Wallsendmag

Was at both the O'Brien over the wall and Dabizas games. I genuinely feared for my life as a 14 year old lad during the aftermath of O'Briens goal. I was swept clean off my feet and ended up wedged up against a crush barrier about 10 feet from where if originally been standing, and totally separated from may dad's.mate who took me. I literally couldn't move and could feel my rib cage being crushed against it and couldn't catch my breath. Proper blind panic came over me. Luckily some huge monster of a bloke realised what was going on and managed to position himself between me and the mass of people behind me and I was able to scramble underneath the barrier and stand back up in front of it. The Dabizas celebrations were pretty mental as well mind!

If you have a membership you are also eligible to buy a ticket through the resale process. This is where season ticket holders resell their ticket through the NUFC ticket office if they can't make a particular match. I don't bother with the ballots anymore as I was fed up of sitting where I didn't want to be, and for the Man Utd and Fulham games bought my ticket this way instead.

That was my first visit there in almost 20 years so can't comment if that was at their best or not, although I very much doubt it's like that every week in the Championship against the likes of Rotherham! What I do know is that last year's Semi Final certainly wasnt us at our worst either, it just wasn't very good, but we've been much worse than that this season. It was noticeable that Boro have a much younger, excitable and vibrant crowd than we do which in turn contributes towards atmosphere.

I was just comparing it to our Semi Final last year mate as that's pretty much like for like, except our home game was the 2nd leg.

It'll be best part of 20 years since I was last there. Couldn't believe they still play it Another correlation I've worked out is that the easier it is to get tickets, the easier it is to get a good atmosphere going. I bought 4 prime seats altogether in a prime location on general sale and without any purchase history. It enables likeminded people to group together much easier.

Was at Boro v Chelsea last night and sadly have to report that their atmosphere absolutely pisses all over ours, if I was to compare that to our Semi Final last year. Firstly their DJ does a great job in working up the crowd. It was already full 15 mins before kick off so he turned the music off and just let the crowd sing and it was the best build up to a match I can remember in years. We were in the West Stand, equivalent to the Milburn at SJP, and people were bouncing up and down in there! Certainly wouldn't happen at SJP. Their main singing end was to our right in the South Stand. It's clear that they have an organised Ultras group in there and there's even a podium for the drummer to stand in What I will say is that they never stopped all night. A full end, 5 or 6k all stood for the entire match and song after song. The North Stand opposite, although mainly seated except towards the back, was also very loud and both the East and West Stand regularly joined in. Made for a really noisy experience! One thing I did notice was how different the demographic is between their fanbase and ours. In their main singing end it appeared to be all teenagers and lads in their 20s and 30s. Where were we it was more people in their 30s/40s but still loads of kids.. You can probably add 20 years onto that if you're talking about the SJP crowd. Was nice, as a neutral, to be part of such a young, enthusiastic, vibrant support though although came away slightly envious I'll be honest. They might get sanctioned for an entire Stand singing "You're just a town full of rent boys" at the Chelsea fans however. That was very loud and will certainly have been picked up!

Aye he's class. Going to see him at the Whitley Bay Playhouse next month. Should be a cracking night!

The lot of them were shite because they were playing against a team of level that was way beyond any of them. That was glaringly obvious.

I'm at Middlesbrough v Chelsea tonight. Don't care who wins.

All that worry for nowt. They are fucking hopeless.

17 grand you say?

So it's been a tradition that's been going on for 70 years yet apparently we only did it cos the mackems did it 2 years ago Cracking photo BTW.

That wasn't your point though. You said people went to Trafalgar Square because the mackems did which is completely incorrect. It's been something that's been happening for decades. In fact there's photos doing the rounds of NUFC fans at Trafalgar Square for the 1970s Cup Finals.

I was in Trafalgar Square along with 1000s of others the night before the Finals in 98 and 99 so you're talkng absolute shite there like.

We were in the lower tier right behind the goal, where I assumed mist the atmosphere would be, which is why I picked there as we were in phase one so had the pick of seats. The whole day just felt off. Nobody singing in the pubs beforehand, Man Utd fans outsinging us down Wembley way (mainly with their Shearer song), got into the ground and at tbe age of 45 I felt like a young man! Knew it was going to be shite before we got to out seats. My abiding memory of being at the match was some wifey going absolutely ape shit with everyone at half time for standing in complete silence for the 1st half. Needless to say it got no better at half time. Just a miserable day all round.

We were flat before the match. In the pubs, walking to the ground and In the concourse beforehand. I remember saying to my nephew the fans weren't up for it. Looked around and most people were in their 50s and 60s. It was like going to a home match in the Leazes End. Hated every minute of it.

Aye that was very harsh but ultimately the seat remains the property of the club.

Dabizas 1-0 game and Solano 1-0 game 100% had both dedicated metros and club run buses. Probably a couple more as well but I know these two definitely did. They started charging for the buses with the money going to charity which killed a lot of the interest but by then the metro and trains were already far more popular and it wasn't really worth the hassle of them carrying on with the buses.

Even when the club were running buses you'd have 2 Metros (times published in advance) that you could use that would go straight through to Sunderland non stop. You were also free to use any other Metro. These ran at the same time as the club run buses and I'm going back 20 years here.

Even when we were shite the atmosphere was nearly always good away from home. I've been in umpteen away ends over the years where we've been 4 or 5 goals down and still outsung the home fans comfortably. There was talk a while back that around 1 in 3 of our regular away travellers went on someone else's ticket, usually sourced through supporters buses. Certainly my experience of aways I would say that's a fairly accurate figure., even maybe a bit Conservative. If that's the case that's 1,000 fans out of the typical 3,000 away end who can no longer go. These were generally lads in their late teens, 20s and 30s. The demographic that typically make the most noise. They've been replaced in the away ends by season ticket holders, mostly whom weren't all that arsed about away games previously, but the main problem is that these season ticket holders who typically sit there in silence at home games are now going away and going the same in away ends.

There was never a bubble trip. You could go on the club run buses if you wished or you could travel by rail or with your usual supporters bus. Keith Barrett ran a bus to every Derby up until he was hit with the banning order in 2009. The Metro or Northern Rail train was also always an option as well. I only went on the club run buses once and I didn't enjoy my day as much so didn't to it again.

My only hope is that our 2 best away atmospheres this season have been Man Utd (7,000 away fans) and Chelsea (4,300 away fans) so perhaps another big allocation can help. However the lack of drinking time and people sat on buses for long is bound to dampen the mood. Pretty tragic that we're even having this discussion prior to this match, but that's where we're at unfortunately.

That's just an excuse really. If you caught any of their Europa League games at Anfield this season the away support has sounded very loud on TV. Couldn't hear our lot on the telly and speaking to a lad yesterday who was down there he said it was worse than shite. Just small pockets of fans trying to get things going but it just never took off. Not expecting much on Saturday either tbh.

Done car, train, metro, supporters bus and once on the free buses from the club. I remember meeting lads in the Three Bulls at 9am on the morning of the game and some of us were going by Metro and some were using the official club buses so we'd go our separate ways beforehand, that's how I know they were all run together and you took your choice depending on what suited you the most.

They most definitely did. Some did the official club buses whilst others did went on supporters buses and metros/trains for years.