St James’ Park atmosphere – Drastic solution put forward to vastly improve situation

Earlier this week the club had a meeting with fans at St James’ Park on Tuesday night.

Hundreds of Newcastle United supporters there in person, plus many more joining in online by invitation, having applied for a place in advance.

Club officials meeting with Newcastle United fans at the event, with the idea of how to improve the matchday atmosphere at St James’ Park.

The Mag reported on what the feedback had been via people from NUST (Newcastle United Supporters Trust) whp were amongst those at this get together and they(NUST) gave this brief review of what came out of this event in terms of ideas and initiatives suggested…

‘Matchday Atmosphere Event Summary

Overall most tables agreed on the following suggestions to improve atmosphere or match day experience:

Better PA System usage / upgrade.

Music selection needs updating. Club potentially survey fans to see which songs are preferred. Allow organic fan singing after match ends.

Most in favour of bringing back half time entertainment. The zorbs racing of Wonga days mentioned a few times. Suggested (Mehrdad) Ghodoussi and Jamie Reuben to be first contestants!

Cheaper drinks / food options right up to kick off

Overall agreement to idea of extending the safe standing in ground. Popular areas were level 7 next to away fans, leazes and gallowgate. Could be tied in to be a singing section.

Queues at half time need to be tackled. Suggested mobile drink stations for bottles to ease pressure of queues

Allow people to select where they sit if successful in ballot. So they can sit with friends / family

More TV screens in ground.

Some liked idea of pyro display for special occasions but resounding agreement on not having light displays like other clubs’

I have to admit, my immediate reaction was to burst out laughing.

If you had been hoping for the brilliant ideas that would vastly improve the current situation, then this very clearly wasn’t it.

Cheaper pies, the club’s owners on the pitch doing half-time ‘entertainment’ and more TV screens…???

This is/was painful.

It was all too predictable.

Also, before I give my drastic solution(s) to significantly improve the St James’ Park atmosphere, first of all I would just like to say huge credit to all the fans who gave up their time to attend this event.

However… reality is that if the Newcastle United fans at this event at SJP really needed to find out what the biggest problem was, they only needed to look around them and indeed, in the mirror.

A lot of well meaning grey haired ‘mature’ middle class people (***Generalisation alert – Nobody get upset, I know not everybody is in this category, although I am one of those middle class people with the ‘odd’ touch of grey…) trying to do their bit for all the right reasons BUT no hope of finding the solution.

As proved by that NUST overview above…

Let me explain.

Let’s get Drastic

When I was a kid, my favourite Science Fiction film was Logan’s Run.

The film is all about a future where for the human race to survive and for there to be enough resources for the population to keep going, everybody is killed off once they reach the age of 30.

Now don’t worry, I am not going to suggest killing any of you lot off once you reach 30, or indeed any age.

However, this is our problem.

For the St James’ Park atmosphere to survive, we ideally need to replace older people with younger people.

Maybe say when any season ticket holder gets to 60, they automatically lose their season ticket and only 16 year olds are able to take over these season tickets.

In reality, this is pretty much what used to happen back in the day by natural selection.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, only a very small minority had a season ticket and the overwhelming majority stood on the terraces.

It was a young person’s game.

As people got older they tended to drop off, standing in the cold, rain, wind with loads of idiot teenagers jostling them, unless you were one of the privileged few up in the seats, then it became less and less of an attractive proposition.

Now of course it couldn’t be different.

Look around you at St James’ Park and it is more like a scene from another very good Science Fiction / Comedy film, this time Cocoon, from the 1980s.

More chance of an accident involving false teeth or a walking stick, than drunken teenagers jostling you.

This is how it is now, not just at St James’ Park but pretty much every Premier League stadium.

It is all about people having season tickets and a case of in most situations, having them until they die. Which in these modern times of people living ever longer, reality is that the population of St James’ Park is simply going to get ever older.

I hate to say it but a stadium full of 60-80 year olds is never going to be rocking. Rocking chairs maybe but not a rocking St James’ Park atmosphere.

I could absolutely guarantee a mental St James’ Park atmosphere for the next NUFC match against West Ham at the end of the month and you wouldn’t need to stick Yasir Al-Rumayyan into a Zorb ball and roll him down the slope to the Gallowgate end.

Simply take all the 50,000 tickets off the Newcastle United fans who have bought them for the West Ham match, then announce that three hours before kick-off, the first 50,000 NUFC fans aged 16-25 who turn up will get a free ticket and as much free drink as they can get down their necks before kick-off.

That would solves the St James’ Park atmosphere immediately, it is never going to happen with the grey haired middle classes pushing for cheaper pies and more TV screens.

I have had my bit of fun, so what about a real solution…

The above, sadly, can’t happen.

We have the situation that we have.

What in reality does need to happen is this.

Build a brand new 80,000+ St James’ Park just hundreds of yards further up the road at Castle Leazes (other side of Leazes Park.

You then have a totally clear new situation to work with.

The Newcastle United owners will be able to have all their new extra hospitality seats in various sections of the new stadium, the sides of the pitch pretty much.

Then you can also have two massive safe standing areas behind the two goals, as it used to be in the 1970s and previous with the Leazes and Gallowgate.

I would say keep season tickets pretty much at the same level they are now, maybe a few more.

However, as well as match by match seats on sale, have these two massive standing areas behind the goals, only for match by match tickets.

Also, make it so that the vast majority of them (80% minimum) are only on sale to those aged 25 or under, up to 30 at a push.

Whilst just as importantly, have say at least a few thousand say Under 21s amongst these, who don’t need to be members or get tickets in advance, just able to get there and queue on a matchday and pay (card or cash!) to get in.

For those who say the above can’t be done, yes it can be.

Only the will to do it is needed.

Get tens of thousands more Newcastle United fans into a brand new specially designed stadium and get the (new!) St James’ Park atmosphere sorted.