St James' Park

[Keegans Export]

16 minutes ago, r0cafella said:

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

If demand keeps outstripping supply, you can jack the prices up.

 

Don't get me wrong, if it was up to me we'd build a massive stadium, but I think our owners (most owners tbf) will think they don't want to spend however much extra it would cost to build/maintain a 70k+ stadium that could have empty seats when they could build one for about 65k and attempt to keep the demand high. They won't want to feel they're ever in a position to bring the prices down to fill the ground.

 

I'd love to be wrong, I just think that Eales's comments, whether the club have now distanced themselves from it publicly or not, won't be too far off the mark.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Even if demand slackens they'll never bring the prices down. I just don't think it works like that in football. 

 

65k would be ridiculously small IMO, and a waste of time. May as well just stay as we are. 

[TBG]

I know it's relatively easy to walk between stands, but the tickets themselves only allow you entry at their designated gates right?

 

I'm still amazed at the amount of people who have somehow ended up in the wrong area of the stadium.

 

Like I don't understand how its so hard to follow 'Here's your gate numbers, here the access to use, here's your row and seat number'.

[El Prontonise]

10 minutes ago, TBG said:

I know it's relatively easy to walk between stands, but the tickets themselves only allow you entry at their designated gates right?

 

I'm still amazed at the amount of people who have somehow ended up in the wrong area of the stadium.

 

Like I don't understand how its so hard to follow 'Here's your gate numbers, here the access to use, here's your row and seat number'.

 

You can go in other turnstiles around your intended one.  I do this to get into ground quicker.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

I used to go in any turnstile that had a small queue as the tickets opened any one. But last time I tried it didn’t scan, so not sure if that still works. 
 

The signs and labelling of the access points and sections once inside the ground is appalling though. 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2025 by AyeDubbleYoo

[LFEE]

3 hours 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

 

 

 

 

STs went up 64%. At least those on the 10yr deals which was quite a significant amount overall of STs.

[El Prontonise]

4 minutes ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

I used to go in any turnstile that had a small queue as the tickets opened any one. But last time I tried it didn’t scan, so not sure if that still works. 
 

The signs and labelling of the access points and sections once inside the ground is appalling though. 

 

 

 

 

It still works.

[bobbydazzla]

11 minutes ago, LFEE said:

STs went up 64%. At least those on the 10yr deals which was quite a significant amount overall of STs.

 

We've been through this before. 

 

The people on 10 year deals knew their deal was coming to an end and their tickets would go up substantially. And they'd had bargain basement Ashley era prices for a decade (I was next to bloke last season who said he was was paying £18 a game, if I remember rightly), despite the club changing hands and the quality of football being incomparable since Jan 22 when we started buying decent players. 

 

And we don't know how many of the 10 year deals were left last August, the impression the club created was that it wasn't a significant amount. But who knows.

 

Members were already paying more than anyone else to go game by game and were asked to cough up even more money game by game via another stealth price rise in August 25. 

 

The two things aren't comparable scenarios. In my view.

 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2025 by bobbydazzla

[Superior Acuña]

14 minutes ago, El Prontonise said:

 

You can go in other turnstiles around your intended one.  I do this to get into ground quicker.

I tried this recently and I was rejected at the turnstile. Wonder if it depends on part of ground or something? 

[Charlies]

14 minutes ago, AyeDubbleYoo said:

I used to go in any turnstile that had a small queue as the tickets opened any one. But last time I tried it didn’t scan, so not sure if that still works. 
 

The signs and labelling of the access points and sections once inside the ground is appalling though. 

 

 

 

Yeah it still works that 👍

[bobbydazzla]

Just now, Superior Acuña said:

I tried this recently and I was rejected at the turnstile. Wonder if it depends on part of ground or something? 

 

They've installed nonce detector scanning capability in some parts of the ground where there's lots of kids

 

Spoiler

safety smiley

 

[Charlies]

1 minute ago, Superior Acuña said:

I tried this recently and I was rejected at the turnstile. Wonder if it depends on part of ground or something? 

east stand (  ) it still works 

[Stifler]

For reference, this is Leeds availability ahead of their 8:15pm KO against Chelsea tonight.

This gos to show that it’s not just us that is having problem with this KO time.

 

[Groundhog63]

Fwiw, and this goes for every section of the ground I've been in, barring corporate obvs, the fucking bogs are woeful. 

 

Leazes Stand, sections L4X etc etc. One fucking doorway. 

 

Concourses rammed tf. 

 

I'm not sure why you "I'm alright Jacks" think you are. 

 

It's a shithole

[Tross]

16 minutes ago, Groundhog63 said:

Fwiw, and this goes for every section of the ground I've been in, barring corporate obvs, the fucking bogs are woeful. 

 

Leazes Stand, sections L4X etc etc. One fucking doorway. 

 

Concourses rammed tf. 

 

I'm not sure why you "I'm alright Jacks" think you are. 

 

It's a shithole

 

Aye a kna, raging there's nee one to sell me a chewa and splash of cool watta. 

[Bellis80]

29 minutes ago, Groundhog63 said:

Fwiw, and this goes for every section of the ground I've been in, barring corporate obvs, the fucking bogs are woeful. 

 

Leazes Stand, sections L4X etc etc. One fucking doorway. 

 

Concourses rammed tf. 

 

I'm not sure why you "I'm alright Jacks" think you are. 

 

It's a shithole

Don’t think the concourse is any less rammed or easier to get a piss at the Emirates, Spurs or Wembley if you go at half time.

[Superior Acuña]

1 hour ago, Superior Acuña said:

I tried this recently and I was rejected at the turnstile. Wonder if it depends on part of ground or something? 

When I tried it was to get into the Strawberry Corner with a ticket for the East Stand. 

[bobbydazzla]

Take the emotion out of the building and look at it objectively.

 

It’s a Frankenstein’s monster of a stadium thats youngest bits are 25 years old and some of the oldest bits are starting to think about drawing down their pension.

 

And for the majority of the last 20 years the entire place was allowed to rot. Even in the last 4 years it’s received nothing substantial in the way of modernisation.

 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2025 by bobbydazzla

[LFEE]

1 hour ago, bobbydazzla said:

 

We've been through this before. 

 

The people on 10 year deals knew their deal was coming to an end and their tickets would go up substantially. And they'd had bargain basement Ashley era prices for a decade (I was next to bloke last season who said he was was paying £18 a game, if I remember rightly), despite the club changing hands and the quality of football being incomparable since Jan 22 when we started buying decent players. 

 

And we don't know how many of the 10 year deals were left last August, the impression the club created was that it wasn't a significant amount. But who knows.

 

Members were already paying more than anyone else to go game by game and were asked to cough up even more money game by game via another stealth price rise in August 25. 

 

The two things aren't comparable scenarios. In my view.

 

 

 

 

 

Can only go off conversation/friends/groups and I’m involved in and seemed a significant amount. Where did the club state it wasn’t?

 

Increases are all relative to the individuals budget and what they have been accustomed to paying. 64% is a significant rise in any scenario in my view.

[bobbydazzla]

55 minutes ago, LFEE said:

 

Can only go off conversation/friends/groups and I’m involved in and seemed a significant amount. Where did the club state it wasn’t?

 

Increases are all relative to the individuals budget and what they have been accustomed to paying. 64% is a significant rise in any scenario in my view.

 

 

This was from the FAB meeting with NUFC

 

The final grouping of long term season ticket deals, which were introduced in 2011, will conclude as scheduled this season (25/26). The previous grouping ended in 2022.

 

The use of final grouping suggests it wasn’t a huge number of STs, but that's just my interpretation. I’d also have expected the FAB to say in the meeting if tens of thousands were affected.

 

64% is a massive rise, but on a price that hadn’t increased for 14 years. Did people on 10+ year deals expect to pay Ashley’s 2011 prices forever? At some point, they had to align with what everyone else pays.

They knew the deal they’d benefited from was ending and it wasn’t a stealth increase.

 

If I fix my mortgage and interest rates rise, I have to pay the new market rate when the term ends. I've benefitted from the fix, but the landscape has changed. That’s just standard economics.

 

Compare that with members, we already paid the highest ticket prices in the ground and were then hit with a stealth rise for 25/26, which was even bigger than the stealth rise on ST prices.

 

I’d love for the whole ground to pay 2011 prices, but it’s not the case. 20,000 of us are paying £55+ per game for bog standard seats, whilst 10 year fix ST's are unhappy that they couldn't stay at £20 per game for the same bog standard seats.

 

It’s just another example of the “us and them” division between STs and members that's been created by the takeover, unfortunately.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 3, 2025 by bobbydazzla

[duo]

3 hours ago, Stifler said:

For reference, this is Leeds availability ahead of their 8:15pm KO against Chelsea tonight.

This gos to show that it’s not just us that is having problem with this KO time.

 

A few around me had to leave before end of match just to catch bus/train/metro home.  It's ridiculous.

[TheBrownBottle]

13 minutes ago, duo said:

A few around me had to leave before end of match just to catch bus/train/metro home.  It's ridiculous.

8:15pm KOs are fucking ridiculous mind, there’s no need for it

[Whitley mag]

Key part of enabling development on Leazes Park about to be passed early in new year.

 

 

 

[Wallsendmag]

9 hours 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.

 

We could easily sell 55k season tickets. Probably a lot more if that was the route the club wanted to go down meaning we could easily fill a 70k stadium every week. If the club capped season tickets at, say 35,000 and then continued charging obscene amounts for the other seats then it wouldn't be full.

 

It's all to do with the pricing. We sold out an early round League Cup match v Wimbledon at 1 weeks notice last season because it was priced fairly. With stanard tickets for yesterday being priced at between £58-£97 you're vastly restricting which fans can afford to attend and therefore have a much smaller pool of available punters.

[duo]

2 minutes ago, Whitley mag said:

Key part of enabling development on Leazes Park about to be passed early in new year.

 

 

 

Tyneside life done a vid on it - makes it sound really unlikely they'll build in Leazes Park