St James' Park

[Jackie Broon]

2 hours ago, Nun tumblers said:

Imho I belive the vast majority of nufc supporters were behind John Hall's super staduim in Castle Leazes what's changed?

It's 2022 who the fuck wants to graze a couple of cows in the middle of the toon it's fooking ridiculous these Freeman should be named and shamed if they try to stop us .

 

I don't think the Freemen had any issue with the Castle Leazes proposal in 97, it's unlikely that it would even been proposed without their agreement because they own the land.

 

It was stopped by John Prescott's decision for the application to be determined by an inquiry, rather than by the Council, and John Hall then throwing his toys out of the pram and withdrawing the application.

[Yorkie]

I understand the argument from the point of view of improving access, but I'm massively dubious that building a new stadium will do anything at all to improve atmosphere.

[HaydnNUFC]

8 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

I understand the argument from the point of view of improving access, but I'm massively dubious that building a new stadium will do anything at all to improve atmosphere.

 

Yep, seems to be the case at almost all new grounds especially in this country. The atmosphere at the Emirates has been wank since it opened bar that small section of fans behind the goal which afaik started only just this season. The Etihad is dreadful and whilst Spurs' ground looks impressive inside and out, this is from the .com report when we won there in 2019 seems to sum it up.

 

Quote

A claimed £850m outlay gets you the second largest stadium in the Premier League behind Old Trafford, with around 2,300 more seats than their local rivals, Arsenal. Constructed over part of the footprint of the former White Hart Lane ground, it's genuinely impressive inside and out. Some of the same problems evident with cramped facilities in the away section at the Emirates were experienced here, but the concourse TVs came in very hand after coverage of the Bournemouth versus Manchester City ended and the climax of the Ashes Cricket was shown. The local transport infrastructure hasn't kept pace with the needs of an extra 25,000 spectators and is still a work in progress, with the new White Hart Lane Overground station due to open for the next home game here. To that end, home fans are encouraged to use bars inside the stadium post-match to stagger demand for trains as is the case at Brighton and Hove Albion's Amex Stadium.

On today's evidence, the biggest problem that Spurs have with their lovely new home is stopping home fans from snoozing mid-match or popping off to visit the on-site microbrewery. This place is just too comfortable, and like Arsenal, the home atmosphere was non-existent.

[tomlynnherrington]

51 minutes ago, Nun tumblers said:

Walking up strawberry way to the new Wembley of the North ,give it some radical new name like New SJP.

 

Or name it after one of Europe's great stadia.... like erm Benfica's

 

We could name the new/extended ground after Exeter City’s ground.

[christ]

If the owners are sensible they’ll keep their powder dry. One third of our fans will flounce off the minute we have an off season.

[TRon]

1 hour ago, christ said:

If the owners are sensible they’ll keep their powder dry. One third of our fans will flounce off the minute we have an off season.

 

I doubt it. As long as we are ambitious - and I think we will be for a good while now - then I think there will be plenty wanting in, even if we have an off season.

 

The bigger concern should be why is it you can only get into the ground when we are doing shit? There were waiting lists for season tickets during Keegan's days, probably similar during Robson's era, although Shepherd being in charge might have tempered enthusiasm a bit, and there are waiting lists again now. When fans are given a reason to believe in their club, they will line up to get in.

[Wallsendmag]

33 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

I doubt it. As long as we are ambitious - and I think we will be for a good while now - then I think there will be plenty wanting in, even if we have an off season.

 

The bigger concern should be why is it you can only get into the ground when we are doing shit? There were waiting lists for season tickets during Keegan's days, probably similar during Robson's era, although Shepherd being in charge might have tempered enthusiasm a bit, and there are waiting lists again now. When fans are given a reason to believe in their club, they will line up to get in.

 

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.

[Big Geordie]

I agree that the ground will have to get moved at some point (further north up Barrack Road) A 60000 St James ultimately won't cut it, due to the demand that could come with success. They reckon the make up of the average season ticket holder now, is a man in his 40's or 50's and there-in lies a problem. If the next generation can't get in to see the lads, where are they gonna go - have to make do with TV or watching at the cinema again?

I don't think I will ever return as a regular. I've had my time (at the age of almost 50) and I'm now priced out of PL football. I will make do with TV and other ways *cough*.

[Miggys First Goal]

Wherever we end up, we're going to need a bigger trophy room.

[madras]

4 minutes ago, Miggys First Goal said:

Wherever we end up, we're going to need a bigger trophy room.

We've got a trophy room ?

[cubaricho]

6 minutes ago, madras said:

We've got a trophy room ?

Need some place to put the Intertoto piece of paper. 

[Kanji]

The 2009 Teresa Herrera needs its own room. 

[LV]

Just now, Kanji said:

The 2009 Teresa Herrera needs its own room. 

Had to use the borehole for that 

[Doc]

5 minutes ago, cubaricho said:

Need some place to put the Intertoto piece of paper. 

Actually went to the away leg in Troyes with a mate.

Stopped in Paris the night before, got a train the next morning (after getting sent to three different train stations first due to pronunciation problems, not the French being gits, honest), got locked in the ground for an hour or so, missed the last train back to Paris.

We were going to sleep in the train station but it was pissing down so, another hotel and Trian back to Paris first thing just in time to pick our bags up and go to the airport.

£500 later, and that was when that was a lot of money etc.

Still.. got to Experience the Yorkshire (Emmerdale) lounge at Leeds/Bradford.

[cubaricho]

How nice is the lake there in Leazes Park?

 

I think getting it to be part of the bigger design, use it as an element, and build the new stadium just to the west of it, would be impactful. A beautiful new state of the arm stadium, right there, still on the hill. Still able to be seen from all around the city.

 

Something like SoFi Stadium in LA comes to mind with the lake element, but make it even cooler looking:

 

 

(article on fitting this stadium into the ecosystem: https://www.hksinc.com/our-news/articles/design-for-ecosystems-at-sofi-stadium/)

 

I just don't see the Saudi's not trying to build the best stadium in English football (if not world football) as close as possible to the current location. They will want to flex that financial power eventually. But I don't think they're out-of-touch enough to move it away from the city center.

[Wallsendmag]

11 minutes ago, cubaricho said:

How nice is the lake there in Leazes Park?

 

I think getting it to be part of the bigger design, use it as an element, and build the new stadium just to the west of it, would be impactful. A beautiful new state of the arm stadium, right there, still on the hill. Still able to be seen from all around the city.

 

Something like SoFi Stadium in LA comes to mind with the lake element, but make it even cooler looking:

 

 

(article on fitting this stadium into the ecosystem: https://www.hksinc.com/our-news/articles/design-for-ecosystems-at-sofi-stadium/)

 

I just don't see the Saudi's not trying to build the best stadium in English football (if not world football) as close as possible to the current location. They will want to flex that financial power eventually. But I don't think they're out-of-touch enough to move it away from the city center.

 

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!

[pedro111]

Regarding the atmosphere why can't we just have a singing end? I get that people don't want to move but having a massive proper singing end would be mint.

[Chris_R]

1 hour ago, Kanji said:

The 2009 Teresa Herrera needs its own room. 

 

That thing's got its own gravitational field.

[TRon]

3 hours ago, Wallsendmag said:

 

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.

 

I think there was also real suspicion at how things were being run under Shepherd, we hired plenty of big name managers, and there was always a couple of trophy signings, but they were usually surrounded by second rate team-mates. So we probably had Shearer playing alongside Andy O'Brien at some point, then when it all went to shit, we brought in Graeme Souness to fix things.

 

It was nothing like the SJH/Keegan days where we were genuinely competing for the best players in England, and some of the best in the world.

[Wallsendmag]

3 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

I think there was also real suspicion at how things were being run under Shepherd, we hired plenty of big name managers, and there was always a couple of trophy signings, but they were usually surrounded by second rate team-mates. So we probably had Shearer playing alongside Andy O'Brien at some point, then when it all went to shit, we brought in Graeme Souness to fix things.

 

It was nothing like the SJH/Keegan days where we were genuinely competing for the best players in England, and some of the best in the world.

 

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.

[TRon]

8 minutes ago, Wallsendmag said:

 

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.

 

You could argue the merits of Keegan or SBR with equal merit, only difference was the ambition of those sitting above making the decisions. During Keegan's years, the sky was the limit, we were beating Man U and Arsenal to sign the best players in England. After that we were signing Lee Bowyer on a free transfer from West Ham.

 

Not saying that was Freddie Shepherd's fault directly, but clearly the ambitions had been lowered.

[TheBrownBottle]

5 hours ago, Wallsendmag said:

 

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.

Yeah, me too re KK / BR eras.  The attendances would dip slightly as the away allocation was fixed back then - the ground was still all-season ticket and it was hard to get in.  That’s why the standard of opposition / importance of game doesn’t seem to impact attendance during that period - it’s really a sign of which clubs have the best away support.  So Leicester, Derby, Spurs (their away lot were always flaky - this was very much a mid-table era for Spurs), Blackburn and Fulham are the only games where the crowd is (just) under the 51k mark

[Wallsendmag]

44 minutes ago, TheBrownBottle said:

Yeah, me too re KK / BR eras.  The attendances would dip slightly as the away allocation was fixed back then - the ground was still all-season ticket and it was hard to get in.  That’s why the standard of opposition / importance of game doesn’t seem to impact attendance during that period - it’s really a sign of which clubs have the best away support.  So Leicester, Derby, Spurs (their away lot were always flaky - this was very much a mid-table era for Spurs), Blackburn and Fulham are the only games where the crowd is (just) under the 51k mark

 

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.

 

[TheBrownBottle]

29 minutes ago, Wallsendmag said:

 

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.

 

Yeah - though of course, those European games were snookered by the greed of the Halls and Shepherds, bumping the prices up and making ST holders buy all three group game tickets at the same time (from memory, my tickets cost c.£100).

 

Mind you, the enthusiasm for European football waned after a season or two - it become just another cup match, only often against opponents folks didn’t care about.  Hopefully, 15 years of almost no European nights will bring that enthusiasm back!

[tomlynnherrington]

A Premier League game against Leicester or a Champions League Group game against Sporting Lisbon? The former will always be more attractive to me,and probably to most other supporters.