The truth about Jason Tindall: Secrets behind Newcastle's cult hero's success including his Wham! hoodie, nights out with Shola Ameobi and coffee-shop admirers …and elite coach's hidden training-ground role

Some folk like to laugh at Jason Tindall, with his Wham! hoodie, sunshine smile and Club Tropicana tan. The truth is, the joke is on them.

The most revealing aspect of the FA’s report this week into the Boxing Day tunnel fracas between Newcastle and Aston Villa was when it concluded that Tindall, accused of ‘aggressive and confrontational’ behaviour by Villa, had instead acted ‘in a remarkably calm and controlled manner’.

And therein lies the secret to his success, as assistant/confidant/guard dog of Eddie Howe: It is, in large part, an act. Not disingenuous, either. More a measured and deliberate performance scripted to help the head coach and the team. It takes a clever man to play the so-called fool.

That is why Tindall has won cult adoration on Tyneside. The Toon Army used to say of Craig Bellamy, ‘He’s a d***head, but he’s our d***head’. Tindall is not a d***head, but the same sense of perverse pride exists.

He is an agent provocateur, whose antagonistic veneer is in the best interest of Newcastle United. Not, as many assume, himself.

Chat to Tindall and his gravelly tone is akin to a whisper – never Careless – and you can understand in a way why his own managerial career was brief. There is not the overt confidence or grandstanding one may expect. For a man nicknamed Mad Dog, there is no bark.

Tindall wound up Villa’s Unai Emery to the point the Spaniard stopped focusing on the game

Newcastle fans produced an Eddie Howe and Tindall version of the Wham! classic

Believe it or not, at the training ground, he is the good cop to Howe’s bad. It is only on a matchday that his pearly whites show their dark side. Be it with grimace or grin, he stands his team’s corner and gladly squares up to those in opposition.

‘Be quiet, be quiet,’ he instructed Unai Emery on Boxing Day, and so the Villa boss got louder and louder to the point of his ire distracting him from the game. Job done.

You can add Mikel Arteta and Jurgen Klopp to the list of managers whose p*** he has boiled, and he won’t be on the Christmas card list of many who populate rival dugouts.

Tindall, however, is a sociable soul. On Christmas Day, in fact, he enjoyed a couple of Guinness in his local pub, frequented too by the likes of Alan Shearer and Steve Harper. The baristas and bartenders of the upmarket Gosforth and Jesmond suburbs know him by name and not just his bronzed sight.

But there are no tales of a gregarious showman hogging the jukebox and playing George Michael late into the night. Saying that, he did enjoy a festive night out with Shola Ameobi at the Bigg Market’s Cosy Joe’s, a notorious karaoke haunt.

Rather than take the mic, it was the Geordie crowd serenading him with their twist on the Wham! hit Last Christmas… ‘this year, to save me from tears, I’ll give it to Jason Tindall’.

Born in East London and a graduate of the famous Senrab FC – founded by his father, Jimmy and the former club of John Terry, Sol Campbell, Jermain Defoe, Ledley King and Ray Wilkins – the 47-year-old dad-of-two is not the Cockney wide boy his Mile End upbringing might normally produce.

Lee Bowyer, by way of contrast, was his midfield partner for Senrab. Tindall was a junior at Arsenal but knee injuries plagued his career and, like Howe, he was a young manager, taking charge of non-League Weymouth at 29.

The baristas and bartenders of the upmarket Gosforth and Jesmond suburbs know Tindall by name and not just his bronzed sight

The 47-year-old dad-of-two is not the Cockney wide boy his Mile End upbringing might normally produce

He was sacked after a year and lasted only six months when stepping up from No 2 to replace Howe at Bournemouth in 2020. He is far more comfortable in his own skin in the role he occupies now, especially when it comes to getting under the skin of others.

Howe calls him ‘good-looking’ and the coffee-house mums invariably look up from their yoga mats and skinny lattes when Tindall walks in. He obliges with every selfie request and embraces the reputation, character actors usually do grow fond of those they portray.

But what should not be lost amid the touchline flare-ups and FA charges (unproven) is a coach of elite mentality and skillset. That is the verdict of colleagues and players. 

It is with good reason that Howe, England’s best coach by a distance, has long since wanted Tindall to run every yard by his side. Supported by Graeme Jones, Stephen Purches and Simon Weatherstone, they are an artful cocktail of extrovert and reserved, defence and attack, carrot and stick.

One quality, however, underpins the management team: Hard work.

Take the example of Lewis Hall. Tindall dedicated so many hours to the left back’s improvement after joining from Chelsea in 2023 that the teenager asked those close to him, ‘do they think I’m s***?’.

On the contrary, came the reply, ‘they’re doing it because they think you’re good’. When Hall made his England debut a year later, a call went into Tindall to thank him for his work. He accepted the gratitude but quickly moved onto what was next – how do we make him even better?

It is defence where Tindall concentrates his time, as well as his ingenious set-piece routines. He is the reason Newcastle have not employed a specialist coach in that domain.

What should not be lost amid the touchline flare-ups and unproven FA charges is a coach of elite mentality and skillset

It is with good reason that Howe, England’s best coach by a distance, has long wanted Tindall to run every yard by his side

As a player, he was a midfielder converted to centre back but on his debut for Bournemouth stepped up to take a penalty.

Howe was playing that day and did not know whether to admire or begrudge his new team-mate’s nerve. He later said: ‘I thought, “Who’s this?”. It’s just as well he scored!’. From there, a bond developed.

It is true, in part, when some observe of their relationship that ‘opposites attract’. But because the Tindall we see on a Saturday is different to the one on the training ground, maybe they aren’t so opposite after all, even if they’ll only ever share a coffee and not a beer.

In that regard, Tindall spends more of his free time with the players and other members of the backroom. He is a buffer, as all good assistant managers should be. 

He joined several first-team stars at the opening of a new restaurant recently and has been spotted with them at The Stack, the popular food and drink fanzone in the shadow of St James’ Park. He gets as much attention as the players.

Indeed, the Wham! hoodie he had with him on Boxing Day – inlaid with the faces of him and Howe – was a bespoke gift from a fan, and he had promised to wear it in the dressing-room celebration picture if they won.

When he was then sent off at half-time for his part in the tunnel bust-up, and with Newcastle leading 1-0 against 10 men, he decided that to sit in the stands with it on would be a good way to wind-up his Villa adversaries, and it did.

He joined several first-team stars at the opening of a new restaurant recently and then again last weekend for a few drinks at The Stack

Tindall lasted only six months as head coach when stepping up from No 2 to replace Howe at Bournemouth in 2020

Howe calls him ‘good-looking’ and the coffee-house mums invariably look up from their yoga mats and skinny lattes when Tindall walks in

For while it made memes and plenty laughed, it was he who laughed loudest that night, with the Magpies up into fifth in the Premier League on the back of a 3-0 win. The joke, as per, was on the others.

The internet virals will not stop, and nor does he want them to. One of his first was him dancing up a flight of stairs to the song Pretty Girl while at home on the south coast during the Covid lockdown.

In the North East, meanwhile, his new home is very close to that of Jimmy Nail. The Auf Wiedersehen, Pet! star was once considered Tyneside’s best actor. It is perhaps his neighbour who can lay claim to that title now.

For as long as Newcastle are benefiting, Tindall will continue to tread both the boards and a fine line.