Wallsendmag

You're very much out of touch if you think it's practical for 3k+ away fans (6k on Tuesday) to arrive an hour before kick off in case their ticket gets rejected as you advised people to do.

Can't decide who I want to win this, or who I'd prefer to lose would be more accurate. Hate them both. Probably prefer Liverpool if pushed I think as they look nailed on to win the league regardless and Man Utds struggles will never not be funny.

You literally talk like an out of touch director rather than a football fan. Loads of people travel on supporters buses. It's totally out of their control what time they get to the ground. When I was a regular away traveller, with Keith Barrett and more recently Paul Atkinson often the buses would go somewhere else first 10/15 miles outside the town/city we were playing in. It meant less chance of trouble as virtually no mingling with home fans and we'd usually get a police escort to the ground. Can't ever remember being in the ground an hour before kick off, other than against the mackems. People on social media saying they missed 15/20 mins of the match yesterday. I'd say that's a pretty large chuck and when you've spend £100+ on tickets and travel, had to get up at 2am and then sat on a bus for 6 or 7 hours I'd say that it's not on. Surprised any genuine football supporter would think otherwise tbh. PS your experience at Arsenal will be completely different to those yesterday. This is down to you already knowing you need to do this rather than being caught off guard when you're trying to gain entry.

Are you for real here? There's better ways to stop touting than rejecting people at the turnstiles after they've got up in the middle of the night and spent a lot of money to attend a football match 300 miles away making them miss a large chunk of it. Warn people in advance at least. Even an email or phone call giving 24 hours notice to the ticket holder means they know they'll need to get there maybe half an hour earlier than anticipated and factor that into their day rather than treating folk who've put so much time, effort and money into supporting the team with such disdain and forcing them to miss part of it If you'd fallen victim to this yourself I'd reckon you'd have a different view.

Tbh I don't think it's the stadiums, it's the people that frequent them these days that's the issue. The likes of Old Trafford, Anfield and Stamford Bridge all suffer from the same problems I've described. Hate to give them any credit but I remember the noise at our first 2 or 3 derbies at the SoL which were absolutely deafening, far better than anything their so called Roker roar could offer, but then as the years went on that place got quieter and quieter as well. Same with Boro. First few times we played them at The Riverside it was very noisy but got quieter and less intimidating as time went on.

NUSC are spot on tbf. They've even liased with LNER to run an extra service to get fans back from Arsenal next week. Arranged fan events at European aways, and things like the boats for London aways and they always respond to queries on Social media. Unfortunately they don't have a voice at the club which is a shame as they are a far better group to represent the supporters that the trust are.

Looked absolutely horrendous in the home end. Their main singing stand, that huge Kop behind the goal appeared to be filled with budding photographers, lots of Asian tourists who would have been there to see Son, and someone with a cardboard sign in the front row right behind the goal begging for Isaks shirt. I know we think that the Gallowgate is shite, which is generally is, but by God if we sunk to these levels it's time to pack up and call it a day.

Absolute pisstake that people have been up since 2am, travelled the length of the Country, only to miss the first 15 mins of the match due to this ridiculous ticketing policy. This is the sort of thing that NUST should be all over but as they championed this ticket check farce I imagine they'll stay quiet on this one.

Just checked. 5 games in total; Everton 28th Dec Leicester 1st Jan Chelsea 18th Jan Norwich 1st Feb Burnley 29th Feb Fans saw 2 NUFC goals in those 5 games. Grim times.

Think they were only valid for 4 or 5 games before COVID hit and the league was stopped and then resumed behind closed doors. Was never an option to renew them but as season tickets went on general sale after COVID I suppose there was nothing stopping people going to the ticket office and buying the seat.

The meltdown on there is epic. I don't know why they put themselves through it If the roles were reversed I'd have to pretend they didn't exist!

They won the lottery that day. Record gate receipts for them so it was the least they could do. Compre to next week where they'll have about 13k there paying pennies to watch it.

Nah still fuck them. I probably wouldn't get a ticket for the home game and definitely wouldn't get one for the away game. It would be the 1st home Derby I've missed since 1985.

Yeah i remember that. Think it was QPR. Also pretty sure that when they released their accounts in the mid 10s when they were still a PL club when you divided their total gate receipts for the season by the total amount of supporters who'd watched, the average ticket price was just over 11 quid and the Premier League average was £28. Obviously that's an average of adult/concession/kids tickets. They infamously turned Ellis Short into a millionaire, when he was previously a billionaire when he bought them, due to him having to constantly pump money in to keep them afloat as they simply didn't generate enough. Polar opposite to Ashley here.

In years to come it goes down in the history books as them averaging 40k+ in the Championship when in reality it's around 30k. Leeds are getting bigger home crowds than they are as Elland Road looks packed every week but the quoted numbers show otherwise. If it feeds an ego though I suppose they'll think it's worth it.

42,276 there according to the mackem calculator. Photos on twitter show that the Upper tier wasn't fully opened which takes their entire capacity down to around 42k and the lower bowl was far from full as well. Bear in mind they had a complete sell out v us against us which did look full tbf and the crowd that day was 44,814 They don't even try to hide their fibs now

Not surprised. Watched him against Carlisle in Pre Season. Not sure if it was his debut but it was certainly the first time I'd seen him play and he was superb. Carlisle couldn't handle him. Gateshead ran out 2-0 winners and he scored both the goals. Was clear then that he could play at a much higher level. Will be interesting to see how he does up there but best of luck to him.

I'm not a massive fan of Dubravka and thought he was shocking when he deputised last season, but it has to be said that the defence look more comfortable playing in front of him than Pope. I do get the feeling Pope may be on borrowed time here anyway.

Well 1st January now. Surely only a matter of time until we find out what's happening An expanded SJP or a brand new stadium. Shouldn't be too much longer until we find out.

The Austrian league is dreadful though. It sits between the Greek and Norwegian leagues in the UEFA Coefficient lists. Fair enough he'd scored 9 goals in 18 for Sturm Graz but before then he failed to score in 19 games for Copenhagen and averaged 1 in 4 for Atalanta. Isak scored 13 goals in 16 games in the Eredivisie which is a stronger league than the Austrian League, was scoring 1 goal in 3 in La Liga (over 100 games) and had been a Swedish International for 5 years. I remember when we signed him and very few Newcastle fans batted an eyelid about the price, unlike when we signed the likes of Chris Wood and even Joelinton. Most people who'd watched La Liga knew he was a special talent. Check page 1 on this very thread and start reading if you don't believe me. @KaKaeven comments that he thinks we got him on the cheap halfway down page 4. He was right.

Definitely not. I've never defined my support of Newcastle United on winning trophies. If one comes along in the future then great but, and I can say this hand on heart, it wouldn't massively bother me if it didn't. My dad first took me to SJP as a 6 year old back in 1984. His dad took him along as a 10 year old in the early 60s. He was there when we beat Newport 13-0! It's the pride of following your club, your dad's club, his dad's club that makes football what it is. Trophies should be seen as a bonus as the majority of fans of clubs outside the top ones (and it's becoming more of a closed shop) may never see their club win one. Football is about more than that and those people who've latched onto the Man Utds, Liverpools and more recently the Chelseas and Man City's will never understand this. I've got a mate who follows Blyth Spartans home and away. Him and his group of mates go everywhere with them and even though they are currently worse than shite you can see how much pleasure following his home town team around the country every week brings him. He wouldn't swap it for the world. That's what football is about. Not like what we witnessed at Wembley 2 years ago when we walked back to Wembley Park tube station side by side with Man Utd fans who looked like they couldn't have cared less. I'd honestly wrap it all in if I ever became that.

You're hurting badly this morning mind aren't you. Absolutely fucking raging

This couldn't happen to a more horrible bunch of cunts. Long may it continue. Beat them with ease.

Even Rangers and Celtic have moved fans to get like-minded supporters grouped together. Just at the start of the season Rangers moved long term season ticket holders from there seats in the Copland Stand to make room for the Union Blues supporters group. The old family stand is now the singing end at Aberdeen and they moved the families to the Upper tier of the stand behind the opposite goal. I think sometimes you've got to risk upsetting some fans for the greater good. Certainly those stadiums I've mentioned have seen a big upturn in atmosphere from a few years ago, especially Aberdeen.

Been to a couple of matches over the holidays that have really showed how much our atmosphere is lacking these days. Went to PSV v Feyenoord last weekend which was excellent as you'd expect and I've already spoken about PSV on here before but did Dundee Utd v Aberdeen yesterday which surprised me in a good way. Aberdeen had 3.5k there (in a 13.5k) crowd and their away support was brilliant, far better than anything we see in the away end at SJP, although a few of them didn't cover themselves in glory by lobbing several missiles at the Dundee Utd manager, including a vodka bottle, but the home fans were excellent too. It's all seater, with no safe standing, but every fan behind both goals stood for the entirety, as did the away fans along a full side of the pitch, and even though we were along the side we were constantly in and out of our seats when the home team were attacking as people were genuinely getting themselves really excited. I reckon of the 13.5k fans there well over 50% stood the full game and it does make a big difference. Didn't see a single person playing on their phone either like I often see at SJP. Both teams clearly have Ultra style groups attached to them, and whilst I'm not a massive fan of this it constantly kept the noise going even in lulls in the game. Finally another thing that gets mentioned is the age profile of the crowd at SJP. I reckon at Tannadice yesterday the average age of supporter was around 20 years younger than at Newcastle. At 46 I always feel Newcastle I'm still in the younger age range when I look around me but yesterday I was definitely in the older category. Was talking to a home fan in the pub pre match yesterday and he was saying there's more and more youngsters watching football in Scotland these days, and generally at the lesser fashionable clubs where tickets are more easily available. Mentioned Dunfermline where it's really taken off in a big way. Was good to experience that yesterday anyway.