Wallsendmag

34,195 there yesterday

Bit of a pisser this mind. Was really looking forward to this. I break up for 2 weeks on Wednesday so I was looking forward to finishing graft, getting over to the town for a few pints, match, then 2 weeks off work. Now I've got a 6am start to look forward to the following day which is never much fun after a midweek match.

They'll be closing down parts of the lower bowl as well as the already closed down upper section if this carries on. 20k there at the very most.

They'll have about 20k there tonight but will still try to claim 35k. Just watch! It's just a massive sign of insecurity having to pretend there's 10k-15k more there than there is.

This is true. I said a couple of pages ago that a big % of the crowd only carried on going during the Ashley/Bruce shitshow because they enjoyed their day on the drink in town. Lost count of the amount of people who said "the match gets in the way of a good session" or "I'm not giving up my day on the drink with my mates" when the whole keep your season ticket v pack ypur ticket in debate was in full flow. Newcastle United is probably more synonymous to the city they play in than any other club in the country. When you say Newcastle, people automatically think Newcastle United and a big part of that is due to the location of SJP and the support. The club would lose a huge part of its identity by moving out of the city boundaries. I'm all for a move to a new stadium btw. SJP is outdated compared to many of the modern stadiums but it could only be to another site within the city boundary. If that wasn't possible we'd be just as well staying put even if we couldn't extend and with the reality that it could ultimately hold us back.

Wow. No words other than the bloke is seriously unhinged. I get that the takeover has hurt a lot of them as the dawning realisation that they'll never be close to us again hits, but this bloke has serious issues.

The moveable dividers were still in place back then the only difference being that the away fans were in the corner and therefore had home fans either side. They would shift one of the dividers along if a small away support was expected and the demand was there from home fans. We still had 52k+ v Bolton for a midweek game in January around that time and they brought next to nobody that night. For the vast majority of games though outwith Man Utd, Liverpool and Mackems, you could walk up to the ticket office in the week leading up to the game and pick up tickets pretty easily. I had mates who used to do this as they couldn't get hold of season tickets. The season we finished 4th only 49k turned up against Leicester. It's been touched on a bit further up but for whatever reason there just wasn't that sense of excitement during that period compared to when Keegan was here or how it is now. Even big Champions League nights v Juventus and Inter weren't full and Feyenoord was only 40k and that included 2k from Holland.

Looking back quite probably. Personally I never look back on those days with the same fondness as the Keegan years and that's no slight on Sir Bobby Robson who I also adored. I like to read the "on this day in....." section on NUFC.com and a couple of weeks ago it was from a home game v Derby County on 2001. I think if we'd won 6-0 we would have gone top on goal difference and would have went into December on top of the league (we won 1-0 in the end). The attandance was 50,070 so over 2k empty seats to see us potentially hit the top of the table. Mental when you think what it's like now. More interest in a 3rd Round League Cup match these days than potentially topping the table back then.

I suppose the obvious thing to do when you've had to close down part of your ground for years because it's too big is to make it even bigger. Mackem logic.

Moving outside the city centre would be the biggest own goal imaginable. I reckon loads of people would stop going. I'm convinced that under the darkest days of Ashley when gates were still 45k+ a good 15/20k of them only carried on going so that they wouldn't lose their day out on the drink in town!

It was actually very easy to get in under SBR. I had a season ticket back then but plenty of my mates didn't and never had any bother getting in. Same with away games, many went to general sale. I think football in general is just far more popular these days. Our 52,000 average had us 2nd best supported club in the country back then, now the same figure has us in 7th place.

That's the fear. The Leazes had a good atmosphere pre 2000. If the Gallowgate went the same way as that after being extended it would be pretty disasterous for the atmosphere. A new stadium makes total sense for so many reasons. They could incorporate a 20k+ safe standing stand behind one goal, have a family section where the kids aren't 1/4 mile from the pitch and can feel more involved in the action and then ultra modern corporate facilites that could generate serious money as the Premier club of the Region with a captive audience.

Totally agree. The stadium looked perfect when it held 36.k and for big games the noise was unmatched. It would reverberate off all 4 sides and it was absolutely deafening when the crowd was up. We lost all that when it went to 52k. The accoustics changed completely. I put up with it till 2004 and then gave up my seat in the Leazes and switched to the Gallowgate because the extension killed the Leazes End stone dead. Whilst its interesting seeing these videos people have taken from the city centre or further afield of the noise at SJP during a match that's just all noise that's escaped out of the stadium due to the lopsided design. You don't get that at these modern stadiums or even older ones with the stands roughly the same size. I was happy with the proposed move back in the 90s and I'd still be happy with it now, location dependant. A move outside the city is a definite non starter for me.

It's nothing more than the same patch of land that it was when I first started going in the early/mid 80s. There's only really the East Stand that resembles anything like what it did back then and even that has changed. The other 3 sides are unrecognisable It's totally outdated compared to some of the newer stadiums being built and the facilities don't stand up to many other places now. We sat in the East Stand for that womens game the other week and it's poor to say the least. Legroom is terrible and the concourse is grim. PIF want NUFC to become one of, if not the Worlds best. That'll include the stadium.

They were. Back then the only real opposition was from the NIMBYs and the support as a whole was begind the move. The capacity was smaller but SJP back then was far nicer than it is now as well. I've never been a fan since the extension in 2000.

Liverpool can't be too happy with their current 54k as they are currently in the process of expanding Anfield. It's clear as day that the SJP capacity is inadequate. Even early round League Cup games are selling out! And the club haven't achieved anything yet. One of the things the owners are commited to is growing the fanbase both in this country and abroad. We need a bigger capacity one way or another to help facilitate this. Also they need to be looking ahead. At present there's already a generation of fans can't get to away games because they don't have the loyalty points. It would be a crying shame if the same was happening at home. You can't even buy a membership now.

If anything you'd have thought it would have the opposite effect but I guess deep down they already know that. Life as a Sunderland fan tiday must be so, so grim. They've literally no prospects as a football club. I've said it before but I can totally understand the fewm/anger/dispair/ hypocrisy/straw clutching on their site right now as it must be totally soul destroying looking up at us and seeing what we're doing then the sinking reality at what they have and worse still, what the future holds.

To be brutally honest they are already finished. There's a massive stench of defeat coming out of that place now. I watched some of their game on Saturday. Part of their stadium completely shut down. 1000s upon 1000s of empty seats in the parts that are open meaning they are left to lie about their attendances (25/26k there at best on Saturday). Those who turned out just sat there and looked like they'd rather be anywhere else. The atmsophere sounded worse than ours under Ashley! Then you look ahead and what have they got? There's 3 roads. Get Promoted and become whipping boys for a season, with 2 likely heavy defeats coming against us. Go back down to division 3 where they've already spent much of the past decade mixing it up with Accrington Stanley.and Fleetwood, or the most likely scenario of simply treading water in The Championship. 2 of those scenarios would be fairly acceptable to them but then they have one big problem. Newcastle United. Them simply existing when you have what is happening up here going on is just too much to stomach for most of them. They'll become even more insignificant than they are now. Their fanbase will be seriously eroded. There's just nothing positive at all for them to look forward to. It must be so,so grim.

It's actually scary how hard the takeover has hit them! On their forum now you are only permittted to speak negatively about NUFC. Anything positive will lead to a ban I doubt there's a set of fans anywhere in World football as consumed with their percieved rivals as they are now. It's absolutely finished them, make no mistake about it!

Tom Cowie Vol II.

Aye but what about the Hewmin rights and the kids in Yemen etc etc? That won't all suddenly go away because they own Man Utd instead will it?

Eh? There was a mass pitch invasion at Man Citys last home game of the season as 1000s of fans poured onto the pitch to celebrate, which they were fined for!

Bristol City and Hull average around 15k each and make more in ticket sales than Sunderland do!

900 away fans there yesterday so that means the usable capacity yesterday was around 37,000 and it looked 70% full at best on tv. Problem they've got is that if they don't pretend that they're getting 35k+ every week then the one thing that makes them special in their eyes (their crowds) isn't actually there and in reality they are just on a par with Middlesbrough, Sheff Utd, Norwich etc.

Their lower bowl only holds 36k and it was 70% full at best and their upper tiers are closed down