Has the St. James’ roar returned to the Toon?

Posted on October 17th, 2011 | 24 Comments |

Newcastle United fans: Glory hunters?
Glory hunters?
It’s fair to say that during the last 5 minutes at St James Park yesterday the place was rocking, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I was reminded of times gone by. So the question is this, “Are the Toon faithful passionate, or are we just glory hunters who only really get behind the team when things are going well?”

Over the past few years I’ve been disheartened by the fact the for a team with supposedly some of the best fans in the world, St James Park has been a bit flat, on some occasions you can hear a pin drop, even when we were drawing the game. My theory is that the crowd was so nervous that we would concede we never really got going.

I’ve looked enviously at Stoke (never though I’d say that a few years ago!). Say what you want about them, but you can’t deny that the crowd is the 12th man at the Britannia Stadium. The noise levels are so loud that sometimes I have to turn the TV down to a lower volume. I think that they are one of the main reasons that Stoke have been so successful given their short time in the Premier League.

So you can imagine my delight yesterday, whilst watching Toon v Spuds that the crowd was chanting away right from kick-off, building to a crescendo of fantastic noise in the last 5 minutes. In relation to my colleague’s previous blog regarding St James’ Park as a fortress, we need to keep the noise and passion in order to get the lads on the pitch fired up and intimidate the opponents.

Back to my original question then: why has the noise suddenly returned? Level 7 has been split up so in theory we should be quieter than ever. My glory supporting friends have said that we only sing when we’re winning. In a way I suppose that’s true for any team to some extent; after all, you aren’t going to cheer on a 5-0 drubbing!

I suppose that in summary, what I’m trying to say (in a roundabout way) is that the noise is back in St James, lets keep it there!

Howay the Lads.

NUFCBlog Author: Mick toons Mick toons is a proud nufc fan hailing from Durham. He now lives in Yorkshire with another group of hard done by fans... Leeds United Mick toons has written 13 articles on this blog.

Related Posts:

Posted on by Mick toons in category: Mick Toons and NUFC fans and St James's Park and Thoughts and reflections , with tags:
Comment on this post

24 Responses

  3. I think to a certain extend you just have to cast your mind back to NUFC vs Arse last Feb. We conceded 4 goal in rather brisk fashion and the stands were still pretty damn full, if I remeber the TV’s images of the crowd properly. That says a lot there. It would have been easy to duck out at halftime.

  6. I’m more of a geriatric flask of tea in the East Stand man personally. We all go “Shhhh” and shake our walking sticks if any young upstarts start making a racket in there!

  7. You do realize Stoke have mics wired up to speakers to make them sound louder than they actually are….

  9. correlation between quality of football played and noise level – oh chuck in a winning/unbeaten streak and there you go!

  10. I think one of the main reasons for the noise at the moment is actually down to a bit of luck after the disbandment of the singing section. With people under the age of 21 having to move, most have gone into the ‘strawberry corner’. And with the excitable teenagers still in level 7 there seems to be an echo effect forming. If two corners are singing that far apart its hard for the rest of the ground not to get mixed up in the noise. Getting rid of level 7 was a risky move (and a wrong one in my opinion) but it seems to have hit an unexpected result!

  11. Absolutely not, it gets worse and worse every game, I was in level 7 for around 6 years, and it was good at times, I got moved to the east stand leazes corner and it is terrible, the worst seat I have ever had!!!!! Fair enough for the last five minutes yesterday I was loud but not where I was sitting. There is too many fans who pick and choose thier games and don’t contribute to it at all, but the ones who’ve really brung the atmos down are the fans who bring thier girlfriends, all dolled up, with bags of shopping to the match ! We don’t want them there because they just sit and play with thier phones, hold hands and piss off at half time because it’s too cold.

  12. I was at the match last night and I can tell you the atmosphere in the last 15 minutes or so was absolutely electric.

    Everywhere you looked across the stadium everyone was going mental! Especially Shola’s goal and the last couple of chances.

    Superb atmosphere and proud to be part of it!

  13. well it was my first appearance to st james of the season yesterday… might have had something to do with it thats all im saying…

  14. darlomag says:
    October 17, 2011 at 10:28 pm

    “well it was my first appearance to st james of the season yesterday… might have had something to do with it thats all im saying…”

    Darlomag, are you the one who creates that magic atmosphere they have at the Darlo arena nowadays? :-)

  17. darlomag says:
    October 17, 2011 at 10:40 pm

    “Aye im one of the 6 fans that turns up”

    They were going to be the Barcelona of Co.Durham at one stage. Massive stadium, Tino signed etc

  18. I think the size of the stadium is the main problem – and sitting down is another.
    In the 70s crowds were only about 35,000 but the noise was deafening.
    I remember when they first brought in the huge TV screens, people would just gape at them.

    On the other hand, I might be going deaf.

    What? Speak up man!

    HWTL

  19. That bloke in your picture must have had a nasty accident to have his arse hanging out of the front of his pants!

  20. Do you realise that a win on saturday puts us back up to 3rd!
    Well, at least until full-time sunday.

    HWTL

  22. that has to be the worst article in the history of articles…

    are the toon passionate or glory hunters? WTF?

    this site still wallowing in sh it i see

  23. black says:
    October 18, 2011 at 2:05 pm

    “that has to be the worst article in the history of articles…

    are the toon passionate or glory hunters? WTF?

    this site still wallowing in sh it i see”

    black, you once wrote on tis ‘blog:

    “i read it Dave and i’m normally happy to keep my thoughts to myself because i’ve seen it happen a hell of a lot on here, and on Ed’s board that if people disagree with your thoughts and opinions then you’re insulted and abused.”

    Yes black. Just because you may not agree with the opinion expressed in the article personally, there’s no need to reduce yourself to being insulting and abusive.

    Wouldn’t it have been more contructive, not to say well mannered, to articulate why you disagree with the piece instead of merely writing a load of mindless abuse? Also isn’t it a little hypocritical to whinge about other people abusing you on blogs you when you are obviously no better yourself? ;-)

  24. Mick Toons,

    I wasn’t at the game, so I can’t comment too much about how the atmosphere was.

    But, could it have seemed the noise level was better due to it being shown live on Sky Sports, instead of a crappy stream from the middle-east? :-)

    It did seem rocking towards the end though.