Newcastle Jets FC
Newcastle United Jets Football Club, commonly known as Newcastle Jets, is an Australian professional soccer club based in Newcastle, New South Wales. It competes in the country's premier competition, the A-League, under licence from the Australian Professional Leagues . The club was formed in 2000 when it joined the National Soccer League and was one of only three former NSL clubs to join in the formation of the A-League.
Newcastle Jets have won one A-League championship, after defeating rivals Central Coast Mariners 1–0 in the 2008 A-League Grand Final. In 2009, Newcastle competed in the AFC Champions League for the first time, reaching the Round of 16. In May 2015, FFA revoked Newcastle's licence after owner Nathan Tinkler placed the club into voluntary administration. A new A-League club was formed for the 2015–16 season, under the same name and colours.
In October 2025, the Jets defeated Heidelberg United 3–1 to win the Australia Cup for the first time.
The club plays home games at McDonald Jones Stadium. An affiliated youth team competes in the National Premier Leagues NSW competition. A women's team competes in the A-League Women. The youth team's matches are played at Lake Macquarie Regional Football Facility. The Women's team play at McDonald Jones Stadium and No. 2 Sportsground
History
Early years
Newcastle United was formed in 2000 by Cypriot-Australian businessman Con Constantine from the remnants of the Newcastle Breakers. The Breakers were dissolved when Soccer Australia revoked its NSL licence at the conclusion of the 1999–2000 season. At the formation of Newcastle United the home ground was moved back to where Newcastle KB United played, now known as McDonald Jones Stadium.The Newcastle United club were reasonably successful, competing in two of the last three Final Series and finishing second in the League behind Perth Glory in the 2001–02 season.
The club renamed itself to the Newcastle United Jets Football Club and launched a new badge at the start of the new national league, the A-League. This was done to try and create and project a new image of the club and to avoid confusion with the English club Newcastle United. The name "Jets" is a reference to RAAF Base Williamtown, located just 20 kilometres north of Newcastle. The club's logo depicts three F/A-18 Hornets, which the Royal Australian Air Force has based at Williamtown.
Former England and Australia manager Terry Venables was reported as favourite to become the team's technical director, including reports from the Jets, but this was confirmed by Venables' agent as a 'no-go'. Instead, the club signed Richard Money for the 2005–2006 season. In 2006 Money was replaced with Nick Theodorakopoulos after Money returned to England to take the manager's job at Walsall. In October 2006 after recording no wins during the Pre-Season Cup and during the first seven rounds of A-League matches, Theodorakopoulos became the first coach to be sacked in the club's A-League's history. His assistant Gary van Egmond was the caretaker coach for the remainder of the 2005–06 season, and later signed a contract to remain as the coach of the Jets for the next three years.
The club surprised many observers in the Australian game by signing Ned Zelic, a player who was seen to have severed connections with Australia after being dropped from the national team.
Reports suggested the Jets were attempting to bring former Liverpool and England striker Stan Collymore out of retirement. Director of Football Remo Nogarotto confirmed the club had made a bid to lure Collymore to the A-League for a four-match guest stint; however, the move had broken down within 24 hours of it being made public.
With the leadership of Gary van Egmond Newcastle has achieved the highest number of points out of all clubs in their last fourteen games and have also scored the most goals. As a result of their good form under van Egmond, crowds in Newcastle have reached all time highs for soccer – culminating in a crowd of over 24,000 for their home final against Sydney FC on 2 February 2007.
Newcastle were eventually eliminated in the preliminary final by Adelaide, the game going to penalties after finishing at 1 all. Vaughan Coveny and Stuart Musialik missed their attempts in a shoot-out that ended up at 4–3 in favour of Adelaide, costing Newcastle their place in the grand final and a berth in the Asian Champions League.
Champions of Australia
Season 3 of the A-League saw a number of Newcastle's biggest stars of the previous season leave the club. Captain Paul Okon retired, fan favourite Milton Rodriguez returned to Colombia and Johnny Warren Medal winner Nick Carle moved to Turkey to link up with Gençlerbirliği S.K. New recruits included Joel Griffiths' twin brother Adam and previous European Golden Boot winner Mario Jardel. Although significant excitement surrounded the capture of Jardel, as time went by it was obvious he was well past his prime and received little game time. Throughout the season star striker Joel Griffiths broke the record for most goals in a regular season by scoring 12 in 21 rounds.The Jets started the season well without losing in their first 5 matches. Following this good start the Jets struggled for consistency until the end of the season, often winning against quality opposition but losing some vital home games. Wins in the last three competition rounds saw the Jets move up the ladder to equal points with the Central Coast Mariners, finishing the season in second place due to inferior goal difference. The Jets went on to play the Mariners in the two legged Major Semi Final. The Jets won the first leg at home 2–0 thanks to a first-half header from Adam Griffiths and a late penalty from his brother Joel. The game had its fair share of controversy as Mariners striker John Aloisi had a seemingly legitimate goal disallowed and also missed a penalty.
Steeled by the defeat in the first leg, the Mariners overturned the 2–0 deficit and led 2–0 at the end of 90 minutes of the second leg thanks to goals from Sasho Petrovski and Adam Kwasnik. Seven minutes into extra time Petrovski scored again to send the Mariners into their second Grand Final in three years.
The Jets qualified for their first A-League Grand Final by beating Queensland Roar 3–2 after extra time in the 2008 Preliminary Final on 17 February 2008. The Jets led 1–0 until deep into injury time when the Roar were awarded a penalty which Reinaldo successfully converted, sending the match into extra time. A few minutes into extra time the Jets were awarded a penalty as well, as Song Jin-Hyung was brought down in the box. Joel Griffiths was successful from the spot to restore the 1-goal advantage and a few moments later Tarek Elrich sealed passage into the Grand Final with a well timed shot to score his first A-League goal. Although the Roar received another late penalty it was too late to stop the Jets' march into the Grand Final.
The Jets defeated the Central Coast Mariners in the 2007–08 A-League Grand Final, becoming A-League Champions for the first time.
The game was sealed with a solitary Joel Griffiths strike early in the second half. In his last game of professional football Tony Vidmar made a mistake near the halfway line to gift Griffiths with an opportunity which he grasped with both hands. The game was marred by a late penalty appeal for handball. Mariners goal keeper Danny Vukovic had come up for the corner and was so infuriated by Mark Shield's decision that he slapped his hand away, earning himself a lengthy ban and ruling himself out of the early rounds of next season. Both the Jets and Mariners qualified to take part in the 2009 AFC Champions League.
2008 AFC Champions League
In order to rebuild the team for the Champions League the Jets, very much in need of several new players, signed Perth defender Nikolai Topor-Stanley in early January 2008. But the signing of Topor-Stanley would prove to be the Jets' sole gain on the transfer market for several weeks, and fans grew even more disgruntled as the Jets were confirmed as the 2009 A-League "Wooden Spooners" with a 2–0 loss to Adelaide United in mid-January. An encouraging 2–1 win over Perth Glory in the Jets' final home game of the A-League 2008-09 season lightened the mood somewhat, but when the Jets crashed in a 4–0 capitulation at the Sydney Football Stadium the following week, things were looking grim. And the picture only grew bleaker as the notorious player exodus continued and the club lost Socceroos defender Mark Milligan to Shanghai Shenhua, along with Jesper Hakansson, who left the club after agreeing to a mutual termination. Talisman and captain Joel Griffiths also agreed to move to Asia, although only on a one-year loan to Beijing Guoan.The first ten days of February saw the Jets engage in a surprisingly successful flurry of transfer activity to bolster their squad for the impending Champions League before 11 February date by which clubs are required to submit their squad lists. Acting on an urgent need to improve their attacking stocks, the Jets announced simultaneously the signing of Dutchman Donny de Groot from De Graafschap along with former Sydney FC and Central Coast Mariners striker Sasho Petrovski. Next, the Jets reinforced their shaky defence by obtaining the signatures of talented former FC Thun and Melbourne Victory defender Ljubo Miličević, who had been battling depression since being released by the Victory, veteran centre-back Angelo Costanzo from Adelaide United, and young Sydney FC left-back Nikolas Tsattalios. These signings were followed by the surprise announcement that the Jets had secured the services of former S.S. Lazio forward Fabio Vignaroli on a six-month contract. In a further boost for the depth of its squad, the club signed three local players on six-month deals with the option for an extension into the 2009–10 A-League season: former Newcastle United midfielder Mitchell Johnson and strikers Peter Haynes and Joel Wood.
After the departure of high performance manager Ian Crook, the Jets signed former Sydney FC boss Branko Culina as their new Technical Director.
The Jets got off to a bad start, losing 2–0 to Beijing Guoan in Beijing. However, they rebounded with a 2–0 defeat of Ulsan Hyundai Horang-i back in Newcastle. After a heroic 1–1 draw in Japan against Nagoya Grampus, they lost 1–0 in the return fixture. Then, on 6 May, the Jets grabbed two goals in the last two minutes to defeat Beijing in Newcastle 2–1. The Jets qualified for the last 16 by defeating Ulsan Hyundai 1–0 away from home with Jason Hoffman scoring his debut goal to seal the win. The Jets faced Pohang Steelers in their round of 16 fixture on 24 June, crashing out of the competition 6–0 to the hands of the South Koreans.