West Ham are now out of the bottom three, having won 4-0 on Friday night at home to Wolves, with Tottenham now in a relegation spot.
I am a bit nonplussed about that fact, as well as the game I have just watched on TV.
What did come to mind was how we had watched the West Ham FA Cup game against Leeds on TV last weekend at the rubbish London stadium. When with West Ham down and out, the referee added on a mad eleven minutes to a backdrop of loads of fans having already departed the ground, leaving massive swathes of empty white seats.
The irony in all of this, is that I have been unable to get tickets in the Newcastle end against West Ham and the last two seasons have purchased seats amongst the Hammers in their end.
“Big deal” I hear you say.
I accept the away support point scheme and wish all those supporters good luck. I am envious but accept I am not a season ticket holder and therefore my chances of watching Newcastle are diminished somewhat, to state the obvious.
This week though, being a paid up Newcastle United member I received an email asking for my opinions on what value my son and myself felt we got out of our yearly memberships.
Asked to rate 0 to 10 on what a miserly discount on food at the stadium meant to us, also the pathetic discount at the club shop, as well as many other meaningless questions.
The vast majority of questions I gave a big fat zero to them.
The only reason we are members (the same as pretty much every other Newcastle United member) is the chance to get tickets for matches at St James’ Park.
Some cynics might even want to see it as racketeering.
Last season (2024/25) we got tickets to six matches through the ballot.
This season we have got tickets to two NUFC home games via the ballot.
I have a mate who has been a Liverpool member for many years and has a constant average of ticket success which does not vary but is just random on which games he gets.
It feels like genuine supporters like ourselves are being squeezed out and surely a plan for a bigger stadium and the opportunity for the likes of us to get tickets for games is not too much to ask for.
I can go online and buy extortionately priced tickets, either corporate ones direct from Newcastle United, or seats in normal areas but sold on third party sites. Which is a disgrace and something I refuse to do.
West Ham have twenty thousand tourist supporters.
When will the Newcastle United owners wake up to the fact they have a Leviathan sat on the Tyne that has the ability to knock out King Kong and Godzilla through the power of the people?