Wandy

I could see it coming to a point where there are scuffles. Will only take one "hardcore" bunch, who manage to make it to a certain game, then being lectured to sit down....

Apparently there were people complaining about standing up too. Sorry, but if I was at an away game and encountered that then they'd be getting to told to jog on. There needs to be a new loyalty scheme introduced specifically for those who attend away games otherwise every match is going to be hogged by daytrippers.

Reading a few comments on social media from fans on their way home from West Ham, saying the away support was terrible today....." 5 minutes of singing after we score, then silence"..... Can't comment as I didn't watch or listen.. There is once again a lot of anger about the "regular" away fans now being prevented from going to games too.

Not necessarily. The current SJP site is a hefty plot of land that would be converted to green land. And planning may not be granted by these groups but it was Dolly whats-her-face and her little band who effectively put the blockers on. The council were ready to approve it.

Nah, it failed mainly because John Hall's proposal was to keep SJP as a (smaller) rugby stadium as well as building the new football stadium, hence the loss of a lot of green space. A new proposal could allow for a land swap, whereby the current SJP plot becomes part of Leazes Park. The "friends of Leazes Park" group (or whatever their name is) have already said they'd be open to developments that help renovate the park and this could be such a development.

I don't think money is the issue, to be honest. The way that the game is going NUFC may be worth £10bn within the next 20 years so dropping £1bn or so now to ensure the future value of the club could make a lot of sense. I think the issue is permission to do stuff, but also the disruption to the club (and therefore the team) that might come from a move or redeveloment. But if the council came to the owners and said "here's the keys to Castle Leazes, do what you want with it" then I don't think they'd be too concerned about costs. We could do what Spurs did and build a new stadium on *almost* the same footprint, ie moving the stadium slightly North-West to move away from Leazes Terrace. This would obviously mean a complete rethink of Barrack Road and would mean either redirecting it or maybe creating a tunnel wher Barrack Road currently is. The issue we have with that proposition is that there will almost certainly be a period of time when we'd have to play at another venure...maybe for a full season, or even 18 months. They could maybe extend Gateshead Stadium to a capacity that accomodates current ST holders but that would mean virtually no general sale ticket sales. Maybe for that period of time they would need to bin off STs and make attendance by the ballot for everyone? The other option of course would be playing down the road at the SoL. Unthinkable maybe at first thought but people might come round to it if they see what the final result of a new stadium would be.

The one thing I think we can rest assured of is that these owners are very aware of how unique and important the city centre location is to the club and the city in general. I don't envisage any scenario whereby they even slightly suggest that we should move out of the city centre, no matter what the feasibility study comes up with. And if that study does come up with a recomendation of moving out of town then I'd fully expect them to dismiss that recomendation out of hand.

Moving out of the city centre is totally out of the question and therefore if modest expansion is the only option then so be it. I really don't think that it is though. I would not be surprised if the speed of the club's rise has shocked the owners and they may be having a serious rethink of it's potential and therefore how much they are prepared to plough into it.

This is pure speculation that a new stadium would be definitely be worse than SJP for atmosphere. It's been well discussed on here how poor the acoustics are within the current design. And it wasn't the stadium that made Wednesday night so special, it was the people within it.

Already been discussed in this thread but that isn’t the case. A grade 2 listed building could be removed, depending on the conditions. The guy who owns St James Terrace said so himself (and also hinted that he was open to selling it for that to happen).

Nowhere. It’s my own expertise talking. Seriously though, I think they could do it with St James’ Terrace removed. There would need to be a lot of glass and clever light redirection technology, and you’d probably need to remove the grass from the front of Leazes Terrace, but it’s doable IMO. And the club must think so too if they are looking at expanding that area of the ground.

Fair point. Any expansion absolutely must come with a rethink of how fans are placed within the stadium.

The city centre location is non-negotiable, be it on the current footprint, Castle Leazes or the Arena site. But everything else is up for debate, for me anyway.

It's not just about adding capacity though, it's also about adding and improving facilities such as corporate, catering & accessibility, and pitch views too. I don't see how extending Level 7 to Gallowgate and a small, additional tier to the East Stand does that by any significant manner.

That's not even new info. Mehrdad said himself a while ago that they hoped to expand to 65K. I still think the feasibility study may be used as the reasoning to move/completely rebuild, rather than a modest expansion. On Wednesday the club moved up a gear, you could just feel it, and I bet NUFC gained a lot of new fans that night. Will a modest upgrade to a creaking stadium really cut it, as football enters a new age? Not for me it wont.

I didn't think that SJP would ever get near the heights of the 1990s again but it got very close on Wednesday. Not quite as good as Barca 1997, but pretty damned close. That's not a slight on the support, who were magnificent, but more to do with the fact that the SJP acoustics were simply much better back then. You could just tell it was going to be special on Wednesday though. In the streets around town before kick-off, everyone was singing on their walk up to the ground. And it seems most people were smart enough to ensure that they were in the ground early this time, what with all of the issues with ticketing. The bar has been set now though. Wednesday showed that SJP can still be a bear pit, like the old days. So anything less going forward is now on the crowd.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2023/10/06/newcastle-united-st-james-park-expansion-65000-capacity/ They can squeeze an extra tier onto the East Stand, but only if St James' Terrace bites the dust. Just build a new stadium man, it makes much more sense.

Are they aware how unhappy everyone is with all of the new ticketing policies, ie being unable to choose your own seat etc?

Which part of the ground did your friend get tickets for?

Exactly why a new stadium is required. Imagine what SJP will be like if they do somehow manage to extend it to 65K. I've been thinking about the extension though, and realised that even if they do somehow manage to stick another tier on the East Stand the chances are that the majority of the seats will be corporate. That leaves just an extra 7000-ish seats in Gallowgate Level 7. Not enough for the true demand of an NUFC being ran as an elite club, and with shite views and poor accoustics too. There needs to be a new stadium within the city centre. Or literally knocking SJP down, stage-by-stage, and moving the pitch north-west to allow a whole new design of stadium to sit on more-or-less the same footprint.

Exactly. It's a shocking system in so many ways and needs to be ditched, pronto. There is no other entertainment industry where the customer has no choice in where they sit within the venue and football should be no different. If the club are trying to attract a new audience to SJP then they are probably doing an awful job of it, as I imagine most people will be getting sick of the new system of chaos already. And a fair few long-term supporters might be considering jacking it all in and just watching on the TV too. Maybe this is their way of addressing the capacity issue. Piss enough people off so that 52k is actually enough.

Wasnt there today but was in L7 for the City match on Wednesday. There was a real log jam at the turnstile there too. Atmosphere was as shite as I feared up there and I thought the general atmosphere within the whole stadium was wank too. City fans embarrassed us for noise. I'm now fully of the opinion that we need a new stadium and I suspect that the feasibility study will show it too. SJP as it is is simply not fit for purpose as a state of the art stadium. Its lop-sided, has terrible views within a whole section and has poor accoustics. Rip it up and start again somewhere within the city centre.

Yeah mine too. It’s nice to see match footage of the old West Stand at the beginning. Watching that game reminds me how desperate those 8 years were between Keegan leaving and coming back. The club truly had no ambition, let 3 local lads leave to become superstars elsewhere and the ground was an absolute shithole. The Ashley years had their own kind of desperation but at least the club hadn’t slipped off the football radar altogether like it had by the time it got to early 1992.

Had no idea that his name was well known. Learning all these things nearly 40 years later.

I had no idea the ITV theme tune was even called that.