macphisto

I'm not trying to be contentious for the sake of it but that doesn't mean anything to me. I completely understand why it does matter to some people though I think that is more about people being able to drink in town. I do like the prominence of the stadium and convenience of being central which could be replicated elsewhere. Just as an example, if the stadium could be moved to where the arena is then I wouldn't be fussed at all. I did move away from Newcastle a long time ago so maybe I just don't have the same affection for the stadium as others.

We wouldn't lose any of that if we stay within the city centre apart from L7. I've highlighted the section in bold as I haven't been to the ground in over 10 years. Was the atmosphere that good under Ashley? I do know one thing for sure, there is no better way to kill an atmosphere in a stadium than to have it all season ticket. The crowd grows old together and it just becomes terrible. We had an awful atmosphere in the latter days of Hall before Ashley; that's why there was such a demand at the time for a singing section as the atmosphere was so flat.

I personally would still not rule out the possibility of us moving. They will have been made aware of the discussions about the stadium online and thought it best to put them to bed by making this statement now. You are not going to upset many people by saying you're staying and expanding as opposed to saying you're moving that could cause opposition from some sections of fans. A few things to bare in mind, lets wait to see how long the waiting list becomes for season tickets, how many non-season ticket holders buy tickets for cup matches (a good gauge of how many fans are missing out on league matches), feasibility studies on extending and finally in the article they do say they are going to speak to the council. Who knows what might come up in those talks? They do mention that the new training ground is about 3 years down the line and whilst I don't believe it's a linear process where we have to build the training ground and then the stadium we are probably looking at three to four years before anything happens in terms of work on the stadium. A lot could happen in the next few years to change their minds.

Look to get it up to 60-65,000 but not moving.

I'm all for moving and building a new stadium if we have to move but Four Lane Ends? I couldn't think of a worse place. I wrote previously that I'm confident the council would find somewhere to put the stadium in the city centre if we have to move.

100%, the club shops that were in Monument Mall and near the exit to Northumberland street in Eldon Square used sell a right load of Newcastle related tat back in the day I would also say that pretty much 100% of the stuff they sold were Newcastle related. Just going off the image in the article, that is not a club shop. It's a Castore shop selling Newcastle gear along with other parts of their range. Nothing wrong with that and as long we get our rightful share then I am not too concerned but it does mean that ultimately we are still losing out as the "mugs, keyring, prints and all that shite" do eventually add up to a bit of money that we are losing out on. As I say, nothing major in the grand scheme of things but I do hope we eventually do get a few real club shops like we used to have pre-Ashley.

I'm not being pedantic here but is it a club shop or a Castore shop that will sell Newcastle along with other ranges of their clothing? The two are completely different as we wouldn't call Niketown on Oxford Street, London, a Liverpool club shop. Going off the image in the article above, I can't see anything that's black & white. One of my reasons for asking, not related to Newcastle, is that I think Castore are trying to exploit a hole in the market by Nike & Adidas trying to promote sales through their websites and only working with a small select group of retailers; certainly when it comes to selling their premium products. Ashley has complained about their strategy and last year Nike stopped selling their goods on Amazon in the US. It's the changes in the sports market above that makes me believe Ashley has something to do with Castore. It would be too difficult to turnaround his existing brands and turn them into a premium sports brand so I would not be surprised at all if he is one of the major players behind Castore in trying to establish them as a premium sports brand. Handing over complete control of our merchandise, an area where he specialises, to Castore was very suspicious. Did he still have control of merchandise at Rangers too when Castore took over?

"a question from a Journo to Neil: 'Sunderland were the richest club in the world in the 50's, now that it's Newcastle do you think the Tyne-Wear rivalry will continue to even exist?'" https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/awful-journalism-this-morning.1572744/

Which PR? If we had a capacity of over 70,000+ then I'm confident there would be space for all groups of our supporters from corporate to local kids from the East and West ends of Newcastle. Some matches would be more difficult than others to obtain tickets for but most groups would be able to watch the team throughout the season. I think this ownership is very switched on and I have no doubt they know the importance of not cutting off future generations.

It might not have turned you off but it did for plenty of others or rather the crucial bonds that last a life-time and are developed between 14-17 years old going to the match just didn't develop. Also, I don't mean to be patronising here, but you missed out on so much as a young fan. Going to the match with with your mates in your mid to late teens is one of the best times, if not the best time to support a team. I would hate for future generations to be denied the opportunity to watch the match in-person like what happened during the Hall years.

Without the match going experience at 14-17 years old with your mates then yes we would have lost a lot of fans. In my experience, that time in a supporter's life is so crucial in developing life long bonds to a team. At best it turned a lot of who would have been serious fans in casual fans who probably completely lost interest during the Ashley years.

Thank you, maybe my wording in my original post wasn't the best but I didn't think I had said anything contentious or even up for debate. I thought it was accepted by all that's what happened.

Are you saying the age profile of our crowd didn't significantly increase under Keegan and that there were still large groups of teenagers attending games?

It's not just Tyne & Wear though, we are the only team from the Scottish borders to Sunderland. Based on a quick Google, Northumberland and Tyne & Wear combined is almost 1.5 million people. Yes the North West has a much larger population but they also have a lot more football teams.

Were you around then? I'll speak from personal experience that will resonate with a lot of people of a similar age. Maybe lost a generation was the wrong wording more like locked a generation of fans out of the ground. I grew up in Walker and like most teenagers in the early 1990s I used to attend matches with my mates, say half to a third of games; pay on the door. Mostly stood in the Corner but sometimes went in the Scoreboard or Leazes end. We all used to take sing about the East Stand and their flasks being quiet as they used to sit, be full of old people and season ticket holders. I was there for Keegan's first match back, not particularly for Keegan, but mainly we had probably arranged to just go that day. Not long after Keegan returned within a season or two the stadium went practically all season ticket. Me and my mates were locked out. Yes we could get a few spare tickets every now and again but we couldn't go as a group like we used to and have the same craic. I have not attended a match in the last 10 years but I imagine a lot of teenagers in groups, particularly those from less well-off areas, have been able to attend matches similar to how I did when I was younger due to the availability of tickets. I guarantee those type of fans will soon be locked out as more and more people buy season tickets. How many groups of teenagers will organise themselves and be able to afford a season ticket all at the same time? There's been a lot of talk about the atmosphere of the stadium, I guarantee that anything like the demand of the Keegan era would progressively see the atmosphere go down hill after the first few years. That is what happened prior to Ashley. It wasn't so much apathy but the crowd got progressively old together and any youngsters attending were often there with their parents. Not many groups of teenagers were able to attend games from Keegan to the beginning of Ashley's ownership, the very group who help generate an atmosphere. That is what happens with stadiums that are nearly all season ticket holders; young groups of fans are priced out. Anyone who attended the latter years of the Hall/Shepard era will know that the atmosphere in the ground was terrible as we had an aging crowd with very few younger fans. I mention the East Stand above, by the end of the Hall/Shepard era that is almost what the whole ground was like. There is no more sure way to kill the atmosphere of a ground than it to be full of season ticket holders which is what would happen if we can only expand to 60,000 in our current stadium. Hopefully we can expand further in the current stadium but if not then move elsewhere within the city centre.

Good to hear that about the Emirates. As has been pointed out though, can we really use Arsenal's move as a barometer? Highbury was hardly jumping. Interesting insights regarding the atmosphere at the new stadium on page 12 of this survey by Spurs fans. It seems like the atmosphere is more affected by the actions of the board than the new stadium.

Your timeline is probably right. Regarding the stadium, we'd need to work very closely with the council on any plans and that in itself would take time.

Two other very important things to consider. I would hate to see fans, particularly young fans, prevented from attending the match like the Keegan years. We almost lost a young generation of fans for a few years under Keegan. Why would we do that to ourselves as a club if there is the option (we don't know PIF's plans) to accommodate them in the future either through expansion or building a new ground? My last point is that we talk about this being a sport washing exercise for Saudi Arabia but in many ways it applies to the region to. This could put the city/region on the map and attract investment in the region like we haven't seen before.

I was joking about Charnley's previous comment regarding the training ground. Where did I say that the stadium was a drawback in attracting players? We are in a completely different situation to those clubs. Man City, as has been pointed out, share a city with Man U so their supporter base is more limited than ours in my opinion. Liverpool have plans to expand to 61,000. They could get more but I would think that has more to do with FSG not having the same financial muscle as PIF and are going for incremental increases. With regards to Chelsea, they are restricted by where they are located, richest borough or near the top in the UK. They did have plans to expand before Ambramovich got his passport vetoed. The other thing to note with Chelsea is that they can compensate to a certain extent for their smaller stadium through high ticket prices and corporate packages. Why do people think Ashley was wanting such a high price for Newcastle in relation to our income and football setup when comparable clubs in terms of income were much cheaper? Why were PIF so adamant about buying us? Why are we often referred to as a sleeping giant with so much untapped potential? I believe PIF bought the club and Ashley wanted such a high premium because of this last point, our potential; potential that were it developed would see our crowds grow much more than 6,000-,10,000. If you don't agree with that then you are almost saying that Ashley was maximising the potential of the club in terms of our crowds without even trying. We have a geographical reach like no other in the UK as our nearest Premier League club is 90 miles away.

No player has ever turned us down because of the training ground

Quite rightly they're probably waiting to have the right structure and people in place before announcing future plans. The recruitment in January shows you how threadbare we are as an organisation. There is so much work for them to do after the neglect of the Ashley years. I'm not one of those who thinks they should prioritise one area over another, for example the training ground before the ground. With the right people in place we can develop multiple areas simultaneously. Is also important to consider the different stakeholders we have to build relationships with to finalise our plans. All of that takes time.

There's an article in the Athletic today about sponsorship deals in football, primarily at Man City. We're mentioned in the article too. I didn't read it in-depth as it was a bit boring but one thing did catch my eye. The owner of Everton or his company paid a record fee to be the shirt sponsor of Everton's womens team. There are so many ways to get around FFP, I wonder how else you could manipulate the women's team to funnel money into the club?

Spurs have won around 14 major domestic trophies since we last won the FA Cup. West Ham have won three domestic trophies since we last won a domestic trophy. You might think I'm scraping the barrel with West Ham's three trophies but their last one was in 1980, 25 years after our last win. Difference with all the other teams is that they all have competition on their door step where kids can easily shift their support or households can be split in who they support. It's nowhere near the same as us in my opinion where we almost have a captured market ready to tap into. No doubt a lot of people in our region support other teams like Liverpool or Man U but they could be tempted back to a successful Newcastle as they don't have any other options in regards to watching a successful team in-person.

It's a difficult to answer, I know where you're coming from as I remember when Robson got tremendous stick for missing out on the Champions League (I think it was for the Champions League) on the final day of the season. What I would say is that we have a much higher supporter baseline than possibly any other team. I firmly believe that none of the others teams would get our crowds given our standard of football, Ashley ownership and lack of any silverware for over 50 years. I don't think it's just about us as supporters but rather that we aren't a one city team, more of a one region team.

The sad thing is that none of us, apart from a very select few, can answer that question with 100% certainty as we don't know what it's like to win something. What a sad inditement on the club and even more reason for why I think our crowds could go through the roof as look at our crowds now when no one has seen us win a thing; no other club in Europe is like us. I remember reading Fifty Years of Hurt in 2006, little did I know we would then have the pleasure of Ashley for 14 years