Wallsendmag

It is just so Sunderland though. There's people on there will come and pick you up if you're interested in going. With all the freebies and cheapies they must have a really low receipts versus attendance ratio as well. Their gate reciepts were less than half of what ours were when both clubs revealed their last set of accounts (£16m for them and £33m for us iirc).

Oh Dear: ALS has been informed that ticket sales for the Blackburn game on Sunday have been much less successful than the club had hoped. At the last count there were 37,000 tickets sold. Taking into account that Blackburn have sold less than 300 of these it is understandable, had we been playing someone like Machester United with a big away following then we would have broken the 40,000 barrier with ease by now. Many people said they would never return while Steve Bruce remained in charge, well now he's gone and been replaced with one of the best managers in the country. We know it's a Sunday, we know it's on TV and we know it's an early kick off...however, Martin O'Neill will have been sold a vision of SAFC and what is possible to achieve here...lets not get it off to a bad start. If you can afford to go, if you can't decide whether to make the trip or not please consider that first impressions are lasting... There is a deal available for season ticket holders to purchase two extra tickets for £10 each which may help make the game more accessable for some. If you know a season ticket holder and would like to go on Sunday, why not ask them to help you out if they can? We hope that Sunday can be a great occassion and a fantastic welcome for our new manager. As supporters it's our job to make that happen. Read more: http://www.readytogo.net/smb/showthread.php?t=652481#ixzz1g2vX2eJg

All of a sudden things just seem to be conspiring against us. Atkinson has been a terrible ref for us. Man City away last year went way beyond incompetence.

mackems, Man City, Villa, Liverpool, Man Utd, Chelsea, Stoke in that order.

Remember we did it for the games v Watford and Crystal Palace in the Championship. It's a canny offer and the timing is perfect for Christmas.

To any Everton fans complaining about not being given a penalty for the handball think back to the game against us at Goodison last season when the same ref refused to give us an even more blatent penalty for the foul on Nolan.

Best needs dropped until someone can explain the offside rule to him. Very frustrating watching him yesterday.

Thought we made hard work of beating Fulham. Krul played a blinder in the 2nd half.

I just paid £25 for the seat in the Gallowgate but that was off my ST and I think it's a quid more on general sale. The cash turnstiles tomorrow in NW Corner are £20 for adults which is very reasonable. You couldn't get into many (if any ) Championship grounds for that price. Cheers. Really tempted to drive up for the game now. Get yersell up for it man! Playing some great stuff at the minute and £20/£25 to watch the likes of Coloccini, Cabaye, Tiote, Ben Arfa etc is a bargain! It's great leaving the pub at 2.45 with a spring in your step really looking forward to the match instead of going as a sense of duty when you'd really rather just stop in the pub. Long may it continue!

I just paid £25 for the seat in the Gallowgate but that was off my ST and I think it's a quid more on general sale. The cash turnstiles tomorrow in NW Corner are £20 for adults which is very reasonable. You couldn't get into many (if any ) Championship grounds for that price.

It's just for the NW Corner for seats they don't put on General sale for reasons known only to themselves. It's a good idea letting fans in early for a fiver less because they'll make the shortfall back in beer sales. Bought an extra ticket off my season ticket earlier for a mate who's decided to travel down from Scotland for it and the rest of the stadium looks almost sold out. Couldn't get him a seat anywhere near mine. Even with Wigans tiny following I think we'll see our biggest crowd of the season tomorrow.

Tickets are £26 in the Gallowgate (£25 for members). Wigan won't bring many but surely if the turnout of home fans is really big and the away support is poor they can just move that Sports Direct Divide further along the Leazes End unless they won't do that because L7 seems to be a closed shop these days unless you have a season ticket up there. Edited to say you'll have been quoting student prices no doubt

Last season was similar. We had some low crowds by our standards earlier in the season (43k v Villa, 41k v Stoke, 41k v Blackburn and a couple of 44k crowds) but then as the season went on the crowds grew and grew and after the West Ham game just after the New Year we never went below 47k for the rest of the season. If our good form continues, or even if it doesn't but the football is still good to watch, crowds will rise throughout the season just as they did last year and we'll still end up with an average of over 47k. Think we'll see a good turnout on Saturday as well. Wigan will only bring a few hundred but with it being a Cat C game a lot of home fans who didn't go to the Spurs game because of price/live on Sky will go to this one.

My team: ----------------------------Krul------------------------------ R.Taylor---------S.Taylor-----Collocini---------Santon Jonas---------- Cabaye-------Tiote---------Marveaux -------------------------Ben Arfa--------------------------- -----------------------------Ba------------------------------ Got a feeling this game won't be as straightforward as some are making out. They've got a canny record up here and this is just the sort of game where we tend to slip up. Crucial that we get the win on Saturday with the games we've got coming up in the next 6 weeks so i'd be delighted with a scrappy 1-0 win. 19 points after 9 games would just be unbelievable.

Got this awful feeling their 2 wingers are going to have a field day against 2 of the weakest fullbacks they'll face this season. Would snap your hand off for a draw but I think today might be the day our great run comes to an end and it will finish 1-3.

So know them well and obviously believe that they're capable of playing in the BQN.

The charges at Blyth have gone up gradually over the seasons, they didn't just whack it up from six quid to a tenner overnight. I think it might have gone from £7 to £9 for the first season in the Conference North, then another £1 after that. I think there is a mental barrier about the round ten- it was certainly robustly debated at the time- but with an underlying hardcore of around 400 at Blyth it probably worked out when it came to the bottom line. A lot of local floaters headed down to Whitley Bay because they were hammering Twobob Welfare week-in, week-out. I used to see a lot of them at Bedlington in the late 90s. They'll go where there are lots of goals for a few quid, the actual level of football is a secondary concern. Whitley Bay were one of the lowest scorers in the league at home last season with 29 goals from 21 games which sort of blows your theory out the water a bit and Blyth tried to sign half of Whitley Bays team in the summer is because they must have felt their players were good enough to play in the Blue Square North. In the end Blyth lost possibly their best player to Whitley Bay in Robbie Dale. There's a lot of quality sides in that league, yes there's some dross like Tow Law and Stokesley but in the main the standard is very good, probably the best Step 5 league in the country hence the reason Whitley have won the Vase 3 years in a row but not the league. For between £4-£6 to get in it's great value for money.

You're probably spot on with what you're saying there. Can only really think of Everton and Villa that would be given a Category B status and the category B price reflects what the season ticket holders are paying if you divide the cost of their ticket by 19.

Must admit i'd go to watch Gateshead when NUFC aren't playing if the prices were reasonable. Me and the missus often take in a local game, usually at our local team, Newcastle Benfield where it costs a fiver to get in, or North Shields where it costs £4 or £2 if you show a NUFC season ticket at the turnstile, or at Whitley Bay, who have a cracking side and they charge £6. If we went to watch Gateshead it would cost us £28 just to get in and by the time you factor in travelling costs a couple of pints and a burger or pie we've spent the best part of £50 to watch a Conference match, as opposed to £20 for admission, beers, food, programme and raffle tickets at a Northern League game. Obviously i'm aware that running costs at Gateshead are massive in comparison to any NL club and that's why they have to charge what they do but it will always be difficult to attract the floating fan who isn't really a Gateshead supporter but who just likes to watch grass roots football at those prices. Blyth Spartans started charging a tenner a couple of seasons ago and lost around 200 fans (or 33% of their average gate) overnight. Must be a struggle for clubs to get the balance right. Best of luck to Gateshead, hopefully last night was just a blip and they can get themselves back on track.

Just went onto the online Box Office to get a ticket for this off me dads season ticket to save on the booking fee and postage and the cheapest available I could find was £34!!! How come they've made this a Category A match when it's live on TV on a Sunday afternoon when last season they had Spurs (who were a Champions League side) as a Category B match and that was played at 3pm Sarurday? Needless to say i'll be watching on Sky now, as will a lot of others i'd imagine. As for my preferred starting XI: --------------Krul-------------- R.Taylor--Colo--S.Taylor--Santon Jonas--Tiote--Cabaye--Marveaux ------------Ben Arfa----------- ----------------Ba--------------- Think it'll finish 1-1 which i'll be quite happy with providing we beat Wigan the week after.

We've got a terrible record against these and last seasons home game when they beat us 2-1 was just plain torture to watch. Think he'll go with the team that started against Villa which I would have no complaints about and I fancy it to finish 1-1 which would be slightly disappointing but not the end of the world. Hopefully there'll be 45k+ there after our good start to the season.

I did warn people on here before the season started that Level 7 fans moving to the Strawberry Corner wouldn't be a great idea because of the high amount of season ticket holders already there. My suggestion was the Gallowgate Upper as it had/has a low season ticket occupancy (blocks R & V must be less than 15% s/t holders), already has fans standing and singing and there would have been plenty room for everyone from LC to have shifted over and congregate together. The low roof also makes it easy to generate lots of noise so hopefully people will move across there next season. Before then if there's anyone who has moved to Strawberry Corner and is having problems with their new neighbours you could just go up there anyway on Saturday. Loads of space at the back of the Upper tier v Fulham and even against Arsenal there were plenty of empty seats right at the back. Stewards don't really seem to bother going up there much either although i'm sure that would change if it became busier.

Question number 6 on the list of questions the Chronicle will be asking Derek Llambias; 6. Given that level 7 was deserted in some parts at the Fulham game, is there any reason why those who want to sing can't all be sat together rather than upsetting fans who don't want to sing, which appears to be the problem in the Strawberry corner? What has caused the club to fundamentally change its stance to standing in the stadium?

We definitely did. Probably around 10 years or more ago now and maybe only for a match or two but it did happen.

You can still make a right noise and be seated. I remember when we first got promoted back in 1993 and for the first 5 or so seasons nearly all of our away support sat throughout the matches but were far noisier than the current away support who stand throughout the match. Also, in the late 80's and early 90's you had that section of the Milburn Stand in the Leazes wing which was probably the noisiest part of the ground and they usually remained seated throughout which goes to show you can sing/shout and remain on your arse. I can see the argument for the lads who go to the game and would prefer to stand as well (i'd put myself in that category). We had a section where 3,000 or so likeminded people could stand for 90 mins but it was never going to last and sooner or later we would have had threats of the stadium safety certificate being withdrawn or the capacity reduced. I agree that it's a nonsense not to have standing areas. I went to watch Schalke v Nurnberg last season and was fortunate enough that a Schalke fan managed to get me a ticket (€13) in the Nordkurve. 13,000 of us packed in, and I mean packed in, behind the goal. Atmosphere was incredible but at no point did it not feel safe. People should remember it wasn't terracing that killed those people at Hillsborough but the fencing which trapped them inside. However rules are rules. The club have the power to withdraw season tickets of persitant standers. The council/safety commitee have the power to close certain parts of the stadium so until there's a satisfactory resolution people will just have to abide by them and if you don't like it there are plenty of Northern League clubs who would love your support, would be happy for you to stand, and even have a pint whilst watching the match providing you swap your glass for a plastic one!