Wandy

Pissing on my chips would be putting it way too strongly. But considering how magnificent everything else is about the club, I'd be lying if I said that the flatness of the home atmosphere doesn't irritate me. I've stood amongst some of the most vociferous NUFC support over the last 40 years, and that was generally when the team was utter shit, so to see it so bang average when the club is now the best it has probably ever been is frustrating to me. I know that society has changed and it can never probably be exactly like it was, but there is still room for improvement, and I absolutely know that we can get there too.

Call me the forum misery if you wish, but I still thought there was a distinct lack of a songbook going throughout the game until 10 mins from the end. It really is incredible to me that the Blaydon Races has all but vanished from our songbook to be honest. Having said that, you can't fault the support yesterday in terms of urging the team on and cranking up the hostility to the opposition. But this thread was never created as a response to a lack of that anyway. IMO we have still lost the knack of keeping an atmosphere going through songs and I'm sticking to that, despite yesterday, and we really do need that large singing section at SJP. No doubt it, when the ground gets going it's still impressively loud but there just needs to be much more consistency and only a major reshuffle of seats/standing areas can bring that about.

Ferguson has got into his head.

Wow. Is that right he was on a 5 year, £12m per season deal? Glorious work if you can get it.

That’s the worst Man Utd team I’ve seen up here. Take Casemiro and Rashrord’s goals out of it and they would be mid-table.

It’s enraging the way we miss so many chances. They will make us pay if we don’t put one of them away. It’s what they do. They play shit for a large chunk of the game and then hit you with a sucker punch.

It definitely isn't. Just watch that 5-0 from 1996 again and watch the crowd. It was far less family-orientated. Like it or not, that made a huge difference. I still love watching the radgies in the old benches jumping off their seats in reaction to match events. Cracks me up every time.

It wasn't. Which post of yours are you referring to?

Don't think anyone is romanticising them. Rather, there is embarrassment that our support has sank to something like their level at home games. But also an appreciation that their support has made an effort to turn their home atmosphere around. The one area that they do excel in though is their songbook, it's head and shoulders above everyone else in the league for variety.

True. The difference though is that, even on one of the better days, the modern-day SJP atmosphere never hits the heights of old.

I haven't watched the 5-0 for a long, long time so as a warm up for today I thought I'd give the whole match a watch to see if I am just looking back at the SJP atmosphere of old with rose tinted glasses. Well, this confirmed that I'm not. A wall of noise from all four sides of the ground throughout the match. Yeah, the scoreline played a part, but, even in the 15 minutes before we scored the first goal, there is a hostile intensity to the atmosphere that just is not there anymore at SJP. Watching this really made me miss the days of the pre-Level 7 St James's. If the ground is extended they really need to take stadium accoustics into consideration to keep the noise inside the ground.

I agree with you on this to a large extent. Yeah, their hardcore is excellent and regularly makes a lot of noise. But then, considering how successful they have been over the last 30 years, so they should be. My experience of them is that, when a game is gone for them...or looks like it has gone...then they go missing. There isn't a Man Utd fan under the age of at least 50 that has tasted real adversity. And I mean the kind of adversity when you genuinely hate your club for what it stands for,

Yeah, that's class. And the exact kind of atmosphere we need on Sunday to help beat them. You can guarantee that they will be making plenty of noise, and rubbing the cup final defeat into our faces. Unfortunately I can see our crowd being flat again. And yeah, the SJP atmosphere has been poor on plenty of occasions over the last 20 years.....in fact you could argue that a section of our home crowd have been in a permanent sulk since we blew the title in 96..... but there is something different about the current situation. Our support has become very, very generic with a pitiful song book and only reacting to in-game events, rather than being proactive and changing the course of a game. Giving the Strawberry corner an all standing section is a tiny start, but it has to be the seed for something much, much bigger.

True. But it would have been reasonable to leave something like 6/7000 seats as non-ST. To have league games as 100% ST holders was crackers. Hindsight is a wonderful thing though.

Who are these people you are taking about?

Agree with this. Also, hindsight is a wonderful thing but, looking back, SJP should never have been made effectively 100% season ticket holders in the Keegan era.

For those who can access the thread, have a look at the state of these posts man. Actually willing the North East on to be seen as a shithole, all in the hope that keeps NUFC from being successful. https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/nufc-sportswashing-compendium-thread-jan-mar-2023.1597866/post-37992688 For those who can't access the thread, here are some of the comments. They are the saddest & most bitter fanbase in the country, bar none. "they will pull out within 3 years once man u and spurs get taken over and they realise the north east really is viewed as a cess pit to anyone with significant wealth". "The day will be magnificent". "They'll build a Sheikdome in Longbenton imo". "£2k a season ticket / £150 a match ticket. Your lifelong / working class NUFC fans priced out. Be f***ing lifting for them. The sportswashed amongst them are either too dense or in denial about what is to come". "Or of course the owners will pie them off as soon as a more attractive club becomes available in a more attractive area of global influence".

You obviously haven't been on https://www.readytogo.net/smb/forums/pure-football.86/ have you? Hint : It's like the Brentford forum on steroids.

Back in the third division is where I want them.

He’s a brilliant pundit IMO. Talks sense nearly all of the time.

Wish we'd had this lad fit for the cup final. It's only dawned on me how underrated & important he is. We are undoubtedly a better team with him in it.

Agree with this. It was definitely better yesterday but, Christ, when it went quiet it was tumbleweed quiet. And I noticed just before Wolves scored that the game had gone completely flat, and you could sense that the players needed the fans to give them a lift as Wolves were looking threatening. It never came though and, instead, the crowd just sat and waited for something to happen. Sure enough, a few minutes later the equaliser came. Overall though it was better than some recent games. Maybe the fact that people are now talking across social media platforms about a lack of noise has resulted in people making some extra effort yesterday.

Not true I'm afraid. The Bournemouth fans that I highlighted above rated Man Utd, Man City & Arsenal amongst the best atmospheres they have witnessed this season.

Wolves has always been a wild stadium and I have had some brilliant trips down there. The old Molineux of the late 80s/early 90s was an absolute shithole but it had a brilliant "Kop" end behind one of the goals which was actually shared with the away fans. Under that roof there was some hella noise created and there was loads of back and forth between the two sets of supporters who were more or less side by side. I remember winning 1-0 down there around 89/90 in the old 2nd division, and there must have been about 6k NUFC fans down there that day.

In my experience away fans aren't talking about the SJP atmosphere when they are rating the away-day experience up here, but rather the experience as a whole. Everyone knows that Newcastle is a great place to visit and many fans stay for the weekend and make the match just one small part of the experience. Bournemouth fans this season have bestowed on us the title of best overall away day bar none....we are the only one that they have rated as top notch. But they still only rated the SJP atmosphere as 4/10 and said it was poor. They rated Leeds as the best they have experienced this season.