OpenC

The wind was atrocious like, the game was all but unplayable at Ponteland. Was getting to the stage that the keeper had to play it out not as a tactical choice but more because it would potentially have looped back into his own goal if he lofted it.

Alnwick one down at Ponteland but the wind is making a bit of a hit and hope game, absolutely ruinous 

Basically that aye, I think you have to finish top five and have a suitable ground and you can then go up on application rather than merit if there's nobody else. I can't believe how good Wallington are like, long-standing fans tell me they've always been great.

Can't weigh them up at the minute, they were looking unstoppable early season but the form has become really erratic.  I think Alnwick are looking the only ones who could realistically go up given the grounds of the other teams up there, but you want to do it as champions rather than by default like.

I think that sort of support is genuinely dying off at Newcastle's level, I don't think it's just us. Die hard supporters being gradually replaced by interested spectators, inevitable really with the television saturation.

Really windy as well though, it's a weird forecast tomorrow. Going to go and watch Alnwick at Ponteland I think.

But it's not only the stadium that's changed, is it? That's the point I suppose. The footballers have changed, public perception of the game has changed, the matchgoers have changed.  SJP itself is the most obvious representation of it but the game and the crowd just aren't the same as they were even 20 years ago, much less 30

It's not disingenuous if you really think that the design of the stadium plays no part in it  and I really don't. I've had the same experience sitting in different parts of the ground - like I say, I watched the life drain out of the Gallowgate between 2001ish and 2014ish when I got rid of the ST, and I've had good and bad experiences in pretty much all of the ground since then (I sat in the away end when it was up in the corner with a mate for a Leeds game and there was no issue with the atmosphere there). Only place I've never sat is the lower levels of the Leazes.

It's almost exclusively to do with the quality of the football and the composition of the crowd (again, imo).

No, it doesn't. It's a convenient but unrealistic excuse for the ground being quieter than it used to be imo. Personally would imagine that demographic charts would be more successful than acoustic ones in determining why that's the case. 

I watched and heard the place getting flatter and flatter between Robson and Pardew's reigns from the middle of the Gallowgate. I see kids wearing ear defenders attending with their families now, possibly most of the time with dads that used to attend solo and maybe made a bit more of a noise when they did. The game at this level has changed, the fans have changed too.

Just imo, I haven't been a regular attender for a decade now but I still see the crowds before the game.

Funny how the acoustics appear to be ok on those amazing days when the crowd is 100% behind the team and they beat PSG or come back from 3 down to win, but then are less amazing on those days where we spend most of the game holding onto a slender one nil lead, miss a hatful of chances then give away a penalty at the death.

I reckon folk are going to have to accept at some point that for better or worse the crowd isn't the same as it used to be and that old crowd probably isn't coming back even if we can accommodate them. Is it the acoustics that made us sing Blaydon Races too fast for a few years then just stop altogether?

19 minutes ago, Playmaker said:

Love this version of the Blaydon races,  it always reminds me of going with me Da to the old St James Park. I think they used to play it at the beginning of the match & after we won as the supporters were leaving. 

 

Aye, it's the one I remember from going in the 2000s with my dad and brother. Blitzkrieg Bop, that version of Blaydon Races, O Fortuna, Local Hero. Fucking New Radicals every half time

All started going wrong when they had to shoehorn in the Prem music

I don't see a lot of aggression there like, dude is literally just pointing at the ball Chelsea said they wanted to play with. If managers are charged for that sort of behaviour in general she should have been charged I would say, but no idea if they are or not

Do they still use this one

I don't think that's much of a defence for her and that can of worms is going to be opened at some point, I guess. It's hard to have conversations about equality if it looks like poor behaviour is being overlooked in favour of one party.

Is there any footage of the Arsenal guy squaring up to the Chelsea player? I couldn't find any when I looked at the weekend.

I wondered if this would come up. I don't know enough about the FAs view on this sort of thing - was Wenger charged when he did the same to Mourinho that time?

I can't actually remember what Ciaran Clark did wrong, although he always comes to mind

fucking rats' cocks

Who's on thread titles man

No new stadium with built in subterranean go kart track

top of the bottom half marra

There are some class posters on RTG to be fair

Absolutely howked. Yarked, even. Maybe even pezzled.

Ayapril Fewuls tbh

Absolute towsing, tremendous

 I was just joking man

I have no idea who it is or where he's from but the character he's dressed as is definitely not from Newcastle, and the 'hunter' thing was too good a chance to pass up