I totally agree with the article published on The Mag yesterday, written by Simon Ritter and titled “For the first time, I was ashamed to be a Newcastle United supporter”, when I heard Newcastle United fans booing at the end of the Sunderland match, I thought it was for the referee. I could not believe it was for the team and staff.
I was fortunate enough to see thirty out of Eddie Howe’s first thirty-five Newcastle United home games and everything about them was electric. I am 58 years old and to sit there with my son, will be some of my happiest memories!
In the last two years with the new ballot system, we have been to two home games this season and two last season, having applied for every home game. I am accepting of this and appreciate demand for tickets far outstrips our current capacity and that`s the way it is.
What I find harder to accept is what I witnessed at Sunday’s game (as well as the home match with Everton) with seven minutes left of the 90 plus an unknown amount of added time before the break. Hundreds of people got up all over the stadium and started walking down the walkways for refreshments, what the hell is that about?!!
With five minutes to go before half-time against Sunderland, there were 15 empty seats in the row in front of me, this was in the Gallowgate, these were local lads and lasses in strips. Not tourists.
Five minutes into the second half, most had not returned, then when people did return they were troughing pies and so on, totally oblivious to the near thirty minutes they had been out of their seats.
Then five minutes from the end, mass evacuation when we are trying to get back into the game against our most fierce rivals!
It is absolutely shocking that this happens when up to 150,000 Newcastle United fans cannot get into the ground and would give their right arm to be at St James’ Park. If you want food and drink, stay in the pub and give your ticket to someone who will back the team for the full time they are playing and also when they are trudging around the pitch after having been beaten by Sunderland!
Supporters who get into St James’ Park should realise how lucky and privileged they are and should back the team. It is not like they are a bad team, they are playing football light years ahead of what we were watching just five years ago, never mind in the late 1970s when I first started going!
One final point on our brilliant manager Eddie Howe, a manager any club would want and would be lucky to get. It is obvious to a blind man on a galloping horse that this fella is class and he lives and breathes our club. Along with Special K he is the best thing to happen to this club in the near sixty years I have been watching. Yes he will make mistakes but this does NOT mean he is not right for the job. Or he has taken the club as far as he can!
What utter rubbish! He is the perfect man for the job and if people cannot see the constrictions he is working under, more fool them!
We need to unequivocally get behind Eddie Howe and the team like only we Geordies can, Eddie will get us there as long as he is given the needed support from the club and supporters.