanish football was on TV on a Sunday night, I was down the Bigg Market!

‘So I just ran at him. I never really had a trick. It was just drop a shoulder and use my pace. For the first goal, I stood him up and it was just a quick feint to the right and I was able to get the ball in. The height Tino got on his jump was unbelievable. When you see photos of that header, it looks incredible.

‘The second one, I managed to get away from Sergi inside our half and, once I was past him, I knew he wasn’t catching me. All I wanted and needed as a winger was grass behind the full back. But because the run had started so deep, I crossed sooner than I normally would, I was knackered! 

'I only had Tino to hit and his movement sent the defender to the near post. You put so many crosses in as a winger and the majority won’t end in goals. Those two did because of Tino, and we’ll always be remembered for them.

‘It was one of those nights where everything went right for both of us. A lot of people look back and think that Kevin Keegan was manager, given the type of performance it was. But it was Kenny Dalglish. It’s also forgotten we got beat by Wimbledon a few days earlier, so this was huge — up against Rivaldo, Luis Figo, Luis Enrique.’

How did you celebrate? ‘The three biggest nights of my career — Barcelona and beating Spain and England with Northern Ireland — I never went out after any of them! After Barcelona, we went back to the Gosforth Park Hotel because we had a game at West Ham on the Saturday. Saying that, I’ve made up for it since! I would never get tired of talking about that game.’

I spoke to Asprilla about Barcelona a few years ago, and he revealed then that Dalglish almost dropped him.

'I missed a team meeting,' he explained. Rumour has it he was with two women, a suggestion Asprilla has never denied. 'The manager was not happy at all. He fined me. But I was never good with things like this.’

Gillespie agrees.

‘Tino existed in Tino Time,’ he says. ‘The one occasion he turned up for training early was when the clocks went back and he hadn’t realised!’

Asprilla said: ‘I didn't expect to play. When he (Dalglish) named me in the team, I was surprised. But it was one of the biggest games in the club's history. Alan Shearer was injured and Les Ferdinand had been sold, so they needed me. I was made for nights like this.’

ITV commentator Brian Moore, in the moments after Asprilla had left Miguel Angel Nadal and Michael Reiziger for dead early in the game, declared: 'Asprilla might well be in the mood tonight.’

Moore was right. In the 22nd minute he ran on to a pass from Jon Dahl Tomasson and crashed to the floor after nicking the ball by goalkeeper Ruud Hesp in front of the Gallowgate End.

'A dive? No, I beat him to the ball, I was too quick,' said Asprilla. 'I remember Pierluigi Collina (the referee) made me move the ball before I took the penalty, but I was never going to miss. The second and third were very similar. Both times, Keith was too fast for Sergi. 

'Barcelona got two goals late on but nothing was going to spoil it… Tino 3 Barcelona 2. It was amazing, one of the best nights of my career. My father was there and the fans were saying to him, "Thank you, thank you. You have brought us a present from God to Newcastle”.’

The story of how that Latino gift ended up on Tyneside in a £7.5million move from Parma in 1996 is worth remembering.

'Parma only sold me because Fabio Capello was arriving as manager and I was on the list of players he didn't want,’ said Asprilla. 'Only Capello dumped Parma for Real Madrid and never came. But the deal was done with Newcastle and I signed in the snow. I thought Newcastle was by the sea and I'd be sailing yachts. I didn't know the water was dangerous — and there were no yachts.’

Asprilla and Gillespie speak every month on FaceTime, and friends laugh at how the language barrier does not prevent them exchanging barbs for half an hour.

‘He FaceTimed me one day and took me on a tour around his ranch in Colombia,’ says Gillespie, whose gambling addiction when a player at Newcastle has been well publicised. ‘His friend was with him translating to English. Tino was showing me the swimming pool and the stables. He then pointed to a horse and started laughing to himself. Apparently he’d said, “I think Keith once backed this!”.’

There are a lot of laughs when in the company of Gillespie and he is a candid storyteller. But the laughter stopped one night in 2018 when I was with him at a talk-in event at a pub in the West End of Newcastle. 

He was mid-anecdote when the doors crashed open and half a dozen men in balaclavas armed with baseball bats stormed in.

We later learnt they were looking for someone who, thankfully, was not there. After 90 seconds of them charging around the room — it felt more like 90 minutes — they left and screeched down the road in a getaway car.

‘Maybe, coming from Northern Ireland, it didn’t scare me as much as some,' says Gillespie. 'But I’d never had something like that and I hope I don’t ever again!’

What would Tino have done had he been there? ‘He wouldn’t have batted an eyelid, would he? He would have just taken it all in his stride.’

Much like he did scoring a hat-trick against Barcelona.