Source: Northern_Echo
Lovenkrands tribute
AN emotional Peter Lovenkrands dedicated Newcastle's promotionwinning campaign to the memory of his late father. The Danish striker coolly slotted home a penalty just before half-time to set up a victory over Sheffield United that put the gloss on a night of celebration for the Magpies. Lovenkrands' strength of character in putting aside personal loss to help fire Newcastle's return to the top flight typifies the resilience shown by Chris Hughton's side this season. Since his father died in January, the Newcastle striker has celebrated his goals by pointing to the sky in a gesture of tribute. He performed the same ritual following his equalising strike against the Blades and after the game spoke movingly about his father's influence. My father would have been proud. I hope that he is looking down on us and is happy. It has been a tough season for me and I am just pleased to end it in such a good way. It helps a lot to bring a smile back knowing we are going back to the Premier League. It has been a great achievement and we are delighted, he said. Of course this does help make amends for relegation. A lot of people probably didn't expect us to bounce back straight away but we've shown that we can just that. Since we went down it means so much to the fans to get back up there in the first season. It's congratulations to everybody for a great job done. I'm pleased on a personal level but it isn't achieved on your own. You need a team behind you to help get the goals. They have been supporting me with a lot of great passes and that has helped me to get the goals. Winger Jonas Gutierrez urged his team-mates to complete the campaign by claiming the Championship title. The most important thing was getting back to the Premier League. The second aim is to finish top this is a big club and we have the opportunity to win something and we'd like to fight and win the Championship, said the Argentina international. It is a long season. Did we have any doubts No, never, never, never. It was difficult when we started but the team and the club were all together and that was important for us. We were all going the same way and all the team had to do was play football.''