Time To Move - a new home for Newcastle United!

If our club is to ever achieve its ambitions and supporters' dreams then the time has come to leave St James' Park!

One of the regrettable aspects of modern football fandom is the toxic culture that has developed amongst supporters on social media. Far too quickly fans move to pigeon hole each other on account of an opinion and trash them in order to score a pyrrhic point.

That’s never been more apparrent in discussions about staying at SJP or leaving for a new stadium, strongly speculated to be on Leazes Park, literally a goal-kick away from our historic home.

So, here’s a contradiction from within the ranks of TF to challenge the crude stereotyping it is locked out fans who want to move and those with season tickets who don’t, for reasons that are crudely obvious.

I hope he doesn’t mind me saying it but my fellow TF scribbler, Yousef Hatem is a Geordie ex-pat, gone to seek his fame and fortune in that London. He gets his tickets when he can via ballots and favours from mates just as he has always done. His visits to SJP are cherished and I know he’d love to get to more games in NE1.

Doubtless in a few years time Yousef would love to bring his children to games and indoctrinate them into becoming lifelong Mags.

You’d imagine if anyone would be in favour of a move to a new expanded stadium with increased capacity and more tickets, it would be Yousef. Except he isn’t.

For perfectly good reasons Yousef would prefer to stay at St James’ Park and furthermore he doesn’t think the place should be expanded either. He wrote about it in the article embedded within this one.

Stay at SJP. Stay at 52,000: Against expansion or relocation

Yousef has an honestly held opinion and one which would disadvantage him were he to get his wish. Yousef holds a valid point of view, which is unselfish and believes serves the best interests of Newcastle United. I disagree but I respect the honesty of Yousef’s argument.

He stands in contradiction to that pigeonholing which is predicated upon everyone being a selfish bastard only focused on their own narrow self interest.

Then there’s me. I’m a local. I live about eight miles from St James’ Park and held season tickets for the thick end of forty years. I’ve got enough loyalty points to get me to any away game I want to be at and I’m in the Cup scheme. I’m in the fortunate position my obsession with Newcastle United won’t put me in the poor house.

I’ve even benefitted from being in Ashley’s long term deal for season ticket holders.

You might say I could have a selfish investment in preserving the status quo and regardless of season ticket price increases that might be coming over the horizon, I should be happy with the way things are.

Except I’m not, I believe it is in the interests of Newcastle United’s future, the city-region and our community to move to a new stadium of between 65-70,000 on Leazes Park.

We should be looking to have a stadium for young supporters currently locked out and those that haven’t even been born yet. We should elevate that sentiment over our own personal histories following United and we should think beyond our own time on this mortal coil. We should think of the future.

Like a lot of people who click through the turnstiles at SJP I trace my family history supporting United to virtually the formation of the club, when my maternal great grandfather fresh off the boat from Armagh, Ireland, (via Liverpool) walked from Nelson St in Gateshead (by the old Town Hall) across the High Level Bridge, up through town and onto the SJP terraces.

He was followed by his sons, grandsons and me. Sorry, it was always a bloke thing and neither did my Mam or either of grandmothers or aunts to my knowledge ever set foot inside SJP.

All of my maternal uncles supported Newcastle United and so do my cousins, brother and daughter to varying degrees of intensity. My old man went from the late 50s and not to mention down at Redheugh Park to follow Gateshead.

I’ve been going to matches at SJP since the early 1970s.

I’d argue leaving SJP is as emotional for me as any of those who argue for staying. If we could redevelop the place and stay, that would be great. But we know we can’t, we know it’s not practical or economical to attempt to do so.

Given the building of the East Stand was the first significant change the board had made to the place for the thick end of sixty plus years people of my generation and older can lay claim to have seen SJP in virtually every manifestation it has had since Newcastle East End decided to change its name to Newcastle United , it’s colours to Black & White stripes and unify football loyalties across the city and ripple out across Tyneside and the wider region to become the club of the north.

I have fading memories of the old Popular Side terrace, the Leazes End with its low slung roof, the open Gallowgate End, the paddock terraces in front of the old wooden West Stand complete with the sound of stamping feet.

I can recall the original East Stand with terracing in the lower tier, the unforgivable demolition of the old Leazes End and the poor excuse for a replacement between 1978 and 1993, the East Stand benches, where I spent many an 1980s afternoon barking at the moon, linesmen and opposing full backs, the portakabin executive boxes , the demolition of the old Gallowgate and the construction of what stands in its place today.

I was in the 1993 version of the Leazes End when it opened moving from the Milburn Paddock (itself rebuilt with the money raised from selling Peter Beardsley) the construction of which had underwhelmed us when Gordon McKeag boasted it was the same design as Watford’s main stand at Vicarage Road. We were meant to be impressed. It was awful.

I have seen SJP expanded from the compact noise box it was in the days of KK as manager in the 90s, to seeing Level 7 added to the Milburn and Leazes End (note we dropped the Sir John Hall Stand nonsense as we did the Newcastle Brown Ale Stand for the Gallowgate).

Finally, and no doubt I’ll be kept right here, I believe the work to the East Stand to create one sloping stand was the last major change to SJP and I forget when that happened.

I can remember those open air Gallowgate End bogs which was basically a wall with a drain which took the contents of Geordie bladders to … well, that’s a pub quiz question with no answer.

I can remember walking through those gates at the Gallowgate End which always had a bit too much of the Arbeit Macht Frei (Auschwitz) about them and NEWCASTLE UNITED in massive letters along the side of the entire exterior of what was the West Stand. It was meant to be black and white but in truth it was washed out dark grey and light grey on what looked like corrugated iron sheets.

And now we have what we have which hasn’t materially changed since the millennium.

SJP is nothing like the stadium I stepped into in the early 70s, which changed in the 80s, again in the 90s and at the turn of the millennium.

I’m fond of telling anyone who’ll listen that football is a completely different sport to the one I became obsessed with as a child. The game is massive to what it was in the 1970s and 80s. An Italian journalist described English football as a ghetto sport following Heysel and he had a point. Nowadays football is part of the national conversation. Everyone it seems is invested in someway in the game.

Some people have a rose tinted view of the past and whilst some of it was fun for robust young working class lads bouncing about terraces for a laugh, well, the perimeter fencing which surrounded three sides of the SJP pitch wasn’t great pre Hillsbrough, no cover for those who stood, medieval facilities and barely any consideration for disabled supporters and an atmosphere that wasn’t exactly welcoming for women, girls, older supporters or anyone from an obvious black and minority ethnic community.

No-one has ever complained when work to rebuild parts of SJP has been initiated and that was because there was a general recognition we had to move with the times no matter how much we might romantacise the past.

Not that there isn’t room for sentimentality.

Who doesn’t think about stepping through the turnstiles as a child, usually with a parent and seeing the pitch for the first time? And who doesn’t cherish taking their own children to their first games and seeing the start of what we hope will be a lifetime of devotion with a shared passion rolling down the generations?

But all of that underlines that St James’ Park has evolved and changed throughout its history and especially over the last fifty years and three decades in particular.

What we have now is a peculiarly newish but outdated stadium with an insufficient capacity and features which will hold United back in the longer term. It has reached the end of its lifespan and cannot be changed into the larger arena which will be the platform for the club’s future.

Perhaps I should say what I don’t want for any new Newcastle United home stadium.

I don’t want it to be out of town. West Ham’s Olympic Stadium is not only a bad design for football it is terribly located and the club has been torn from its roots in East London.

No-one can say moving from SJP to Leazes Park is ripping Newcastle United from its roots. Well, you can but howay man, it’s barely a goal kick up Barrack Road.

Clearly, we need to be mindful of the design of the new stadium. It has to be built for football and I don’t think people can claim Spurs new stadium or Everton’s or Arsenal’s or Man City’s aren’t excellent stadia for the modern age.

I’d think the commercial argument for moving is obvious but to be honest whilst club finance etc is something of a stale area of debate it is self evident the revenue from more fans, more corporate, more international supporters and more events will support the progression of Newcastle United. We all want that don’t we? Don’t we?

I don’t understand how anyone can object to that but it does go further. If we do have a capacity of 70,000, that means our friends have a greater chance of getting to see their team play - children, pals who chucked it for perfectly valid reasons under Ashley but more importantly younger supporters who are being denied what my generation took for granted and that is the simple act of going to the match to support our team.

The impact that will have on the city-region is huge too - the jobs it will create in the construction phase will be a massive boost and I find it baffling anyone who has grown up in these parts can be so sniffy about a potential £1Bn investment adjacent to the city centre.

There are some who equate moves to new stadiums as crossing some rubicon from traditional working class fandom into a future airbrushed with gormless, selfie camera touting, tourist fans jumping on a bandwagon who know zip about that team we call United.

That’s horribly simplistic but presupposes the world would stay the same if only we remain at SJP. You know that SJP which can be as flat as a fart with fans bailing out on the 70th minute to get to the front of the queue in Stack.

Let’s be honest about SJP, whoever first called it the Cathedral on the Hill had a peculiar sense of humour and a limited knowledge of sacred buildings. Admittedly, it’s on a hill.

One of the rare points of agreement I have ever had with Sir John Hall is his description of the rebuilt SJP as a carbuncle. It is. It’s a lopsided jumble of designs and I wouldn’t thank you for a spec up on Level 7. Unlike Villa Park or Ibrox with their listed exteriors, SJP is an ugly, miserably grey edifice which does nothing for a city with such a rich architectural heritage.

The raucous atmosphere generated by our crowd is despite SJP not because of it. A new stadium, correctly designed can do more to harness our support.

It is the people who matter, the supporters who chanted on the open Gallowgate and Popular sides but lost their noise to the elements. I think the same applies to Level 7 which is too far from the pitch.

If the club set about it the correct way, a new stadium can harness the inherent passion of our support. We can have a Geordie Wall like Dortmund and perhaps the bigger question than WHERE our stadium will be is WHAT our stadium will be. More money, a better atmosphere… if Newcastle United get it right, we can have it all.

I can hear those who oppose a new stadium telling me local, working class fans won’t be what this iteration of United want to attend our games in any shiny new arena. They have a point.

Anfield’s increased capacity hasn’t meant more fans from Bootle, Huyton et al are getting to Liverpool games and I don’t think a club’s fan demographic has changed more dramatically than Arsenal in the post 92 era.

But staying at an original club ground isn’t a guarantee to preserve a traditional and local support. Case for the prosecution - Chelsea, Man Utd and Liverpool too. There’s a different demographic at SJP to what we had forty, thirty years ago. Its older mainly but there are more women and it’s more ethnically diverse.

But it is generally more prosperous than it was in the 70s. It may be a blunt way of putting it but the stands of SJP are more Gosforth than Walker.

Staying isn’t the cure all for the modern football malaise. You’re kidding yourself if you think your world will stay the same just by holding onto SJP.

In fact, staying might make matters far worse as the club squeezes every seat for every penny it can get out of it.

Let’s move.

Keep On, Keepin’ On …

Michael Martin @TFMick1892.bsky.social