Grand Designs - Tales of Stadium Plans Past
Scott tells the story of our lost World Cup and abortive move to a Stadio Olimpico in Gosforth as T. Dan Smith went head to head with the United Board
Whether you get yourself on camera at the first opportunity wearing one of those chronic Saudi ‘outfits’ or whether your viewpoint is that a part of you dies every day they are owners of our football club, the PIF holds the answers to the ground issue. The one question that won't go away and one which is so key to future generations of Newcastle supporters.
“St James’ Park. Should we stay or should we go?” has had more column inches than us winning the League Cup in the last few years. The petition which has suddenly sprouted like the spring green shoots in Leazes Park will matter not in the big scheme of things, but it shows that that process won't be the freewheeling procession to bricks and mortar everyone thinks it is.
The Saudis are not in a hurry either. It's not their style. A £1 trillion dollar City is to be built for the World Cup in 2034 and its to include a ground with a pitch 350 metres above the ground “With an experience like no other”.
Talk is all it is so far, though, and the hubris not creating anything else other than a small scale excavation and almost monthly scale backs from PIF.
Newcastle may be way down the list.
But this isn't the first time in our history the ground has become a hot potato between owners, Newcastle City Council and a country about to host the World Cup. As ever with Newcastle United FC we have a lesson in history.
In the aftermath of World War Two, United boldly tried to build a stand on the Leazes terrace side. They were knocked back because of the protection given to the houses. Ring any bells?
Around 13 years later, with Newcastle in desperate need of modernisation as the FA Cup laden years were fading fast and flirting with relegation was now the norm (they narrowly avoided joining fellow powerhouse Sunderland in their first taste of the drop), the board, full of publicised infighting, revisited this as one of Charlie Mitten’s (our new 37 year old manager) five-point plan of reimagining the club.
One was to bring in a new continental style strip. It was a V- neck stunner with small stripes on the socks, the other was to put a stand on the popular side. They delivered one at least. Sceptics said it was a case of ‘watch the birdie’: the club knew fine well they had no chance of getting planning permission.
An 80,000 St James’ powerhouse was grandiose, but crowds were going down, not up, and again this was met with distrust. The club did deliver floodlights at a cost of £40,000 and because of this investment, the venue, along with Roker Park, was chosen to be a venue for the 1966 World Cup.
The 1958 plans for the stand trundled along, and rather than accept defeat, the club went again in April 1963 with a bigger beefier proposal which included a lengthy extension to the club's lease on St James’ Park.
The Council, backed by the Freemen, saw this as playing into their hands. They wanted a piece of NUFC. City Hall wanted a major say in how the club was run.A major change of tack. A power grab.
Would Newcastle hand over relative control to the council while presumably getting more favourable results with planning requests?
The answer was straight out of the McKeag family's phrase book. It was to be used forty years later to good effect. Over their dead body (but they probably would if push came to shove).
By April 1964 the impasse was reaching ridiculous levels, so much so the very future of the club was to be in doubt as the lease on the stadium would unceremoniously end within just over the year if things couldn't be sorted.
Could Newcastle United be evicted from St James’ Park? Seriously? What had started as a small argument over a new stand had snowballed to the point where we could have lost St James’ Park.
While all this was happening, the World Cup was being planned around us. The organisers had given us more leeway than they had ought to. Newcastle had to give them something. As it stood, Newcastle couldn't even say their ground would be their own by the time the tournament kicked off. Talk about security of tenure.
The organisers were putting gallons of calamine lotion on their itchy feet. During the summer, eventually and not surprisingly, World Cup bosses pulled the plug and gave the Newcastle-based matches (and Eusebio) to Ayresome Park and Middlesbrough instead.
Can you imagine that for one minute, the so-called capital of the north losing out all together and to Middlesbrough of all places. McKeag said some lines about angels weeping. The public were furious with the club and council.
The club went on the offensive and pointed out the money the City had lost out on because of the council's stance. A new short-term release was signed with the University suddenly right smack bang in the middle. The Council insisted the Uni join as co-tenants. This went down like a lead balloon and the club sought to end this their way and the drastic move away from St James’ was the only option.
In April 1966 the club announced that it wanted to build a new ground off Sandy Lane (around where the new Aldi is now and near the Weetslade Country Park). The plans were jaw dropping for the general public just like all these images we are seeing now. The club looked to Rome for inspiration.
The Stadio Olimpico’s bowl would be the prototype. Given that most grounds were still Victorian except minor fixtures and fitting renewal. This was rocket fuel for the club and the city. The cost of £1m wasn't even sniffed at.
A real two-fingered salute to hugely influential council leader T. Dan Smith, who had proposed a rebuilt St James’ Park with a sporting complex to serve the community.
Stay at St James’ and share or leave the City centre and off to a field between Gosforth Park and Killingworth Newtown. Again does this ring any bells?
The Sandy Lane plans just dragged the sides further apart. T. Dan Smith insisted Newcastle couldn't have the City coat of arms on the front page of the programme. It had gotten petty, with both sides looking increasingly vulnerable to public dissatisfaction. England winning the World Cup hardly helped.
Sandy Lane was a plan for the ages. Restaurants, a supporters club, and executive boxes. Manchester United's dirty plans may have sullied the term, but this was truly going to be a “Wembley for the North”. NUFC cleverly used the national stadium in its plans in a nod to the world cup which we didn't get and England won.
On the pitch, though, Newcastle were providing the club with bargaining tools. In 1969 the club won the Fairs Cup and the glory days were back and so were days that would fill 80,000 stadiums and certainly one which would fill the Sandy Lane project.
The fans were back onside (a Cup win does that to you) and the council were suddenly in a position of weakness having held all the aces as Newcastle were meandering and indeed relegated in the early sixties.
All this was still going on as we entered the 1970s. Was Newcastle's heart in Sandy Lane? Did the University actually want to share St James’? The answer to all is probably no. Ask your dad or grandad if Lord Westwood would have parted with £1 million. It's fanciful. Newcastle were as tight then as any time under Ashley.
This meant no one probably won. In 1971 Sandy Lane was officially scrapped. Relationships had thawed, and after forty years of impasse, a long lease was agreed and four new stands were agreed to be built. The East stand was built in 1972. The lease was signed around the same time for 99 years and the programmes were whole again, presumably. The rest of the stands? Well, let's quit while we are ahead for now. That’s a piece for another day.
The East stand now ironically stands in the way of progress while for the vast majority of the twentieth century it was the holy grail we needed to progress.You couldn't make it up. It cost £420,000, a fraction of the £2m Sandy Lane would have cost and the £2.6m the council would have spent on the St James’ development (which would have included a motorway on Strawberry place. Handy for the drivers who insist on trying to get through ten minutes before kick off since the dawn of time).
Newcastle and new grounds have had previous and this one will run and run as well.
Sandy Lane’s Olimpico is now just a footnote of history but a very enjoyable one. The days of T Dan Smith who tried to make Newcastle the “Brasilia of the North”, clearing slum houses and extending airports, are now pertinent as well. But instead of a bloke from Wallsend with facial hair from the heavens doing the business, we are hoping the Saudi state and all that comes with it will change the face of the club and City.
Different times, indeed.
Scott Robson
Image credit: Open Media Ltd, CC BY-SA 3.0
Amazing read. Brilliant lesson in history of the club
Thanks Scott. A very interesting read on a bit of United's history I knew nothing about.