Still having nightmares about Philippe AlbertAs Manchester City celebrate their 1-0 FA Cup win over their rivals Manchester United, Newcastle prepare to break a 7 season curse.
Yes, it’s been 7 seasons since we’ve beaten Manchester United at the Cathedral on the Hill. The last time coming with a 4-3 victory, courtesy of an own goal, with the late, great Sir Bobby Robson steering our black and white ship. Of that game, both Steve Harper and Shola Ameobi remain – both of them being unused substitutes in the last fixture.
Wayne Rooney has been declared available for the game after serving his ban for swearing, and perhaps more worryingly, veteran Ryan Giggs will also be available for selection.
As a wise man once said: “F@£k”
Long time Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, will be looking for more than just a ‘response’ against the Magpies and will be looking to extend that 7 season statistic as Arsenal prepare to shorten the 6 point lead, and Chelsea still struggling to find form after a blistering start to their campaign to retain the Premier League title.
The Leazes: Should the singing end?Recent plans unveiled by the powers that be at Newcastle United have revealed that the traditional “singing” section in the upper reaches of the Leazes End is to be terminated and used to expand the “family enclosure” of the ground.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, this has had some sections of the Newcastle United fanbase up in arms at the loss of what they feel adds significantly to the “atmosphere” of St James’s Park on a match day. This has led to the organisation of a petition by fan’s group, “United for Newcastle” in a bid to make the club change their minds over the plans.
When plans were originally made to create an official “singing section” in this area in 2008, then Chairman of the club, Chris Mort said:
“Over the course of the year I’ve spoken to lots of fans about how we can improve things at St James’s Park.
“Two themes have regularly cropped up in those conversations.(more…)
St James' Park - Full to the brim?I’ve been checking online for quite some time now to see how ticket sales for the derby match against Sunderland tomorrow have been progressing.
It’s fair to say that they have been going pretty well, which is to be as expected as it is THE local derby, but will we manage a sell out at St James’ Park for the first time this season?
In short, technically we won’t sell out fully as a larger than normal segregation area between the two sets of fans has been requested by the police, presumably to stop those filthy Mackem tramps hoying their sharpened benefit coins at the home fans, again, but what about all of the rest of the avaiable seats? Will we shift them in time for the kick-off tomorrow? Or will we fail to sell out a derby for the first time in quite a while?
I checked earlier and all I saw was one seat remaining in the Platinum Club, just one seat in the entire ground. I checked a bit later on and the official website said that there was a few more seats left. Then I checked again and it said we had sold out. In short, heaven only knows if we have actually sold out what is available as the new club website appears to be a bit pants in all honesty and can’t seem to make it’s mind up on what it wants to show! (more…)
Kick-off moved to prevent trouble.The kick-off time for the game against Sunderland on October 31st has been moved forward at the requst of Northumbria police.
The only real surprise about the move is that it wasn’t made sooner. The return leg at Sunderland was moved forward pretty much as soon as the fixture list was released, yet the game at St James’ Park remained untouched.
So why did the bizzies wait until after the tickets have started to be sold before making the decision to apply to the Premier League for permission to move the game to an earlier 1:30pm kick-off? I, and many others, suggested that it may want to be moved to an earlier time, so why has it taken the authorities so long to cotton on to the same fact? (more…)
A regular sight at St James'? Nah.There used to be a time when tickets for a match were rather hard to get hold of at St James’ Park.
I don’t mean going back to the Keegan era when we had a long waiting list for season tickets but only a 36,000 seater ground. In fact even as recently as just a few seasons ago it was pretty hard to get tickets for home games.
You were either consigned to the heavens in level seven, or if you were really lucky and got in there really early then you could maybe grab a spot in another part of the ground. It was never guaranteed though and more often than not those people searching for tickets would have to make do with what they got rather than choosing where they wanted to sit.
The crowd of 41,915 that witnessed the defeat to Stoke yesterday is a far cry from what we used to get in the Premier League, so where have they all gone? (more…)
