This puzzle by one of the occasional setters was a very fast solve for me. Got quite a few answers by seeing definitions. Solving time: 13 mins.
* = anagram < = reversed
ACROSS
1 NEWCASTLE UNITED Football club (Clue in tweets and)* Nicknamed the Magpies because of their colours, black and white stripes. Which is why any such bird who has the temerity to alight at the Sunderland Stadium of Light on matchdays is roundly booed.
9 TAF FETA fat< feat with the t advanced
11 Shannon A IR P ORT Ort = fragment = bit
12 THE SE US Where you’d find Florida (on a map)
13 CREM E DE LA CREM E merc< (RAC led me)* + e (close to, ie last letter of, garage)
17 HAMMER AND TO(N)GS More football West Ham United nicknamed the Hammers. inspiring = taking in eg inhaling.
21 ROO(k) FT OP Man = chess piece. One of two references to rival newspapers that the Indy generously allows in this puzzle.
22 BRUM (M1)E Someone from Birmingham.
24 CRABBE D Buster Crabbe from the 1920s, 1930s.
25 SW A (H) IL 1 Westminster is in London area SW1
26 WIENER SCHNITZEL (Cheer in west Linz)* A veal dish, literally ‘Vienna cutlet’ so Linz (in Austria) chosen for the anagram. Cheer in the sense of food.
DOWN
4 TRA (ns) IT
6 N (UCL) EAR UCL = University College London
14 E LABOR ATE work in US as it’s the US spelling
15 EU RIP IDES Greek dramatist
18 MU (TAB) LE Muffin, the Mule, TV puppet in children’s programmes going back quite a bit.
19 T (SUN) AMI(l) Newspaper reference No. 2
20 C (RACk) OW
13 is E(uropean) MERC reversed, not sure if that was implied by your spacing.
Thanks, Colin, you’re quite right – I missed that E in my explanation which was a letter short.
It took me a while to find the thing when solving. The temptation is to see a Merc as a “European car” and assume there’s another E in the anagram fodder.
That’s what happened me, I should have counted the letters more carefully.
Muffin actually made a comeback (in an animated form) a couple of years ago.