The atmosphere inside St James’ Park has undergone a seismic change since the club was taken over in October 2021. The first home game, against Spurs, was electric inside.
The club shop had queues. People had gone to the stadium early specifically to take in the moment; all this when the football hadn’t had the time to change!
We were still turgid and facing relegation. In the months since, the feeling inside SJP on a match day has continued to grow into the beacon of positivity that it is today.
TAKE PART: Ambition, trust, atmosphere - 'The Big Newcastle United Forum'
The flag displays work so well to bring everyone together – it is genuinely an uplifting experience to get into the ground, pick up a flag, and watch as the place becomes a rippling sea of black and white, or a sea of shiny blue, or to see the number 10 in gold and an ASM flag hoisted up in the Gallowgate. The atmosphere is the best it has been in my memory, and it feels like the positivity has no limit.
The demand for tickets is through the roof; some people who have had no trouble getting them for years are now having to accept that there might be home games they don’t get to this season. Consider that in 2019 Mike Ashley quite literally gave away ten thousand half season tickets. That seems like worlds away now.
Charlotte Robson
+++
Within hours of that incredible evening back in October last year one of the first questions among fans was ‘will there be enough tickets?’ The previous owner had to give 10k season tickets away just to stop the empty seats on match day from showing the world just how utterly fed-up us fans were.
The stadium had not even had a lick of paint for years. St James’ Park was a visual representation of the misery 14 years of Ashley had managed to engender around the place.
In fact, nothing probably represented just how much of a tragi-comedy the club had become than the famous 'Gallowgate Pigeon', lifeless and stuck in one place for years. And then overnight everything changed.
New owners talking of making Newcastle United the biggest and best club in the world. Demand for tickets immediately shot through the roof.
An FA Cup game against league Two Cambridge United sold out. Over 80K fans walked through the gates for two pre-season friendlies in the space of two days.
Apparently 30,000 applications were received for 1,000 season tickets. The odds of getting a ticket to the match now if you are not in possession of one of those magical season tickets are on a par with winning the Euromillions (probably).
The question of Newcastle United moving from St James’ Park to a bigger stadium is going to get louder and louder the more successful the Club becomes. We are desperate to see success and any modicum or possibility of it in my nearly 40 years of supporting the Club suggests that it might.
Demand for tickets vs Liverpool back in the 1994/95 season to watch KK’s unbeaten table-topping Mags was such that had the capacity been available there would have been 70K+ at the game. There is no doubt of the potential for such huge attendances.
However, moving away from St James’ Park is a thought that fills me with a mixture of fear and sadness. The stadium is without doubt one of the world’s most iconic.
The location in the city centre makes it one of the greatest places to visit for a football match in world football. What Spurs have done with White Hart Lane and Athletic Bilbao with the San Mames is admirable, but are they examples of what could be replicated at Newcastle?
There have been suggestions among fans of a move to Leazes Park, but that would entail the destruction of another important historical landmark. Another option would be a move to another location, likely outside the city, which brings with it the risk of ending up with a situation where you have a flatpack behemoth devoid of any sort of soul.
It could take years for the place to really feel like home and I imagine if you ask Arsenal and West Ham fans if they prefer their new homes to the old they would answer in the negative. In answer to the question then, I think these discussions are likely already being touched on.
However, for now, let’s just see how we fare for the next few years and maybe revisit it further down the line. If we’re selling out five years from now for Game 6 of a UCL group from which we’ve already qualified then perhaps that might be the time to start accepting the fact a stadium move is a necessity.
Norman Riley
Now over to you, how much on a scale of 0-100 do you rate your happiness with the atmosphere at St. James' Park? Use the sliders below to record your score on that question and six other key talking points. Click HERE if the form doesn't load properly
Thanks to Norman and Charlotte from True Faith for contributing to the Big Newcastle United Forum
