Away the Lads!

Les meanders down memory lane to recall some of his favourite away trips

A lot is made of St James Park, “The Cathedral on the Hill” as is it is now sometimes known. Quite rightly it’s high up on the list of most popular trips for away fans even though they have 140 steps and 14 landings to conquer.

Even when I was a lad and it was a derelict and somewhat lop sided arena, I loved the Gallowgate end, the corner to be more precise, but the old stand was a relic of earlier times. The East stand was spick and span but the Leazes end was a weird tiny thing having recently with roof being torn down. I did attend a few games in the last couple of seasons when it was still covered apparently, but I must admit I can’t recall it.

The great feedback you get from a myriad of top players that SJP is their “best” away venue and the general acceptance that somehow it has a special aura that can’t be defined just leads to the feeling that you are inside somewhere worthy of reverence, doesn’t it. Some of my favourite moments have been in that great place.

Kevin Keegan’s debut was one, I queued for four hours outside the Gallowgate end and got in 15 minutes before KO, only able to find a space right at the front of the scoreboard. I was literally one those who sucked the ball into the net that day. Others were Micky Quinn’s debut against Leeds Utd or that comeback against Leicester in January on Roy Aitken’s debut. 4-2 down with 10 to go and ended up winning 5-4, magic.

I could go on and on about which games live long in the memory at SJP but the point of this story is more about what we represent away from home.

Last week we travelled over 5,000 miles on a round trip to watch the lads in the Champions League, to Baku in Azerbaijan. 2,000 diehard fans used planes, trains and automobiles to get there and made one hell of a racket to support us and blow the opposition away 6-1. Now that’s a trip, isn’t it?

This isn’t extraordinary either if we are honest, is it? Sandro Tonali said the other day "It's crazy. The fans were unbelievable. I don't have words for this, but every away game..." I’m paraphrasing as he said even more but the gist of his words were his absolute wonderment at the measures our supporters will go to follow the team and the players, and regardless of the results, the thanks they give them as well.

This isn’t a new phenomenon either, for as long as I’ve been able to travel I’ve been in some absolutely insane atmospheres created by huge away trips with NUFC.

Games like the Friday Night FA cup game which took KK and Terry Mac back to Liverpool as players. It was in 1984, live on TV and the crowd was 33,000. Estimates are that we travelled with approximately 15,000 fans, but all I can recall is we had roughly half the ground and I have a vivid memory of looking back along the M62 to see a long line of coaches in the inside line, literally dozens and dozens of them, madness.

Barcelona away in 1997. Both clubs couldn’t qualify so the crowd was only 26,000 but we had roughly 13,000 for an away game in Spain!

Then there was Inter Milan in 2003. Again this was a much talked about game but what really hit home with the Italians, the crowd was 53,000 yet at least 12,000 mags made that trip to stun the locals. The noise from our fans was thunderous all night.

We took 15,000 to Old Trafford to play Manchester United in 1984 to see us lose 5-0 (as usual) even though we were top of the league after four games.

Tottenham had pay on the gate for our game with them in 1987, then were absolutely left panic stricken when an estimated 13,000 Geordies turned up to swell the gate to 38,000.

The biggest big game total I can recall is a game I didn’t go to but my Dad and his cousin did. WBA away in the FA cup in 1974, an official attendance figure of 42,000 included at least 20,000 NUFC fans who had 2 sides of the ground and behind one goal. Wow.

However, my favourite ever away trip was back in the days of Kevin Keegan as a player. It was the day we were promoted back to Division One. Huddersfield’s Leeds Road was a weirdly lopsided ground and they had only averaged around 6,000 per game, but that day there were 25,101 fans in the ground and 20,000 of them were us.

If you want to know proper limbs, as they say now, that was the day, absolute bedlam and pure joy, I’m getting tingles as I’m typing this up……unbelievable.

Newcastle United have always had the best ever away fans, bar none, don’t let anyone ever tell you any different.

Les Cash