Wandy

If the current transfer market had existed in 1996 we would probably have needed to throw £150m at Jack Walker to get him to sell Shearer to us.

The delusion on the Leicester forum is astounding. Talking about themselves like they are Arsenal or Chelsea.

I've not been keeping up with these clowns over the summer as their bile towards us on that NUFC thread is just tiresome. Have they actually bought anyone at all yet?

Not surprised. And there were many, many games pre-Hillsborough where the "tipping point" was nearly reached and a similar tragedy might have happened.

Especially when supporting the NUFC of the 80s and very early 90s. It was all about the day out back then. One weekend I remember in the old 2nd division we played Bournemouth away. The coach was delayed and we missed the kick-off, and also missed NUFC taking the lead. Just as we got in to the ground, the heavens opened and we got absolutely soaked. Then Bournemouth eventually won 2-1. Then we went straight back home. Was still a great day out though.

Atmospheres in stadiums in the modern game in the UK are still based heavily on 1980s terrace culture. It probably does seem crazy to someone who has never experienced it but, believe me, it was brilliant.

The whole era was scary, dangerous and exhilarating. Probably the scariest I have seen was Spurs away in the FA cup in 87. If there had not been an empty corner pen to put excess NUFC fans in then we could have been talking a Hillsborough situation before Hillsborough even happened. Away games were scary as owt too. Running the gauntlet when walking to the stadiums via fields and back alleys. I was never remotely a hooligan but got caught in the crossfire on a fair few occasions. It was all part of the "thrill" though.

Good point. But I think the atmosphere in the 1-0 was on another level for the pre-match 30 minutes and then the entire 1st half. Once Cantona scored there was a sinking feeling around the crowd. The previous 90 minutes though was simply incredible. The 5-0 was fantastic too mind, especially once we got "comfortable" at 4-0. And yeah, we absolutely pissed all over Man Utd much more in the defeat than we did in the win. How we were not at least 3-0 up at half time in that lost game is a mystery. If we had just drawn that game we'd had won the title IMO.

Since we are reminiscing about the KK era and nights out of old... I still shudder at the thought of watching the Liverpool 3-4, Blackburn 1-2 and Forest 1-2 defeats on the big screen in Bambras. Like many, I am still scarred by that feeling of the realisation that we were going to blow the title. On the flipside, the atmosphere in the 0-1 home defeat to Man Utd is probably the best I have ever witnessed at SJP. Only Barcelona at home could maybe rival it. I cannot see there ever being an atmosphere like those two at a NUFC home games ever again, no matter what we end up with as a stadium.

Pretty much all of the old Shields bars have gone now. Roxanne's is still clinging on for dear life though, I think.

One more from me. Back in those days we would have nights out in Newcastle, Whitley Bay, South Shields and, yes, even Sunderland. All were great nights out and always busy. I always liked South Shields as something a bit different....Oz nightclub, anyone? ... Then you had the likes of Whickham on a Sunday, always rammed. I was up there a few weekends ago and it was like a ghost town.

Was this the early/mid 90s though? And are we talking about the Bigg Market / Quayside bars here? If you are talking about other areas of town, like Haymarket / Granger Market etc then yeah, I can see your point. But my experience of the party bars that I went to was that they were very lively for nearly the whole week through.

It's bad enough what has happened to social attitudes with regards to drinking times etc, but I think the pandemic has really, really damaged us as a society when it comes to being social etc. I find it really depressing how so many people are delighted to work from home instead of being in the workplace. I get that there is a big saving in transport costs etc but being in the workplace is just so much better for mental and physical wellbeing IMO.

Agree with a lot of this, except that I think anti-social behaviour has reduced since the change. Not that Newcastle was ever a rough night out in the 90s. The Bigg Market's bad reputation came from the earlier period of the early to mid 1980s, when some of the bars were very lairy. I worked in some of the bars around the Grainger Market in the later 80s and that was an "interesting" experience at kicking out time at 11pm. ....but the 90s seemed to herald a change in attitudes all round.

Sorry, but you are wrong on this. For pretty much all of the 90s Newcastle's "party bars", ie the Bigg Market, and the likes of Legends on Grey Street & Bar 42 on Hood Street were busy for most of the week. I'd say the Bigg Market bars were at 100% capacity on Friday & Saturday nights and a little less on Sunday night. Then you would have the student night of Monday, which easily had these bars at around 70% capacity, because a lot of the students were actually locals....and non-student youngsters just tagged onto the night anyway. Tuesdays were always dead but on the Wednesday things would start to pick up again and then on Thursday nights the bars would probably be at about 50% capacity. Believe me I know this, because I did it heavily throughout the whole period. The fact that KK's NUFC were so massively popular and always on the TV also helped as the games were shown live in a lot of these bars.

I was 20 - 25 for the KK era, and also wisely got one of the half-season tickets available in the 92/93 promotion season, otherwise I would have been locked out of SJP for those 5 amazing years. Literally could not have timed it better. It was a glorious time, not only to be a NUFC fan, but also being a young Geordie living on Tyneside. They were the days when the Bigg Market & Quayside were in their absolute pomp, rammed every night for 6 days out of 7. Even more luckily, my University years also ran concurrently with the KK era, and it's no exaggeration to say that the weekend started on a Wednesday and ended on the Monday, with Tuesday off to recover. The town is a woeful night out these days compared to the halcyon days of the 90s...only truly busy on a Saturday night, and the bars are just dull as fuck. I actually feel a bit sorry for the local kids of today, not seeing how or why Newcastle got it's party-town reputation.

Agree with this. Taking the cowshed roof off the Gallowgate will definitely make the SJP atmosphere worse but it looks like it will be a price we have to pay. But if they do build a glass wall on top of the East Stand then that will help to keep some of the noise within the stadium.

They have obviously seen this mock-up and thought "Bingo".

It is hilarious how they now trawl the internet every day in a desperate search for kindred spirits who may think in a similar manner to them when it comes to NUFC. This is their football-supporting life now, utterly consumed by rage and envy of their neighbours. Thoroughly heartwarming.

Is membership an annual renewal thing?

As someone who has never bought an individual match ticket for years, do you have to be a member to buy them? Or just have a supporter number?

you mean the queue I.D?

bahahaa, I bet he thinks that’s hidden.

Ah really? Bah.

How can they be ineligible when they have been a ST holder for nearly 30 years?