In August 2025, Newcastle United were in crisis mode. The club’s leading goal scorer, Alexander Isak, was on strike to try and force a move to rivals Liverpool. Among supporters, a sense of hurt and betrayal was giving way to something worse: fear. No team stands a chance in the Premier League without an elite centre forward, and with the clock ticking down to the start of a new season, Newcastle couldn’t seem to land one.
Anywhere else in the UK, it might seem melodramatic to say a football transfer saga cast a shadow over the whole city. But in this one-club corner of the northeast, what happens at the stadium on the hill touches everything, from the fortunes of local businesses to the mood on the streets. Then, with barely 24 hours of the transfer window to go, a shard of light through the gloom: Newcastle were signing a young prospect from Germany called Nick Woltemade for a club record-breaking fee of £65m.
“Of course, I knew that there was something [going on] about Isak,” says Woltemade of that chaotic week. “But honestly, in England people just care about English football and in Germany, it is the same. So I was not realising that [the situation] was so hard. [But] I felt it directly when I came. People were so happy that they got a new striker.
“I went to an away game [as a spectator] and the fans went crazy! They all ran into me and sang songs about me. Of course, I knew there was pressure because I came for a lot of money. But I liked it.”
In English football, heroes crumble as quickly as they are made. Isak got his move to Liverpool and with it, was ejected from the hearts of fans. Now, there was a new question on everyone’s lips: Who the fuck is Nick Woltemade? Unless you happened to follow the Bundesliga, where he played for VfB Stuttgart, or the 2025 European Under-21 Championships, in which he finished the top goal scorer, you’d have no idea.
To have done either, you’d probably have to be something of a football hipster – which would be fitting. Even before Woltemade had a chance to display his technical flair on the pitch, the 23-year-old stood out for his unusual look. The Three Musketeers moustache. The faintly sardonic handsomeness. The mullet-lite, with the kind of bounce your barber promises when he upsells you a bottle of sea salt spray.
And the fits. Row after row of fits – not of the gaudy, logoed out kind you normally associate with silly-rich athletes, but the postings of a streetwear head proper. On Instagram, the question “who the fuck is Nick Woltemade” could be answered by shots of him in vintage Ralph Lauren caps and thick-rimmed specs, grungy cardis with Carharrt pants and – shock of all shocks – a thoughtful eye for proportions and layering. Tyneside hadn’t witnessed a fashion moment of this magnitude since Faustino Asprilla arrived in a giant fur coat in 1996.
Woltemade knows that his image plays a part in why fans seem to take a shine to him. “I think they like that I am into fashion. I think being recognisable is good! Of course it's my height [Woltemade is 6ft 6in], and I have longer hair than the other players. You know [famously permed 90s legend] Rudi Völler?” he asks, laughing. “Everyone is comparing [me] to him.”
This is another thing fans love about Woltemade: the way he always seems on the verge of breaking out into laughter, and frequently does. He makes living out the childhood dreams of those on the terraces look fun. Still, even the famous Geordie welcome can turn chilly if you don’t deliver where it counts. With Newcastle's fourth game of the season looming and no victory yet on the board, Woltemade’s debut couldn’t come soon enough.
“Fashion is my favourite thing next to football,” Woltemade tells me with a big grin. “When I know I have an appointment where I can dress up, even when it's just for dinner or when I go to the city or something, I'm always excited because it gives me a better feeling [about] myself.” Take this GQ fashion shoot. “I’m more nervous for [that] than I am before a football game,” he says. “[But] I like to be in new situations, when you don't know really what you can expect. That's what I like about life.”
From the very beginning, when he signed his first contract with Werder Bremen at 17, fashion was a vital outlet for Woltemade, a way to indulge his spontaneous, creative side outside the repetitive rigours of professional sport. Like anyone who was a teenager in the early 2020s, he documented it all on Instagram – including the inevitable missteps.
“Of course, when you earn some money the first time, you put it all on expensive clothes. I had [a] Dsquared2 cap, Dsquared2 hoodies, Dsquared2 jeans – all this stuff. And I think this would be my biggest [fashion] mistake. I just looked for the brand, and not the style. Honestly, everyone can see [those looks] on Instagram because I'm not deleting the pictures. I could delete them, but I like it. If someone is seeing the development, that’s good.”
This DGAF energy is something he had even as a boy walking into a dressing room at Werder Bremen. “Everyone was looking at my stuff and making jokes about it. But they liked it because I was already confident [in what I was wearing]. Of course, now it's part of my character.”
Over time, the brash labels gave way. “For me, the best thing – if I go to London, or when I was in Tokyo last year – is to go looking for vintage stores. That's what I really like because I think [an item is] more unique when it’s old, it has a nice vibe. I wear a lot of vintage Carhartt and stuff. I love Acne, which of course is expensive, but I am into small streetwear brands [too]. Even on Vinted I'm very into Supreme because I find some old shirts with nice stuff on them.”
A man on a Premier League wage spends his spare time hunting out bargains on Vinted? “Oh yeah. Just not with my real name. Most of the time, my friends will buy it for me and I send them the money. Of course, I never get orders sent to my house, I'll always [address] it to the Newcastle training ground. Otherwise yeah, that would be a hell of a story for someone.”
Woltemade believes there are maybe only 15-20 other footballers in Europe who are openly (and seriously) into fashion. He is bemused by the idea that those who are are somehow less serious about the game. “I think with a lot of players, if you're not playing good you [feel you] have to focus on your football, not on your fashion and private life. And for me, this is an argument I don't understand. Because if I play five hours [of] PlayStation, or if I take two hours over my fashion, what's the difference? I think that's why a lot of [players] are scared to post and [express themselves].
“In America, you can dress [how you like]. But in Europe, it's different. Someone can come with sunglasses or something to a game, and if you don't play good you can get destroyed for it in the media.”
There is a special electricity in the air at St James’s Park when a new striker makes his debut; a sense that, just maybe, you’re about to witness a little piece of history. Nick Woltemade stepped onto the pitch in September against Wolves to a roar of support and scored in the 29th minute: a towering, nerve-settling header. He went on to score in his next two home games: something only Alan Shearer and Les Ferdinand had before him. As of February, he has scored eight times in all competitions.
But it’s not the quantity of goals that has made Woltemade a nascent cult hero. In many ways, he seems more of number ten than a number nine, and in recent weeks, a dip in form have led some to question whether manager Eddie Howe’s system is getting enough out of his unusual talents. Rather, it’s the technical daring of his goals and all-round play that have caught the eye of excitable TikTok creators across the country.
There was a backheel goal against Union Saint-Gilloise in the Champions League followed by an even more audacious one against Brighton weeks later. There was a delicious point-blank lob over Jordan Pickford against Everton in November. Most famously, there was a goal dubbed “the greatest penalty of all time” on social media within seconds of it leaving his foot against Nottingham Forest, a top corner screamer that seemed to contradict physics (“I let it go and I was like, Fuck, this is too high! I thought I’d hit the crossbar. But then it went in. I’d never seen height on a penalty like this,” he laughs).
Woltemade seems to be as much of an aesthete on the pitch as he aspires to be off it. “Playing in an entertaining way is important to me, for sure,” he says. “When I was young, I liked to watch entertainers like Neymar or Diego [Ribas da Cunha], who played for my hometown club [Werder Bremen]. Of course it has to work, and be functional. But I've played like this my whole life; it's just in my brain. I'm not on the pitch and saying [to myself], ‘OK, now I want to do something entertaining’, I just do it and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. When I don't think, when I just play with my instincts, I think this is the best for me. I like when people [say], ‘Oh, how did he do that?!’ That's what I like about my style of football.”
It looked like a dream start: exactly what the club needed after the Isak debacle. Then, in December, the script brutally flipped. Newcastle were away at local rivals Sunderland, the fixture every fan had been waiting for all season. Defending a cross in the 49th minute, Woltemade rose to head the ball clear… and looped it into his own net – beautifully, of course. An own goal in the first northeast derby in the Premier League for nearly a decade, which settled the match – it’s hard to think of a worse fate you could encounter on a football pitch.
“It was a bad, bad feeling,” Woltemade says. “I’d never scored an own goal before, especially in this game… when I was sitting on the bench [after getting subbed] I was like, Wow, maybe the fans [will] destroy me. But when I came into the dressing room, I put up my phone and I just saw good messages.” He continues, solemn for the first time all afternoon: “This helped me a lot, because of course I understand it was the most important game [of the season]. I was so thankful. It showed me I’m in the right place.”
Woltemade responded six days later by scoring two goals against Chelsea at St James’s Park. “The whole crowd was singing my songs,” he remembers. “This is not normal. It just shows the personality of the fans. [The own goal] could have fucked up my season and derailed me. [Instead] it was the best feeling.”
It takes some character to come back from a moment like that; just like it takes some character to arrive in England with a huge price tag around your neck and start scoring wonder goals. There is symmetry to how Woltemade approaches challenges on the pitch and the other great passion in his life – fashion. It’s something about striving for excellence without taking that striving too seriously; about owning your errors with a smile and not deleting the evidence.
It remains to be seen if Woltemade will leave Newcastle United as a club legend or a fond memory of just a season or two. But before that, there is the small matter of another debut: at the World Cup in America, Mexico and Canada this summer. Barring injury, he should be leading the line for his country and many are tipping him to be a breakout star.
“I’m really excited,” he says. “I played a big part in qualification. I scored four goals in the six games, so of course I was really, really happy. You always say as a kid, this is the dream, to play a World Cup. I’ll be 24; for the next one I’ll be 28, when I’ll be in my prime. Then I may not even play in the next one because I’ll be 32. But we have a good team and I’m feeling confident.”
After football, a career in fashion is something he’d like to explore, though he doesn’t know yet what form that could take. What he most values most about style is the way it can help people understand one another – how it can be about more than just showing off on Instagram. “[What you wear] makes a big impact on other people. When I see someone has the same style as me, I know, OK, you should be cool. Even when someone's not dressing like me, when it's more casual or just different, I really like it because someone is making his mind [up].
“That's what I like about fashion: you can see how a person is feeling, what he likes to show. When you see a person’s style, you know a little bit about him already.”
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