Keith Roberts, better known as Beefy, is an iconic Newcastle United supporter from Jarrow (and recently local politician) who is known for being morbidly overweight, topless and having NUFC tattooed on his belly. His notoriety led to a lot of attention from Sunderland fans, who depicted him as a stereotypical mag citing his perceived lack of class and hygiene.
However, Sunderland fans have long pushed a claim that Beefy was in fact in his youth days, an SAFC fan, and allege in turn that he “flipped sides” following the advent of the Keegan era and “Geordie nation” hysteria in the 1990s. The rumour has frequently circulated on the RTG forum, where a quick search reveals at least five threads on the topic just on the top result! This is nonetheless taken as fact, rather than being disputed.
In the year 2011, one fan alleged that he knew Beefy when he was young and stated: “To clear this up, I grew up, and was good mates with him. All through his school life he watched and supported Sunderland. He left school with no qualifications and started work in the shell mex at jarrow. This is when his allegiances changed probably worked with some other fat idiot newcastle supporting tanker driver. It is well known to people who know him that he was a sunderland supporter.”
If this is true, it’s quite something given he has since even tattooed (as seen on the photo) “NUFC 5-1 SAFC” on the left side of his chest. But why might we ask, is there such an obsession over this? As explained in a previous post, SAFC fans have a common understanding and belief that the 1990s era seen a lot of “glory hunting” fans switch to support Newcastle United, a charge commonly levelled at those who support NUFC from County Durham.
This even has led to the perception some switched sides, especially in deemed “mixed” areas such as South Tyneside where there are both Sunderland and Newcastle fans co-existing. We can only hope that with the direction the mags are heading now, nobody else will make the traitorous decision to switch sides like that. A football club is for life, through thick and thin, as opposed to just following it because it is “good.” Beyond all that though, Beefy seems a nice enough bloke even if you can’t agree with all his lifestyle choices.