9 months ago
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If Newcastle legend Alan Shearer was hoping for a quiet night ahead of his side's relegation decider, he'd have to think again.
Shearer was interim manager at his beloved club back in 2009 for eight games as he looked to help his team steer clear of the drop.
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Newcastle, Hull, Middlesbrough, and Sunderland were all in danger of joining West Bromwich Albion in the Championship at the time.
The Magpies made the journey to Birmingham to face Aston Villa on the final day seeking a victory.
Shearer was asked what it was like to prepare the night before, and a couple having sex on a piano in his hotel room was not the answer people were expecting.
"You try and be as normal as possible but it's impossible to be normal - mentally, it's draining, you're going through every single scenario," Shearer said on a Q&A edition of The Rest Is Football.
"When I was the manager at Newcastle, we went to Aston Villa on the last day of the season.
"We travelled down as normal, we get to the hotel, have all of our food together and the players sort of disappear and go to bed.
"I say to my staff, 'We'll all have a couple of drinks, just to try and make it a bit easier and make us sleep a little bit better'.
"So we went to the bar and we had no more than two drinks and I go to bed at half 11, something like that.
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"I go to bed and go to sleep as normal, and this is a true story, at about two or three in the morning, I think I'm dreaming, I can hear noises.
"As the manager, I wasn't even aware this happened but you're put into a suite. So I've got this lovely suite in the hotel, I've got a big lounge, and I've got my bedroom which is sort of sectioned off.
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"I'm awoken in the night and I'm thinking, 'Am I dreaming here or what?' I can hear noises, I can hear someone playing the piano. I've got a piano in the lounge of the room.
"I'm thinking, 'There's someone in my f***ing room here', seriously. Then it stops.
"But five minutes later I can hear people talking in the room and then I hear other things. I sort of crept up, I was a bit nervous and a bit scared.
"I look through and, I'm not kidding you, there's a bloke and a woman on the piano and the bloke's giving the woman one in my room! Honestly.
"I'm sweating - there's a bloke giving a woman one on the piano in the room! Do I scream, do I shout, what do I do?
"I went out and shout, 'Do me a f***ing favour mate, come on'. They quickly got up and sprinted out of the room.
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"He was definitely playing the right tune, that's for sure. I couldn't believe what was happening. I don't know whether they were members of staff in the hotel and they thought the room was empty.
"I should have known then it wasn't going to go right in the afternoon of the game. No wonder we got relegated!"
Newcastle suffered a 1-0 defeat at Villa Park, as Damien Duff's own goal sealed Shearer's side's relegation to the Championship.
Chris Hughton was later drafted in and helped the club return to the Premier League on the first attempt.
