Saturday afternoon ended Gateshead 1 Newcastle United 1.
I have seen this kind of friendly countless times, when Newcastle United have had good, bad and indifferent first choice teams.
The problem with these fitness exercises, these meaningless kick abouts, is that people are asked to pay £25 to watch.
Gateshead sound like they are in a desperate state financially and in truth, that is pretty much always the case. So I don’t really blame them charging that kind of price, any kind of price, people aren’t forced to pay it.
However, for those who did pay it, they saw an uninspiring match.
Newcastle United pretty much controlled the whole game but often failed with their final pass, with crosses, whilst Gateshead battled away. United weren’t helped in that respect by the windy conditions, a pitch that often had an uneven bounce, plus a lenient referee who with it being a friendly didn’t book the Gateshead players for persistently breaking up NUFC attacks with regular pull backs of shirts an so on. Punished by only a free-kick whereby at the World Cup a shirt pull appeared to be the one thing all but guaranteed to see yellow.
Gateshead start their league season two weeks today and it is more than four weeks until Newcastle United do the same, the NUFC players having been back at the training ground only two weeks, or less.
It was uninspiring stuff but anybody going overboard about this friendly needs to calm down.
At least 13 first team squad players were unavailable, a mixture of still not back after extended post-World Cup leave, injuries/recovering from injuries, recently signed etc.
Botman, Joelinton, Wissa, Thiaw, Elanga, Osula, Livramento, Woltemade, Burn, Bruno, Lewis Miley, Toure, Bamba
Looking at the players that were on show today, I would guess that when Eddie Howe is anticipating what his first choice eleven will be next season, only Lewis Hall started today. With Ramsey and Barnes possibles for that first choice starting NUFC 11 for the 2026/27 season.
The basics of the game were that after around half an hour of total Newcastle United control and a handful of decent situations where the keeper made a great save (from Neave), missed a sitter (an uneven bounce, maybe a touch from the keeper, saw Barnes fail to finish from a few yards out), last ditch clearances (an excellent header from just under the Gateshead bar the pick of them), Gateshead scored out of the blue. A free-kick from around 30 yards hit the wall and deflected kindly to Luke Supyk to finish from close in.
Lewis Hall and Newcastle United had a touch of luck themselves with the equaliser on 79 minutes. A great through ball from Ramsey released Hall and Ben Williams turned the cross into his own net.
In between the two goals, Hall should maybe have had a penalty from what looked a foul, whilst Neave saw another effort well saved by the keeper.
As I indicated earlier, in an ideal world these early friendlies would be far better played behind closed doors (as the 3-0 win over Darlington was last weekend), rather than charging fans £25 to watch something that will rarely satisfy them.
The main things I would pick out from this are…
Lewis Hall was clearly the best player on the pitch, which is something that can often be said.
Sean Steur clearly has a high level of ability and the 18 year old knocked the ball around impressively.
Credit: Newcastle United FC
Sean Neave looked lively and this season I think he will get regular first team minutes off the bench, unless going out on loan.
Fabian Schar put in a good hour and great to see him back and looking fit.
That is about it.
Twenty players used, a mixture of Under 21s and first team squad players, with a few first team contenders amongst them.
The three goal win over Darlington didn’t excite me when I heard the scoreline last weekend and I am not thinking it is the end of the world having watched this tedious friendly play out.
I know that refusing to get angry about a 1-1 draw against non-league opposition in an early friendly when using squad players and kids isn’t what is expected in this modern online media world, but this is where I stand.
I laughed when I saw a local newspaper describe this performance/result as “Almost a dark day for Newcastle United “, talk about desperate for attention and playing to the mob. I have seen more “dark days” than I care to remember and if this had indeed ended 1-0 to Gateshead it wouldn’t rank inside my top 500.
Final scoreline:
Gateshead 1 Newcastle 1
Newcastle United team v Gateshead:
Pope (Jaouen 69), Shahar (Mason Miley 69), Schar (Pivas 60), Alex Murphy, Hall (Salia 82), Steur, Willock (Charlton 82), Ramsey (Munda 82), Barnes (Seung-soo 77), Jacob Murphy (Sanusi 77), Neave (Ferreira 69).
Unused subs:
Gillespie, Harris, Craggs, Finneran
Newcastle United matches:
Saturday 18 July 2026
Newcastle United 3 Darlington 0 (Willock, Osula, Neave with the goals)
Saturday 25 July 2026
Gateshead 1 Newcastle United 1 (An own goal giving United the draw)
Wednesday 29 July 2026
Bristol City v Newcastle United friendly 7.30pm
Saturday 8 August 2026
Valencia v Newcastle friendly 9pm local time (8pm UK time)
Wednesday 12 August 2026
Newcastle v Everton pre-season friendly with 5.15pm kick-off at Murrayfield.
Saturday 15 August 2026
Newcastle United v Bayer Leverkusen friendly at St James’ Park, 3pm.
Sunday 16 August 2026
Newcastle United v Strasbourg friendly at St James’ Park, 4pm.
Sunday 23 August 2026
Newcastle v Liverpool 4.30pm – United’s first Premier League match of the season
Wednesday 26 August 2026
Carabao Cup second round match, opposition and time TBC (Draw will be made in second week of August after first round matches have been played)
Saturday 29 August 2026
Spurs v Newcastle (5.30pm) Sky Sports
Tuesday 1 September 2026
Premier League transfer window closes at 11pm.
Saturday 5 September 2026
Newcastle v Bournemouth 12.30pm TNT Sports
Monday 14 September 2026
Leeds v Newcastle (8pm) Sky Sports
(Please note, should either club reach the Carabao Cup third round and be scheduled to play against a club participating in this season’s UEFA Champions League, the match will revert to Saturday 12 September and take place at 12:30pm)
Saturday 19 September 2026
Newcastle v Hull (3pm) No live TV