It's an easy line to spout when journalists are ready to pounce, but anyone within the Newcastle party who said that this game was the biggest game in living memory for once was right. 

All the hyperbole in the world couldn't prepare one for the sheer scale of the San Siro stadium, especially when approached  in the dark -  lights twinkling away up into the night sky, more like the mother ship in Close Encounters than a football ground.

And after a remarkable match packed with incident and controversy that we emerged unbeaten from disappointed not to have won, the endless twists and turns of this campaign present us with one more chance to pull unlikely qualification off, with the aid of our Leverkusen chums of course....

That there was that collective feeling of disappointment after this result bears testament to the progress made since that first game in Sarajevo. Many miles travelled indeed in the interim and not just by the team and fans.

Lessons appear to have been learnt (in some cases painfully so) and although the club have taken steps to bolster the squad and Woodgate isn't able to feature until next season's campaign, those who were there at the beginning have grown into the part.

Non-believers will of course now be waving their teamsheets frantically in our direction, anxious to point out that we failed to beat a significantly weakened Inter side and had been ruthlessly pushed aside by their big lads on Tyneside - even though it was our lot who were caught doing the pushing.

But it's almost incidental who was in the blue and black striped shirts, as we put in what was nothing short of an astonishing display of football in the opening forty five minutes. We didn't just play as well as the home side allowed us, we came with a plan and a determination to carry it out, and did so regardless of the opposition's footballing and acting skills and the outrageous bias of the officials.

How Bobby's heart must have soared when Shearer turned away in triumph after scoring that first goal, as did your correspondent, once he'd confirmed that Portuguese twonk with the whistle and his flag-happy compadres had actually allowed the damn thing.

Mass incredulity was the order of the day, as seemingly sane people careered across seats and into mass huddles without regard for their personal safety. If anything it was even more bonkers than the Bellamy/ Feyenoord moment, and more akin to Lee's semi-final goal, when for a few marvellous moments we seemed to have finally opened the door to the big time, after years of jiggling the key fruitlessly in the lock.

We might have known it wasn't going to last.

Half time produced a procession of stunned expressions from some of those nearby, while others jigged around in the manner of the demonically possessed. That didn't last long, once the lads had been roared back on to the field for what promised to be an epic second forty five minutes.

But this is Newcastle United remember.....and the Milanese promptly went upfield and popped one in to provide a severe jolt of reality to the romanticists on the Curva South. 

No matter though, the ball gets dispatched from Robert into the box and somehow big Al is there to knock it home. The carnival has started again and there's Gosforth's favourite son in front of us, arms aloft, with a Peruvian climbing on his shoulders as thousands of geordies go collectively nuts. He's scored. For Newcastle. Against Inter. In Milan. And we're there - and we're winning. "2-1 in the San Siro" was the song, manna for the ears. Bloody hell.

At that stage, those present wouldn't have swapped their place on this earth and alongside this pitch for anything, anyone or anywhere. Bedroom romps with film stars, swimming in vats of drink, breaking the bloody bank at monte knaa where. 

Moments that you can't buy on Ebay.

But it couldn't last - the fickle finger of fate peed in our face again, along with a number of the gutless Italian bastards in the upper tier, and back they came with another equaliser, just as some of their fans were starting to leap from their seats to unleash tirades of abuse at their own side. 

Try as we might, we just couldn't summon up that late winner as we had in Rotterdam. And in those excruciating final seconds while an atrociously-awarded free kick almost turned into a penalty-length opportunity thanks to the ball-shifting antics of Inter, we faced an exit.

Thankfully the theatre of tragedy didn't serve up a command performance though and we face the visit of Barcelona with at least the same hope we had travelling to Feyenoord. And there may yet be justice of a sort, with Vieri picking up the dubious yellow card that keeps him out of that final game in Germany.

Such was the disgracefulness of the home side's cheating, the complicity of the match officials and criminal actions (or inactions) of the Milanese police and fans that it did seem at one stage that we were destined to win this game, just to prove that the good will out, occasionally. But it's still not over, there's still one more game that could just top everything - even the Tino hat trick night.

The team and fans were absolutely fantastic in this game, regardless of the fact we didn't win it and regardless of whether we yet sneak through. Like Bobby Robson, we're proud to be Geordies and if we go out on next Wednesday we go out with heads held high knowing we've given a good account of ourselves, something that seemed most unlikely earlier in the competition.