Kevin Keegan

[Wandy]

3 minutes ago, HTT II said:

I was out pretty much every night from 15-25 in Toon and you could say it was busy compared to now of course, but some bars and clubs and places were dead from my experience. It, again, was mostly the familiar bars that were busy thanks to regulars, like the Black Garter who after work in the Grainger Market, everyone would go to for a few, myself included. If NUFC played at home on Mondays, Wednesdays or Thursdays then things got busier. Sundays from my memory used to still be busy, not Friday-Saturday levels, but busy enough

 

Was this the early/mid 90s though? And are we talking about the Bigg Market / Quayside bars here? If you are talking about other areas of town, like Haymarket / Granger Market etc then yeah, I can see your point. But my experience of the party bars that I went to was that they were very lively for nearly the whole week through.

[Guest HTT II]

Just now, Wandy said:

 

It's bad enough what has happened to social attitudes with regards to drinking times etc, but I think the pandemic has really, really damaged us as a society when it comes to being social etc. I find it really depressing how so many people are delighted to work from home instead of being in the workplace. I get that there is a big saving in transport costs etc but being in the workplace is just so much better for mental and physical wellbeing IMO.

My sis saves over 40 quid a week working from home, but her mental health has taking a battering which is down to Covid as she rarely socialises these days, but she has also found more her time, more time to sit and relax and read and stuff. It’s a catch 22 situation, me, these days I hate being in crowded places and get anxiety, that’s probably lockdown related. Give me a less than busy pub in relaxed surroundings. 

[Wandy]

One more from me. Back in those days we would have nights out in Newcastle, Whitley Bay, South Shields and, yes, even Sunderland. All were great nights out and always busy. I always liked South Shields as something a bit different....Oz nightclub, anyone?  ...

 

Then you had the likes of Whickham on a Sunday, always rammed. I was up there a few weekends ago and it was like a ghost town.

[Coffee_Johnny]

1 minute ago, Wandy said:

One more from me. Back in those days we would have nights out in Newcastle, Whitley Bay, South Shields and, yes, even Sunderland. All were great nights out and always busy. I always liked South Shields as something a bit different....Oz nightclub, anyone?  ...

 

Then you had the likes of Whickham on a Sunday, always rammed. I was up there a few weekends ago and it was like a ghost town.

Ah! Nightclubbing in Shields. Buddy’s anyone (below)? £2 in and 40p a pint (Christ I feel old). Occasionally walking home (… about ten miles!) when taxis started demanding money up front. Never saw Kev there mind ?‍♂️

[TheGuv]

Supermarkets have killed the pub trade imo.

 

I've said for a while,  but they should reduce the hours of alcohol trading in supermarkets and add extra tax to the products. This could then allow a large reduction on tax for the price of a pint in your local pub. I'd also argue to reduce the drinking age to 16 (in pubs only, up the licence holder's jurisdiction to serve and only on alcohol below 3.5%). Could that kickstart a pub boom again and like @LFEEsays increase social interaction between generations?

[Guest HTT II]

12 minutes ago, Wandy said:

 

Was this the early/mid 90s though? And are we talking about the Bigg Market / Quayside bars here? If you are talking about other areas of town, like Haymarket / Granger Market etc then yeah, I can see your point. But my experience of the party bars that I went to was that they were very lively for nearly the whole week through.

Late 90s to 2000s and we drank pretty much all over the Toon.

[WarrenBartonCentrePartin]

Kids/young people these days are just hilariously socially awkward.

 

Do they just stay indoors? Can’t remember the last time I was in a park/outside space and saw a shifty bunch of teenagers necking cans and/or getting high.

[TheGuv]

1 minute ago, WarrenBartonCentrePartin said:

Kids/young people these days are just hilariously socially awkward.

 

Do they just stay indoors? Can’t remember the last time I was in a park/outside space and saw a shifty bunch of teenagers necking cans and/or getting high.

Nah they dress up in suits and go and watch Minnions. I saw a group of 20 of them at Cramlington Vue yesterday. Bizarre.

[Wandy]

43 minutes ago, Coffee_Johnny said:

Ah! Nightclubbing in Shields. Buddy’s anyone (below)? £2 in and 40p a pint (Christ I feel old). Occasionally walking home (… about ten miles!) when taxis started demanding money up front. Never saw Kev there mind ?‍♂️

 

Pretty much all of the old Shields bars have gone now. Roxanne's is still clinging on for dear life though, I think. 

[cubaricho]

Popped in to see why we were talking about Keegan again. Going about as well in here as the supposed transfer rumors thread.  

[Wandy]

Since we are reminiscing about the KK era and nights out of old... I still shudder at the thought of watching the Liverpool 3-4, Blackburn 1-2 and Forest 1-2 defeats on the big screen in Bambras. Like many, I am still scarred by that feeling of the realisation that we were going to blow the title. 

 

On the flipside, the atmosphere in the 0-1 home defeat to Man Utd is probably the best I have ever witnessed at SJP. Only Barcelona at home could maybe rival it. I cannot see there ever being an atmosphere like those two at a NUFC home games ever again, no matter what we end up with as a stadium.

 

 

Edited July 4, 2022 by Wandy

[Coffee_Johnny]

The Man U at home game the following season had, ahem,  quite a good atmosphere too! Even though. I swear we didn’t dominate as much as the 0-1.  

[Wandy]

1 minute ago, Coffee_Johnny said:

The Man U at home game the following season had, ahem,  quite a good atmosphere too! Even though. I swear we didn’t dominate as much as the 0-1.  

 

Good point. But I think the atmosphere in the 1-0 was on another level for the pre-match 30 minutes and then the entire 1st half. Once Cantona scored there was a sinking feeling around the crowd. The previous 90 minutes though was simply incredible.

 

The 5-0 was fantastic too mind, especially once we got "comfortable" at 4-0. And yeah, we absolutely pissed all over Man Utd much more in the defeat than we did in the win. How we were not at least 3-0 up at half time in that lost game is a mystery. If we had just drawn that game we'd had won the title IMO.

[Coffee_Johnny]

10 minutes ago, Wandy said:

 

Good point. But I think the atmosphere in the 1-0 was on another level for the pre-match 30 minutes and then the entire 1st half. Once Cantona scored there was a sinking feeling around the crowd. The previous 90 minutes though was simply incredible.

 

The 5-0 was fantastic too mind, especially once we got "comfortable" at 4-0. And yeah, we absolutely pissed all over Man Utd much more in the defeat than we did in the win. How we were not at least 3-0 up at half time in that lost game is a mystery. If we had just drawn that game we'd had won the title IMO.

Well if we had won that game, and all other results had remained the same for the rest of the season for Man U and for us, we actually would have won the league. No opinion about it (we would have fished on 81 and them on 79). It was that close. Forget the late ‘demise,’ we could say that by failing to win that home game, against the eventual winners, when we were clearly the better side, we lost our best chance to win the (top) league.  

 

 

Edited July 4, 2022 by Coffee_Johnny
Attack of Statitis

[Happinesstan]

2 hours ago, LFEE said:

Well back in the day (awaits everyone to insert rolling of eyes emoji’s ? ) you had a limited but sensible time allowed to drink with last orders normally called around 22:50 and then you were shown the door around 23:15 when time was called around 23:00.

 

So growing up everyone used public transport and mingled (all age groups) and headed into town on a Friday for example 17:30-19:00 after a days work. Buses and metros always busy and lively and this carried on into pubs where all your groups would have their meet up points and route pre-arranged (no mobile phones remember!) with mine being Dobsons between 18:30-19:15 and working through Bigg Market and ending at the Blackie Boy 22:00 for lasts.

 

Everyone would then either all head home and be done or have a couple in someone’s kitchen if still in the mood whilst others would go to a Nightclub opened up specially for a dance and to try and meet someone you fancy.

 

The beauty of this was the pubs only needed to pay the staff a sensible amount of hours which were full on. The council got the benefit of the majority of people using public transport. The younger ones were kept in line as were mingling with older folk so everyone self policed themselves so ASB and litter etc was a minimum. The taxi drivers earnt a decent living as a restricted amount running for those living further afield and for the nightclub crowd. Everything was just more of a routine and dare say predicable but always busy.

 

Since the extended drinking hours (04:00?) you’ve got one age (older) group going out sooner so pubs still having to open even earlier in the day and as their nights are coming to an end and they get quiet public transport back the more middle aged have arrived separately and started their days then leave either last line of public transport or stay on an hour and grab a taxi parked up whilst the younger ones pre-load all together in one of their houses with cheap drinks from supermarket then mini bus or taxi in around 11pm earliest and then spend very little in bars staying open until 4am paying their staff extra hours etc leading to higher drinks prices which then deters the older and middle aged to visit as often. The public transport prices then go up as not used as much. The ASB and litter gets worse because the young ones practically have the town to themselves and no self policing going on.

 

Notice I used the word Bars. Used to be pubs and then nightclubs by and large. Now you have Bars having to cater for the music oriented customer which of course deters the older and middle aged crowds with the constant boom boom.

 

So in short the wider timescales people have to drink have slowly but surely separated social groups further, increased prices of drinks due to many preloading and staff, power, insurance etc having longer and higher usage costs for no income benefit. Transport both public and private more expensive as having to pay for night buses or taxi longer hours , increased ASB and litter making certain areas less appealing. 
 

I reckon the only positive has been very few queues to get in anywhere or get served compared to the 90’s. The smoking ban was great but obviously not for some. Also gives those a chance who work in pubs to go out for a few hours after a shift I dare say.

 

Town still can be great after everyone has been paid and hoping matchdays will get back to what they were with renewed optimism as you’ve many age groups going and then staying out after the match but as a whole and I think this applies City wide I.E. not London, I think extended drinking hours has had a very negative effect on society.

 

Something you can probably tell I’ve been thinking for a while ?

Should have made it so that bars could only open for a limited number of hours, but at any time during the 24.

[Hovagod]

4 minutes ago, Coffee_Johnny said:

Well if we had won that game, and all other results had remained the same for the rest of the season for Man U and for us, we actually would have won the league. No opinion about it. It was that close. Forget the late ‘demise,’ we could say that by failing to win that home game, against the eventual winners, when we were clearly the better side, we lost our best chance to win the (top) league.  

I think we only played truly badly once during that entire second half of the season, Arsenal away. We were just staggeringly unlucky.

 

[Happinesstan]

1 hour ago, Wandy said:

 

Was this the early/mid 90s though? And are we talking about the Bigg Market / Quayside bars here? If you are talking about other areas of town, like Haymarket / Granger Market etc then yeah, I can see your point. But my experience of the party bars that I went to was that they were very lively for nearly the whole week through.

I worked in a couple of Cloth Market bars, late 80s early 90s, Started out we were busy every night, but the midweek nights quietened down over that period. Think that had more to do with Thatcher's Britain than anything else.

During Keegan's 1st spell as manager, I was working in less of a party bar, but we'd be rammed on match days.

[Coffee_Johnny]

6 minutes ago, Hovagod said:

I think we only played truly badly once during that entire second half of the season, Arsenal away. We were just staggeringly unlucky.

 

We were definitely unlucky in that Man U home game (think we deserved to lose away) and the away loss to Liverpool, that neutrals rave about, we could so easily have won (missed a couple of chances, to go 3-1 up I think, might have broke their spirit a bit). Can’t recall the other losses/draws that season, but think we played shit losing to Blackburn and in that draw with Nottingham Forest. We might not have done, mind, maybe just the disappointment of not wining games we really needed to. 

[Wolfcastle]

28 minutes ago, Hovagod said:

I think we only played truly badly once during that entire second half of the season, Arsenal away. We were just staggeringly unlucky.

 

You certainly couldn't say we got more than we deserved in any other game in the second half.

I didn't think anything of the QPR h, Blackburn a games e.g. at the time but having watched them back we were so much the better team, QPR was one way traffic. Hendry said after we deserved to win more against them than we had against Liverpool.

 

Overall I think Southampton and Man U away were fair kops (possibly West Ham a), though Schmeichel saved a one on one with his arse at 0-0, and Liverpool deserved a draw here. If we got what we deserved we win the league and if Man U got what they deserved they'd not have been in it. Seen them get totally dominated at ourselves, Leeds and Liverpool - never happened to us.

 

We deserved more from both Chelsea cup ties, Forest a, Liverpool a, Blackburn a, Spurs a, Spurs h, Chelsea a was a sneaky free-kick iirc.

 

 

 

Edited July 4, 2022 by Wolfcastle

[LFEE]

Anyway final post as I thought it was apt then let’s get back to KK…

 

 

[Robster]

6 hours ago, LFEE said:

 Technology has definitely changed some of the landscape and I agree wholeheartedly about the old saying “good night out” with reference to smaller towns. Low Fell (where I now live) was known for its Sunday’s so used to pop down. Chester Le-Street used to be bouncing when I visited the odd time and even had a nightclub also (Crocs?) but is dead these days. Whickham still not bad but nowhere near as good as it used to be. Bank Holiday Monday was always a trip to Whitley Bay. I remember even South Shields being bouncing with a couple of nightclubs even. 

Aye. Chester had Crocadillos. 

FFS that takes me back

[LFEE]

1 hour ago, Robster said:

Aye. Chester had Crocadillos. 

FFS that takes me back

So good it had a sequel if you remember. Crocs 2 ?

[WarrenBartonCentrePartin]

 Fucking Crocs, man. Or “Crocadildos” as it was often known. It became “Gravity” for a bit then rebranded back to “Crox”. It had a bucking bronco in it in its latter days.

[HaydnNUFC]

Lived in Chester-le-Street all my life and have to put up with it again for another year. Hate the place. Just use it as a transport hub for town or Durham.

[Coffee_Johnny]

8 hours ago, HaydnNUFC said:

Lived in Chester-le-Street all my life and have to put up with it again for another year. Hate the place. Just use it as a transport hub for town or Durham.

You and the Romans ?