St James' Park

[nemtizz]

If only they’d allocate me a ticket in the ballot I’d carry and lift the atmosphere 

[Wallsendmag]

4 hours ago, nemtizz said:

If only they’d allocate me a ticket in the ballot I’d carry and lift the atmosphere 

 

There was plenty available for last night.

[Stifler]

12 hours ago, Whitley mag said:

A 70k new stadium might look a bit sparse looking at the number of re-sales that haven’t shifted tonight. Might be a perfect storm of pre Xmas, lots of games and expensive prices but makes you think if things turned to shite.

 

I do think they’ve now maxed out general admission prices this season though and might just have finally priced out a good few.

I think it all comes down to that extra 15 minutes for the delayed KO.

If you are using public transport then you are fucked. You are rushing out for the last bus. Getting north of Cramlington on public transport would be pretty much impossible. You wouldn’t even catch the last train on the Northumberland line last night, although from a week on Sunday they will be doing a later a train.

I’m not sure what the timetables do even places like Durham would look like.

I live right next to a Metro station that I can get direct to/from SJP, but I wasn’t convinced that there would be enough services left to let me on last night so I took the car in.

 

This is one the reasons why I never really got behind the arena site idea. It’s just too far out from the busses, and most Metro stations for late night KO’s.

 

A 8:15pm KO so Sky can show you the fist half of 1 game, the full first half of our game, the final 10 minutes of the initial game, before coming back to see our game.

To make matters worse, one of the earlier KO’s was in London. You know that city that is famed for its late night public transport and even has night busses.

 

If our match kicked off at 8pm then those tickets don’t become available. A 7:30pm KO and you’re laughing.

 

In an era when TV’s are big enough for multi-screen if that’s your thing, and computers actually have multi screens, we have phones, tablets, TV’s, and monitors, we shouldn’t be fucking fans about to placate arm-chair fans who want to be able to watch most of 2 different games.

 

 

Edited December 3, 2025 by Stifler

[TRon]

On 02/12/2025 at 02:24, Mountain said:

My worst fear is they would do an Arsenal/Tottenham and do this oh so impressive "state of the art" stadium and it's like 60k. 

 

I want 80k, I want a beast.

 

70k minimum.

 

Otherwise, why even bother.

 

 

 

I think we could fill a 70k stadium, but to do it, we would need to be challenging for trophies and qualifying for CL every year. We need to be one of the elite PL clubs, and until we have a top 4/5 squad, we can't really expect that. 

 

Any owner who is going to fund a stadium for 70/80k punters would need to see a clear path to getting to the elite status within the next few years. I am not sure with current spending restrictions there is one. 

[Interpolic]

£55/£58 for the cheapest tickets this season is an obscene price point for those paying game by game. It somehow slipped under the radar but in this economic climate with so many games in the calendar I almost want them to struggle to shift tickets because it's what they deserve. 

 

Any new stadium should be as large as possible with staggered pricing so there's a price for every pocket, but say that to any football executive now and they'd laugh you out of the door. There isn't even a pretence that fans aren't just cows to be milked dry anymore. 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2025 by Interpolic

[Keegans Export]

1 hour ago, TRon said:

 

I think we could fill a 70k stadium, but to do it, we would need to be challenging for trophies and qualifying for CL every year. We need to be one of the elite PL clubs, and until we have a top 4/5 squad, we can't really expect that. 

 

Any owner who is going to fund a stadium for 70/80k punters would need to see a clear path to getting to the elite status within the next few years. I am not sure with current spending restrictions there is one. 

 

I'm not sure we would fill 70k every time, even under those circumstances tbf

 

Let's say we do secure top 4/5 pretty much every season and we have a 70k stadium. For a start, more tickets available = more ballot success. We use the number of people entering the ballot as an indicator as to how many people would go to the game if they had the opportunity but there's more to it than that. We've got five home games between the start of December and the start of January, plenty of people will enter the ballot for all of them and maybe succeed once. If in the larger stadium you got two of the first three, are you still going to apply for the other two? At £60+ each, plus transport/food/drinks there'll be plenty of people who will think "that'll do for now" and not, so now that assumption that 5x ballot entries = 5x ticket sales if we had more seats has become 2x ticket sales.

 

There's also the issue that the interest may wane generally. The excitement between 22/23 and early this season is because we've been on a journey - years of absolute crap, then suddenly we're in a battle for Champions League football for the first time in 20 years. Once that either becomes the norm, or we tail off and end up occasionally top 5, usually somewhere around 6th, 7th, 8th - is that demand still there? Even all the top clubs end up topping up their attendance with tourists. Sure, a big Champions League knock-out against Real Madrid we could sell 80k+ but what if the other home games that month are Burnley, Palace and an 8.15pm KO on a Tuesday night? We couldn't even sell out our current stadium for the latter.

[bobbydazzla]

1 hour ago, Interpolic said:

£55/£58 for the cheapest tickets this season is an obscene price point for those paying game by game. It somehow slipped under the radar but in this economic climate with so many games in the calendar I almost want them to struggle to shift tickets because it's what they deserve. 

 

Any new stadium should be as large as possible with staggered pricing so there's a price for every pocket, but say that to any football executive now and they'd laugh you out of the door. There isn't even a pretence that fans aren't just cows to be milked dry anymore. 

 

 

 

 

 

Aye, there was a lot of noise at the start of the season about ST prices going up by about 10% year on year, but members have had to stomach a 25% price rise and there was no fuss made about that, that I saw

 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2025 by bobbydazzla

[TRon]

21 minutes ago, Keegans Export said:

 

I'm not sure we would fill 70k every time, even under those circumstances tbf

 

Let's say we do secure top 4/5 pretty much every season and we have a 70k stadium. For a start, more tickets available = more ballot success. We use the number of people entering the ballot as an indicator as to how many people would go to the game if they had the opportunity but there's more to it than that. We've got five home games between the start of December and the start of January, plenty of people will enter the ballot for all of them and maybe succeed once. If in the larger stadium you got two of the first three, are you still going to apply for the other two? At £60+ each, plus transport/food/drinks there'll be plenty of people who will think "that'll do for now" and not, so now that assumption that 5x ballot entries = 5x ticket sales if we had more seats has become 2x ticket sales.

 

There's also the issue that the interest may wane generally. The excitement between 22/23 and early this season is because we've been on a journey - years of absolute crap, then suddenly we're in a battle for Champions League football for the first time in 20 years. Once that either becomes the norm, or we tail off and end up occasionally top 5, usually somewhere around 6th, 7th, 8th - is that demand still there? Even all the top clubs end up topping up their attendance with tourists. Sure, a big Champions League knock-out against Real Madrid we could sell 80k+ but what if the other home games that month are Burnley, Palace and an 8.15pm KO on a Tuesday night? We couldn't even sell out our current stadium for the latter.

 

 

Well I was factoring in that sustained success would see our fanbase grow globally, so yes the crowds would get a boost from tourists. I know plenty of fans will groan at that, but it's part of being a top club these days. The prices of tickets are going to price quite a few of our local fanbase out, probably the sort we need in the stadium if we want to keep the atmosphere, so ideally prices would be lower in some parts of the ground at least.  But how do you square that with competing financially with the cartel clubs in the PL juggernaut these days? I would imagine their ticket pricing will be set quite a bit higher than ours even now. 

 

 

[Turnbull2000]

7 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

 

Well I was factoring in that sustained success would see our fanbase grow globally, so yes the crowds would get a boost from tourists. I know plenty of fans will groan at that, but it's part of being a top club these days. The prices of tickets are going to price quite a few of our local fanbase out, probably the sort we need in the stadium if we want to keep the atmosphere, so ideally prices would be lower in some parts of the ground at least.  But how do you square that with competing financially with the cartel clubs in the PL juggernaut these days? I would imagine their ticket pricing will be set quite a bit higher than ours even now. 

 

 

 

Surely the appalling lack of direct connections for Newcastle airport will hinder that?

[bobbydazzla]

5 minutes ago, Turnbull2000 said:

 

Surely the appalling lack of direct connections for Newcastle airport will hinder that?

 

We're on the mainline between London and Edinburgh. 

 

Fly into London, Buckingham Palace, Crown Jewels, Platform 9¾, Hadrians Wall, Sven Adult Books Magpie Megadome, NUFC Club Shop, Edinburgh Castle, The Royal Mile, fly home.

 

 

 

[TRon]

17 minutes ago, Turnbull2000 said:

 

Surely the appalling lack of direct connections for Newcastle airport will hinder that?

 

 

Then the only way to regularly get 70k into the new ground would be lower ticket prices in a decent chunk of the new stadium. Maybe the extra bums on seats would pay for the expansion, even if it still won't be the equaliser for cartel clubs who build similar size stadiums and charge more. 

[Interpolic]

32 minutes ago, bobbydazzla said:

 

 

Aye, there was a lot of noise at the start of the season about ST prices going up by about 10% year on year, but members have had to stomach a 25% price rise and there was no fuss made about that, that I saw

 

 

 

 

 

 Just working it out now myself, I think it was a 25% rise from 23/24 to 25/26 (i.e. over 2 seasons) for members and "only" 17% last year.  Cheapest tickets went from £44 to £47 to £55.

 

That £8 rise with no explanation or justification feels no less mental to me the more time passes  And no fuss whatsoever.  Nobody gives the slightest fuck about members

[Keegans Export]

28 minutes ago, TRon said:

 

 

Well I was factoring in that sustained success would see our fanbase grow globally, so yes the crowds would get a boost from tourists. I know plenty of fans will groan at that, but it's part of being a top club these days. The prices of tickets are going to price quite a few of our local fanbase out, probably the sort we need in the stadium if we want to keep the atmosphere, so ideally prices would be lower in some parts of the ground at least.  But how do you square that with competing financially with the cartel clubs in the PL juggernaut these days? I would imagine their ticket pricing will be set quite a bit higher than ours even now. 

 

Newcastle just isn't a tourist city though. If you were a "Premier League fan" from Singapore, Melbourne or Atlanta, you'd just fly to London or Manchester and watch Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal etc. 

 

There'd be a boost for sure but it'd be minimal imo and dependant on consistently outperforming even what we're doing now.

 

I just can't see a situation where someone with a business/financial mind is going to say we need a 70k stadium. It'll be closer to Eales's "No empty seats" idea, maybe with some room to expand easily enough in the future. 

[madras]

11 minutes ago, Keegans Export said:

Newcastle just isn't a tourist city though. If you were a "Premier League fan" from Singapore, Melbourne or Atlanta, you'd just fly to London or Manchester and watch Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal etc. 

 

There'd be a boost for sure but it'd be minimal imo and dependant on consistently outperforming even what we're doing now.

 

I just can't see a situation where someone with a business/financial mind is going to say we need a 70k stadium. It'll be closer to Eales's "No empty seats" idea, maybe with some room to expand easily enough in the future. 

If you were a "premier league fan" Id want you to stay away.

[Stifler]

I don’t see why we wouldn’t need a 70k capacity stadium.

Since the takeover every gam has been a sellout with tens of thousands after tickets. Last night was an anomaly due to the KO time. Technically the game was a sellout, and the tickets that became available only did so yesterday and quite close to KO in the grand scheme of things.

If that game had a 8pm KO the vast majority of those tickets would not have been returned, a 7:30 KO like the other games last night and there would have been no chance of getting a ticket.

Even when you do factor in those returned tickets, there wasn’t any noticeable gaps in the crowd.

[bobbydazzla]

19 minutes ago, Interpolic said:

 

 Just working it out now myself, I think it was a 25% rise from 23/24 to 25/26 (i.e. over 2 seasons) for members and "only" 17% last year.  Cheapest tickets went from £44 to £47 to £55.

 

That £8 rise with no explanation or justification feels no less mental to me the more time passes  And no fuss whatsoever.  Nobody gives the slightest fuck about members

 

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated ? 

 

[Interpolic]

2 minutes ago, bobbydazzla said:

 

Ever get the feeling you've been cheated ? 

 

 

 The cup final stuff was an eye-opener for me and have found my obsession with getting tickets waning ever since.

 

A lot of that for me is life stuff - so much money going out atm, I'm getting my granda's ticket in the East Stand a fair bit as he's not been well etc.

 

But the absolute fuck-on getting tickets when all games are on telly and I'm looking at £110 minimum if I want to bring my wife - I'm absolutely being way more selective now.  And a massive part of that is feeling like they're taking the piss.

[bobbydazzla]

1 hour ago, Interpolic said:

 

 The cup final stuff was an eye-opener for me and have found my obsession with getting tickets waning ever since.

 

A lot of that for me is life stuff - so much money going out atm, I'm getting my granda's ticket in the East Stand a fair bit as he's not been well etc.

 

But the absolute fuck-on getting tickets when all games are on telly and I'm looking at £110 minimum if I want to bring my wife - I'm absolutely being way more selective now.  And a massive part of that is feeling like they're taking the piss.

 

I’m the same.

 

The cup final just proved we’ve got a two-tier system and NUFC don’t give a fuck about members who pour time, money and effort into getting to games.

 

My ballot failures are so tragic they’re just funny now.

 

Member ticket prices get hiked again and no-one even reacts. All so you can pay even more money to sit next to some miserable cunt with an ST who moans all game (this is the norm in all parts of the ground).

 

The ticketing workshop was the final straw, spaffing on about stopping touts while ignoring the real issue: unlimited memberships.

 

Then there’s the “where were you when we were shit” attitude from some ST's.

 

I've been traveling a lot recently and missing a few home games made me realise I can’t be arsed with this until they start valuing members.

 

It’s all one way. NUFC take a fuckload of my money, I spend a fuckload of time hunting tickets to give them my money. And I get nothing back.

 

If I’d bought an ST in September 2021 rather than buying a ticket for every game since Oct 2021, I’d be laughing. Cheaper tickets, no hassle getting tickets, cup ticket access, Wembley access, maybe away days.

 

Rant over. For now.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2025 by bobbydazzla

[Magic Rat]

1 hour ago, Keegans Export said:

 

I'm not sure we would fill 70k every time, even under those circumstances tbf

 

Let's say we do secure top 4/5 pretty much every season and we have a 70k stadium. For a start, more tickets available = more ballot success. We use the number of people entering the ballot as an indicator as to how many people would go to the game if they had the opportunity but there's more to it than that. We've got five home games between the start of December and the start of January, plenty of people will enter the ballot for all of them and maybe succeed once. If in the larger stadium you got two of the first three, are you still going to apply for the other two? At £60+ each, plus transport/food/drinks there'll be plenty of people who will think "that'll do for now" and not, so now that assumption that 5x ballot entries = 5x ticket sales if we had more seats has become 2x ticket sales.

 

There's also the issue that the interest may wane generally. The excitement between 22/23 and early this season is because we've been on a journey - years of absolute crap, then suddenly we're in a battle for Champions League football for the first time in 20 years. Once that either becomes the norm, or we tail off and end up occasionally top 5, usually somewhere around 6th, 7th, 8th - is that demand still there? Even all the top clubs end up topping up their attendance with tourists. Sure, a big Champions League knock-out against Real Madrid we could sell 80k+ but what if the other home games that month are Burnley, Palace and an 8.15pm KO on a Tuesday night? We couldn't even sell out our current stadium for the latter.

Certainly describes my position.  I enter most of the ballots but if I was regularly successful I would enter far fewer.  Costs far to much to go to every match.  For me it's 4 or 5 a season max.

[Keegans Export]

33 minutes ago, Stifler said:

I don’t see why we wouldn’t need a 70k capacity stadium.

Since the takeover every gam has been a sellout with tens of thousands after tickets. Last night was an anomaly due to the KO time. Technically the game was a sellout, and the tickets that became available only did so yesterday and quite close to KO in the grand scheme of things.

If that game had a 8pm KO the vast majority of those tickets would not have been returned, a 7:30 KO like the other games last night and there would have been no chance of getting a ticket.

Even when you do factor in those returned tickets, there wasn’t any noticeable gaps in the crowd.

You don't see why we wouldn't need a 70k stadium when a 15min difference in KO time means we couldn't fill 52k?

 

As I said in the earlier post, it may be that tens of thousands (minus bots etc...) were/are after tickets, but how many of those would still enter the ballot if they'd been successful for the game before? Or the two games before?

[Stifler]

1 minute ago, Keegans Export said:

You don't see why we wouldn't need a 70k stadium when a 15min difference in KO time means we couldn't fill 52k?

 

As I said in the earlier post, it may be that tens of thousands (minus bots etc...) were/are after tickets, but how many of those would still enter the ballot if they'd been successful for the game before? Or the two games before?

That 15 minutes means people using the Northumberland line can’t, most if not all trains to Durham and South have been missed. Any bus north Cramlington has been missed with people also left fighting for the last bus on other routes.

Have that game KO at 8pm or 7:45pm and it sells out, like every midweek game we have had at those times this season, and in the past 4 years which includes opposition like Bradford, and Wimbledon.

[Interpolic]

If we build a new ground we need to think about the next 100 years, not the fact some fans attach so much of their own ego to the club that they couldn't handle what other fans think about a few empty seats now and then.

 

52k is clearly nowhere near big enough even though it was fine 20 years ago.  The popularity of football is only increasing. 

 

Ticket prices don't need to be sky high, that's a choice.  So if we have issues with attendance we can lower prices, especially if FFP dies a death.  Nobody knows what the future holds but if you want to future-proof you build it bigger.

[bobbydazzla]

7 minutes ago, Stifler said:

That 15 minutes means people using the Northumberland line can’t, most if not all trains to Durham and South have been missed. Any bus north Cramlington has been missed with people also left fighting for the last bus on other routes.

Have that game KO at 8pm or 7:45pm and it sells out, like every midweek game we have had at those times this season, and in the past 4 years which includes opposition like Bradford, and Wimbledon.

 

Assuming the same happens again for the Leeds 20:15 kick off, if I was a Leeds fan who didn't mind being in the home end then I'd spend £40 on a membership and snap up a resale ticket in the days before the game. 

 

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

 

 

Edited December 3, 2025 by bobbydazzla

[Kimbo]

I don’t see the logic in building a stadium smaller than you can fill just because there might be a few empty seats in some games in the short to medium term. You’re also building it for the next 50 years so you should take into account fanbase growth that comes from local population growth and success.

[r0cafella]

44 minutes ago, Interpolic said:

If we build a new ground we need to think about the next 100 years, not the fact some fans attach so much of their own ego to the club that they couldn't handle what other fans think about a few empty seats now and then.

 

52k is clearly nowhere near big enough even though it was fine 20 years ago.  The popularity of football is only increasing. 

 

Ticket prices don't need to be sky high, that's a choice.  So if we have issues with attendance we can lower prices, especially if FFP dies a death.  Nobody knows what the future holds but if you want to future-proof you build it bigger.

I've never understood the talk about a few empty seats every now and again.