It is Newcastle v Aston Villa coming up very soon.
Launching us back into the madness that we all love.
Having been only able to watch from afar as Eddie Howe and the boys took on Premier League opposition in America, Saturday 12 August can’t come around quick enough.
We have season tickets so sorted for 11 days time, however, for many of our fellow NUFC fans, not quite such a relaxed situation.
I have noted the various debates, discussions, arguments about the delay in the club selling the match by match Newcastle v Aston Villa tickets, one thing for sure though.
It is absolutely mental that the club have said absolutely nothing.
If this was Mike Ashley everybody would be going mental!
I simply can’t understand why the NUFC hierarchy haven’t even put something out along the lines of ‘Very sorry for the Newcastle v Aston Villa tickets delay, we are working on it as quickly as possible, it is taking longer than we thought to install new ticketing system / upgrade computer system / train pigeons to deliver messages to fans… whatever.’
Anyway, whilst this is totally beyond my comprehension, why such savvy NUFC owners are treating fans like this, it did at the same time lead me to…
With the current situation, I couldn’t help but get nostalgic and wonder, pay at the gate for Newcastle v Aston Villa?
As in, just imagine the scenes if at whatever point the club eventually announced that due to whatever issues they are having, that just for this Newcastle v Aston Villa game they’ve been forced to have match by match supporters paying at the gate. That the new ballot system for members wouldn’t be ready until the Liverpool game.
For older fans, the idea of paying on the gate will send so many down a nostalgia rabbit hole.
For younger supporters, to comprehend a time when if you were a Newcastle fan you just turned up for any home or away match (give or take a cup final or semi) and handed cash over to some 100 year old gadgie on the turnstile, well, it would just blow their young minds.
It now sounds like something that belongs in Beamish but we are only talking early 1990s!
So anyway, paying on the gate for this Newcastle v Aston Villa match, imagine the scenes???
Everything now is about being organised, online savvy, having money and knowledge, in order to get tickets for any Newcastle match.
Back in the day, whether it was for pay on the gate or odd match that was made all ticket, it was simply about who was prepared to queue (physically, in person, not staring at a screen with a little figure walking very very slowly across it!) the longest, who would get there the earliest and wait it out.
Imagine if for Saturday 12 August and the 5.30pm kick-off, the club announced that say 10,000 match by match tickets would be sold on the day of the game, to those queuing at certain turnstiles.
If that was announced today, when would fans start queuing?
Well, I think that some crazy characters would be straight over to St James’ Park with their sleeping bags!
Apologies for anybody who finds the above scenario a bit daft but there you go.
What I think nobody should find a bit daft, are concerns about the fans of the future. Unless NUFC end up with a far bigger capacity St James’ Park, just how are young fans going to get into supporting Newcastle United properly, as in, going to games.
As I said above, back in my youth, I could go to pretty much every single Newcastle game without any planning, just so long as physically I could get to SJP or wherever it was we were playing.
Kids can’t do that now, indeed nobody can. For younger fans, unless they have family to sort their tickets, how will they ever replicate what so many of us did.
I know it is leaping ahead a little but if we ever did get a much bigger SJP capacity, I would be massively in favour of having a turnstile each match with say 1,000 places kept for this purpose, whereby kids (14-18 year olds?) could turn up and queue each match and pay cash to see Newcastle United play. Failing that, at the very least a free membership scheme for kids for these 1,000 places, where they could go into a ballot each match.
Anyway, good luck to everybody when it comes to getting inside St James’ Park and most importantly of all, hopefully we all get to see NUFC smash Villa on the opening day.
Newcastle United matches for August and September 2023 in the Premier League:
Saturday 12 August 2023 – Newcastle v Aston Villa (5.30pm) Sky Sports
Saturday 19 August 2023 – Man City v Newcastle (8pm) TNT
Sunday 27 August 2023 – Newcastle v Liverpool (4.30pm) Sky Sports
Saturday 2 September 2023 – Brighton v Newcastle (5.30pm) Sky Sports
Sunday 17 September 2023 – Newcastle v Brentford (4.30pm) Sky Sports (*Could still be moved after Champions League draw on 31 August 2023)
Sunday 24 September 2023 – Sheff Utd v Newcastle (4.30pm) Sky Sports
Saturday 30 September 2023 – Newcastle v Burnley
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