Wallsendmag

Mate was there. He's a season ticket holder but had to pay 8 quid to get in. Everywhere else was between £3 and £6. Its not even 8 quid for the final! Said it was grim. Announced the crowd as 155. Said it looked less.

We are a far bigger club than Sunderland like. I think any neutral would agree with that. Whether it's trophy count, fanbase, club stature, amount of time spent in top division, we've never been in Div 3, record in Europe....basically whatever road you want to go down we are bigger. Their historical place is probably more or less exactly where they sit now.

Leeds are bigger and spent 16 years outside the top flight. Sheff Wed probably a similar size to Sunderland and they've been outside the PL for near enough 25 years. Size of club means fuck all anyway. Luton beat them in the Play offs to the PL. Bournemouth are Premier League when traditionally they were always a division 3/4 club, same for Brentford. Getting 40k crowds because it's pennies to get in guarantees nothing as it doesn't generate much income. As a double whammy they are hopeless at home so the crowd clearly doesn’t help them. They lost their manager to a fellow Championship club last season and their best player to a Championship club this season because they have a far smaller budget than the top spending clubs even in that league.

A couple of thousand of those would have been from the Netherlands as well. Staggering with a place in th QFs up for grabs! In saying that, just a few years previous we were struggling to get 40k for some CL matches so it probably didn't even raise an eyebrow.

Anyone know when Willock's meant to be fit?

2nd leg in Alkmaar was an absolute disgrace. Beginning of the end for Roeder.

Went to watch them play Derby County the other week. They looked really poor. I think it'll be touch and go whether they can stay up. We're doing a double header next weekend. Borussia Monchengladbach v Heidenheim on the Saturday and PSV v Ajax on the Sunday. Monchengladbach is a new ground/city for us so looking forward to that.

If they're throwing a load of cash our way I'd be more than happy with that. It'd still be St James' Park to me anyway.

It's a huge step up for him really. MK Dons have a 30,000 seater stadium and as recently as 2016 were playing in the Championship averaging over 13k crowds. Gateshead will forever be hampered by being so close to Newcastle amd playing in that hideous athletics stadium with only 1 stand open unless there's a big away following. They'll never be able to pull the punters in to enable them to be a sustainable Football League club. I think the Conference is definitely their ceiling.

Applied for the Arsenal ballot (category 2). My ticket was £41 and my 10 year old bairns was free which was a nice touch I thought, or more likely another fuck up!

Depending on how old your daughter is, applying for the family section gives you the best chance if you don't mind L7. Theoretically as @SteVsays applying for Cat2 should give you the next best chance of securing tickets as it covers in excess of 20k seats and a decent % of those seats aren't taken by ST holders, mainly the Gallowgate Upper, Leazes L4, L7 near to the away fans but I've had no success applying for Cat 2 so far and I've only got tickets in either the Family section and Cat 3 which is only the corner underneath the TV studios and the very front of the Leazes which probably covers less than 2k seats in total when you deduct ST Holders seats, so who knows?

Probably 0. It was mind numbing stuff it really was.

My mate Fergie was managing them for the last few seasons and was doing very well with virtually no budget but left to take up a full time role at Morecambe as head of Academy recruitment.

That American bloke who bought them not long after (Rob Rich?) didn't do them much good either I recall. Bought them a great big scoreboard which they couldn't afford to use, and little else.

I wouldn't go and watch North Shields if it was for free. Their mackem chairman has a massive chip on his shoulder and couldn't lie straight in bed. If he took me it was Sunday today I'd consult my calander. That club has had ridiculous amounts of money going through it from their Vase winning season onwards amd where has that money gone? Nothing at all spend on ground improvements (club house was paid for by lottery grants) and whichever manager has been in the dugout has had a comparatively modest budget at best. Most the fans have had enough. They were regularly getting 400/500 not so long ago. They had 185 there the other week and it'll go lower than that the worse the weather gets. Point blank refusing to accept any payment other than cash in this day and age is suspicious at best.

Felt like more tbh! Just about every home match seemed to be a tedious 0-0 draw! There was clearly a massive hangover on and off the pitch to losing to the mackems in the Play Offs the season before. The ground was completely dead as well. Just an awful time.

1 of my mates is on 1/6 off the ballet. Fortunately for him the 1 was PSG. He's openly said that if he's unsuccessful for every match from now till the end of the season that £37 membership fee was the best money he's ever spent to get that ticket!

I'd have to disagree. Looked completely dead in that 90/91 season and for parts of the 91/92 season. I'm too young to remember the really early 80s, I started going in 83/84. https://youtu.be/XzP_aZu2w74?si=1iSsBUto5fJ5lJli

We had loads of sub 15k crowds in the 90/91 season. I was stood in all them. Crowds picked up in 91/92 but still remember a game v Cambridge where the crowd was 13k and 14k v Southend. They didn't even bother opening the Leazes End v Southend! Edited: Just checked and we had 8 sub 15k crowds in the 90/91 season.

Leazes was called the Sir John Hall Stand when it was rebuilt in 1993 and the Gallowgate End was called the Exhibition Stand when it was rebuild in 1994 before both being renamed back to their original names in years to come. Wouldn't object to the East Stand being renamed after Keegan. He deserves it imo. As has been mentioned he, above all, shaped the club into what it is today. All of us who were watching pre 1992 with 13/14,000 others will vouch for that. He literally changed everything.

SBR came in during September with 32 games left to play and a more than capable squad at his disposal. It's ridiculous to suggest we were certain to be relegated.

Used to always get a discount for row F but as I say they stopped it many years ago.

Not classed as restricted anymore. When L7 was first build they warned that row F was partially restricted but they took that warning away a good 10+ years ago.

Tell that to my 10 year old son who was sat to my left who couldn't see the Leazes End goal! Obviously we swapped seats so he could have a slightly better view!

I had a restricted view seat v Burnley. https://twitter.com/jak19178/status/1712812203038986511?t=yvdORbi0TRMf6Qv8dlOViw&s=19