Wullie

Last nights one? Yep, on a team with Daniel Norcross, the former voice of Test Match Sofa.

Pretentious mackem football writer Jonathan Wilson is a contestant on this week's episode of Only Connect.

They've trumped that today. http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/how-much-newcastle-united-players-7973596

Sorry, what pub is this?

Find it really odd when football fans don't have the courage of their convictions and will change their minds completely upon seeing one performance. He is fucking dire.

You know it when you see it out there on the pitch. It's belief, excitement, faith and a sense of optimism, we've had it in the past, perhaps one day we will have it again.Perhaps. Pretty sure Southampton have got that with a Dutchman who's been there five minutes. But Ashley would never go for anyone who doesn't fit in with his penny pinching dour vision for United, so why would Koeman or someone like him come here ? So you want someone who will bring belief, excitement, faith and optimism but if someone makes any suggestion to that effect, actually you don't want them after all because Ashley wouldn't? Nonsensical.

They only really had from about 1998 to 2002 as a relevant Premier League team from what I remember. Or are you talking like from the 70s. They did win the title in '92 as well tbf.

Jesus Christ.

You know it when you see it out there on the pitch. It's belief, excitement, faith and a sense of optimism, we've had it in the past, perhaps one day we will have it again.Perhaps. Pretty sure Southampton have got that with a Dutchman who's been there five minutes.

How does understanding the club help you tactically against Arsenal, or help you develop a young player into a top class one? Completely beyond me that, I'm afraid.

There's loads from what I recall en route from Thornton Heath and there's loads around Norwood Junction too. I agree that our gates would drop if we were out of town but I'd still go. Is there any amount of negligence from the people running the show that would ever stop you going? Genuine question.

I know loads of people who will buy a ticket to the match just because they know they're going out in Newcastle on a Saturday night and it forms part of it. The place is always packed with stag parties bumping the crowd up. Comparisons with Croydon man, howay.

Eh? Selhurst Park, according to Google, is a 35 minute walk from Croydon centre, nearly 2 miles. If SJP were 2 miles away, our crowds would have crumbled under Ashley. People still go because it's a minor inconvenience to their day at worst. That's the point I was making.

Nut

All of the "real" pubs where I live are in Red & Blue. There's people who will go to school, work & die within 4 miles of Selhurst Park. London's a highly concentrated place. None of the stadiums are out of town. Using Crystal Palace again - it's right bang in the middle of a highly populated area with 10 bloody Wetherspoon's alone in within 2.5 miles of the stadium. There's 900k people in the whole of Tyneside. There's 8 million people in Greater London. People stay in their pockets of the City. London fans aren't travelling far for their football fix unless it's Arsenal or Chelsea. Where Newcastle is unique is that there's such a large part of the country with only 1 decent side to follow. Compared to other non-London clubs the stadium is in a metropolitan area. But I wouldn't act like other clubs are so out of town like the Italian clubs. So it's your opinion that even when there's no match on, most people who attend Selhurst Park on a matchday will also spend their typical Saturday night out, their big night of the week, within three or four hundred yards of the stadium? You know more than me but I find that extremely hard to believe.

There's no excuse for 1 win in 24 home games like. Opened my eyes when Huddersfield gave him the bullet, most people were shocked apart from their fans who were jumping through hoops, and they subsequently got promoted. Fans know.

It's not a matter of where they come from but how they'd be spending their Saturdays without the match. They'd be spending it in the city centre on the drink watching football on the TV. For our fans the ground is right there so a great deal think they might as well just go anyway. What other PL fans primary drinking holes on a Saturday night are all within 200 yards of the ground?

Good posts Minhosa and Wallace. It annoys me when I see the sort of shit Man City do, the tunnel cam, all that. Their PR is superb. Give people an NUFC to be proud of, a nice shirt and put all that shit on top and you've got a licence to print money. So fucking easy.

It's like a social experiment into loyalty. If NUFC under Ashley was your child, you'd have disowned the fucker.

He's got the passion.

Depends which posts you're referring to. The fans that still go certainly have 100% control over whether they give Mike Ashley £500+ a season. I say that as somebody who packed in at the end of last season and lost a sizable amount that I'd already paid. Worth every penny to no longer be contributing to Alan Pardew's existence.

Absolutely no doubt whatsoever in my mind that if the ground was, say, 2 miles out of the centre (like Aston Villa or Everton are) attendances would nosedive. It would instantly be far too much of an inconvenience to watch this fucking dross.

Minhosa's view is obviously the perception I had but obviously there's going to be a core of local supporters everywhere. There's plenty of Salford lads support Man United but that is dwarfed by the others they attract from all over the place with very high expectations. I really do think if you're having to trek to a retail park and back, or commute into London, to watch something atrocious, that's likely to annoy you a lot more in the long term and so you'll ultimately have less tolerance for it. Leaving the pub at 2.55 and being back before 5 can make the match a minor inconvenience for some.

I blame Interpolic for me joining the TF Facebook group, featuring some of humanity's stupidest specimens.

Nah. Their fans are far more likely to come from far and wide. There's no way Spurs fans would usually drink in that dump.