The last two years has seen the resurgence of one of English football's truly great clubs, Newcastle United.
The Magpies used to be a side that challenged for the top honours, dazzled fans with brilliant football and fielded some of the best in the game, and following their takeover in 2021, they look to be back on that path once more.
The halcyon days of Andy Cole, Les Ferdinand, Malcolm Macdonald and Alan Shearer could be just around the corner.
With that in mind, Football FanCast has created a list of the very best number nines to don the famous black and white stripes of the Toon.
10 Papiss Cisse
Right, so we're kicking off with a player that might raise a few eyebrows given the Toon's extensive history of brilliant nines, but hear us out.
Papiss Cisse was signed from Bundesliga side Freiburg in January 2012 for a fee in the region of £10m, and for those first six months, he was nigh unstoppable in the league.
He would go on to score 13 goals and provide two assists in just 14 Premier League games in that first six months, a streak of red-hot form that included that incredible goal against Chelsea.
In all, he scored 44 goals in 131 games for the club, which might not be outstanding, but he is still a firm fan favourite to this day, and we don't think anyone is going to have quite as good a sixth-month spell as he did for some time.
9 Callum Wilson
Coming in as the ninth-best number nine in Newcastle United history is the club's current number nine, Callum Wilson.
Now, this one might be an easier sell than Papiss Cisse, but there might still be a few people outside of the Newcastle fan base surprised by Wilson's inclusion, such is the extent to which he is underrated.
The former Bournemouth man joined the club in January 2020 in a deal worth around £20m, and ever since then, he has been an essential member of the Toon team.
Since his arrival, the England international has scored 42 goals and provided ten assists in just 90 appearances for the club, giving his a goal involvement every 1.7 games – more than every other game.
This would be incredibly impressive in isolation, but the fact that he has achieved numbers like these while also dealing with consistent injuries is genuinely outstanding.
The arrival of Alexander Isak might mean that Wilson won't be the player to lead them to domestic or Continental glory, but his contribution should not be overlooked.
8 Kevin Keegan
We're going back to the 1980s for this one, and it is none other than two-time Ballon d'Or winner and England great Kevin Keegan.
Now, Keegan only played for the Toon for two seasons between 1982 and 1984 and only wore the number nine for part of the 1983/84 season, but for our money, that makes him eligible for this list.
In his 85 games as a Magpies player, Keegan scored 49 goals and provided one assist, giving him a goal involvement more than every 1.7 games. However, more important than just his goalscoring, he played an essential role in taking the Toon back into the First Division and giving the fans some tremendously exciting football to watch once again.
It may have only been a short moment in the grander scheme of football, but Keegan more than made his mark and would be welcomed back with open arms when he took over the team as manager in 1992.
7 Malcolm Macdonald
We're going even further back in time for this one, back to the early 1970s.
Newcastle United broke their club record transfer fee when they signed Malcolm Macdonald in 1971, but there was never any doubt from those who wanted him whether he was worth the money or not.
In all, the London-born dynamo scored 138 goals in just 258 appearances for the Toon. He was a dazzling player to watch and was a firm fan favourite at the time.
While he didn't win anything in the northeast he did help the club reach the 1974 FA Cup final after his brace knocked Burnley out in the semi-final.
He was sold to Arsenal in 1976, much to the dismay of the Toon faithful.
6 Hughie Gallacher
Once again, we are heading even further back in time for the next Newcastle great on our list, 98 years back, to be specific.
In December 1925, the Magpies desperately needed a new number nine, so they looked north of the border, to Airdrieonians to be exact, and signed their star striker, Hughie Gallacher.
The Scotsman made an immediate impact and ended his first season with 23 league goals as the team's top scorer despite only joining the side halfway through the campaign.
In all, the Toon legend scored 463 goals in his career and captained the Magpies to the First Division title in 1927.
There was also an evident love between fan and player as when he joined Gateshead in 1938, Gallacher said: "My heart has been here ever since I left United eight years ago. I intend to spend the rest of my life with my adopted folk in Gateshead."
5 Andy Cole
We're jumping back into the Premier League era once again here, and to one of the best strikers the top flight has ever seen, Andy Cole.
The Nottingham-born talisman signed for the Toon in February 1993 when the club paid Bristol City a club-record-fee of £1.75m to secure his services.
Cole would partner Peter Beardsley in attack and tear Premier League defences apart for fun. In Newcastle's first season back in the Premier League, Cole would score 41 goals in 46 games across all competitions.
He would end his time at St James' Park with 68 goals in 84 matches, and the only reason he isn't higher on this list is because he left too soon.
4 Les Ferdinand
Coming in at number four is another '90s Toon icon, Les Ferdinand.
He was signed from Queens Park Rangers for £6m in the summer of 1995, and while a price tag such as that would've been pressure enough for most players, Ferdinand also had to deal with the pressure of being Andy Cole's replacement.
Somehow, he coped with both and spent two fantastic years terrifying the league's best defences while donning the famous black and white stripes. He helped the club to two second-placed finishes in the league and scored 50 goals in just 84 appearances across all competitions.
3 Len White
We're into the top three now, and the bronze medalist on this list is actually Newcastle's third-highest goalscorer of all time, Len White.
White joined the Toon in 1953 after a two-year spell with Rotherham United, and while he made an instant impact on Tyneside, he wasn't given the coveted number nine shirt until Jackie Milburn left the club.
Once he pulled on that shirt, his goalscoring went from remarkable to unbelievable, and he ended his career with a staggering 153 goals over nine years at the club.
2 Jackie Milburn
The runner-up on our list is, without doubt, not just one of the best forwards in Newcastle history, but one of the best forwards in English football history.
Born in 1924, Jackie Milburn would start his footballing career with Newcastle in 1943 and stay at the club for 14 years, until eventually moving on to play for Linfield in Northern Ireland.
During his time with the Toon, he would play across the front line, but it was in the post-war years, when he was played as a traditional number nine, that he helped transform the club into perennial winners.
In all, Milburn helped the club win three FA Cups during his time there and scored a mind-boggling 200 goals in 397 appearances. At the time, he was the club's all-time leading goalscorer until another man came along four decades later.
1 Alan Shearer
Come on, really, who else could it have possibly been?
When you ask the average football fan to name an iconic Premier League striker, the chances are that Alan Shearer will almost certainly pop up among a swath of names. However, if you ask someone to name an iconic Newcastle United forward, there is no chance they will name anyone before they name Shearer.
Few football players are as loved by their fans as Shearer; almost two decades on and a failed stint in the dugout, he is still revered to an almost religious degree by the St James' Park faithful.
The Newcastle-born phenom joined his boyhood club in 1996 for a then-world-record fee of £15m, and to say he lived up to the price tag would be a colossal understatement.
He may have ultimately left his boyhood club without a team honour, but he retired as the Premier League's all-time top scorer with 260 and as the Toon's all-time leading scorer with 206.
Newcastle may never see a player quite like him again, and we reckon the fans are probably okay with that.
