TheBrownBottle

We had a different badge when I was a kid - again, it’s younger than the average ST holder. I wouldn’t get emotive over that either. I wouldn’t want to see the kit changed, though. The ground isn’t the club - the club represents the city, not the ground.

The historic Georgian sandstone buildings of Newcastle? Yes, they mean more to me than the concrete and steel stands hoyed up by Hall and Shepherd. I’m emotionally attached to my city and club - not to a recently built football stadium. The city lost huge parts of the old Grainger town in the 1960s in an act of cultural vandalism - we should be very careful about allowing it again, and it needs to be for a better reason than ‘I can’t bear the notion of watching football a couple of hundred yards further down the road’ Sentiment, if anything, is attached to the building, not the land on which it sits. England itself has proof of this - plenty of football fans get misty eyed about the old Wembley, but I doubt many do about the new one. It’s on the same site, but there’s no emotional attachment to it.

Honestly mate, no idea - I think it might just be people being over emotive on social media. There was no outcry last time. Most of SJP is younger than the average ST holder - I’m at a complete loss to where this ‘we can’t move postal address’ thing came from. The club is not the ground.

Fuck it, let’s pull down Grey Street too. Who gives a shite? The castle keep while we’re at it - who actually visits it? Falling to bits anyway.

No, to Leazes Park. No-one here is onboard with moving far away from the city centre - nor is it necessary. edit: over 100k of us signed up to it. The Mag printed surveys.

Yep - though it would come external funding, like Wembley, the CoM or the London Olympic Stadium. (I’m not serious mind).

T Dan Smith and his pals already ripped half the Georgian city out. I would rather move to Benton than pull those buildings down tbh - happily though, I don’t think that will be the choice.

Listed buildings should - and will - be off the table. And that’s not the council’s call.

We need to persuade Gateshead to bid for the Commonwealth Games, with a series of govt and lottery grants to build a 50k athletics stadium. Then use that on a temporary basis.

It wasn’t last time - the vast, vast majority were happy to leave SJP.

Agreed - provided the capacity is vastly reduced from SJP, it would be more feasible. 10-20k seater range and you’re looking at temporary stands being erected without too extravagant a cost.

Of course they will - as if they (or anyone else) had a say in that. We know exactly how they’d have reacted under the same circumstances - and they know we know that, which is why that ‘defence’ is as hollow as the middle of a doughnut.

Yep, a small temporary ground will cost less because the structural requirements are significantly reduced. If we’re talking a 50k stadium, temp or not, you can’t cut corners on structural elements.

The cost is unknown, but rebuilding a Stadium 974 in the UK would still be likely to cost a comfortable nine-figure sum. Back of a fag packet I reckon comfortably north of £250m. Material procurement isn’t the most expensive element of a construction project in most instances.

Yep. A football stadium isn’t a meccano set - even if Stadium 974 looked like one. How many people are likely to be so upset about a move that they actively protest / walk away? Not just a bit of a grumble in the pub or on social media. Maybe a couple of dozen? I seriously doubt that PIF are going to lay out hundreds of millions for a temporary ground with a lifespan of a couple of years so that half a busload of people don’t protest.

The cheapest known cost of a stadium in Qatar was around £300m - and construction costs are not equal country to country. It would likely be more to build in the UK. Qatar is a completely different place to KSA, but it was ultimately a showpiece for Qatar. KSA would be doing this to avoid upsetting what is likely a minority of NUFC supporters? Yeah, not buying it.

The current SJP site is limited even for a rebuild - it’s narrow and even rebuilding on it will still be limited by the same restraints that currently exist. Redeveloping the current SJP will be a non-starter - adding a few thousand seats to the Gallowgate (NB likely the cheapest seats in the ground) would fail any CBA, even if it is possible. Any feasibility study will come back with a long list of constructability issues, some of which may not be able to be resolved, and if they are the cost will be astronomical, and all to add c.5-6k of the cheapest seats in the ground. Ghoudoussi, bless him, spoke to soon and it isn’t his call - it’s the real owners’ call. If anyone wants to know what they think of heritage or sentiment, take a look at the surrounding of the Kaaba in Mecca. If what surrounds the holiest site in Islam doesn’t arse them, they aren’t likely to be moved by a football stadium in Newcastle.

Yep - unless of course we want to sell at least one of our best players each season

Just for a bit of clarity; one of the ways that Chelsea and Man City vastly increased match day revenue was by selling corporate boxes for seven-figure sums. Who is checking 1) who bought those and 2) if those people are turning up every week? Almost as if vastly rich owners can fiddle their match day incomes …

Man City’s cheaper ticketing was mentioned above. Man City also have roughly the same average attendance. Their match day revenues are roughly double ours. But with a 70k stadium and vastly increased corporate, NUFC could blow past that. A successful NUFC in a bigger ground could take in £100m+. Provided the club remained in the city centre, I don’t feel all that much sentimentality for a ground which looked entirely different quarter of a century ago. The current SJP was thrown up by Cameron Hall - it’s hardly the Parthenon.

I don’t. It’s completely OTT.

If you made your first trip to SJP a few months ago then you can’t really say that it’s the lifeblood of the club - and that that fans & ground are intrinsically tied. You can’t know that.

Probably best not to start by insulting people. The illiteracy is in assuming that you simply multiply the current match day income by 50% for an increased capacity of 50%. That’s not what would happen - the club would most likely vastly increase the corporate and luxury seating areas. They’ll be looking into the fact that Arsenal and Spurs can take in more than three times what we do - and yes, obviously that’s London pricing, but NUFC’s corporate is small given the stadium size.

Hate to sound like a cynic, but I am so I’m bound to - but I don’t think that the ‘fan survey’ will have any impact on the PIF’s actions. They’ll go for what meets their needs - though of course that’s easier if most are behind it. I can’t see any significant protest if the decision is to leave SJP. Firstly, because we don’t really do protests as a support. Secondly, I didn’t see much of that from Arsenal when they left Highbury, and nowt from Everton when they left Goodison - both grounds being as well-known as any in English football and tied intrinsically to the early histories of the clubs as much as SJP is to NUFC (Arsenal leaving Woolwich for Highbury meaning they were effectively an early franchise club, and Everton leaving Anfield for Goodison led to the creation of Liverpool FC). Barely a peep from West Ham in moving to that soulless Olympic ground, Man City’s support said nowt about leaving Maine Road. All big clubs, I’m sure plenty of them got a bit misty-eyed for the final game and then onwards and upwards.

Yeah, the Totally Football one. I forgot the Athletic bought it out.