Latics sell out for Newcastle

Every club has glory hunters who go missing in hard times but the extra 10000 4 yrs ago were only 1200 in total 20 yr ago and that’s what makes us unique. I fookin hate folk slagging us off for attendances without looking at the bigger picture. We have the 2 clubs who have more glory hunters worldwide pissin in our pond and it will always be hard for us to attract floating fans when our neighbours are so successful. We now compete with clubs like Nob End and Blackburn crowd wise where once we could only dream about it. We are not the worst supported team home or away though some parts of the media would love it to be true.

Nuneaton – you seem to be getting very defensive over something. The facts are that a handful of times 35 years ago, Newcastle half-filled their ground. And as much as it hurts me to say it(!), that doesn’t make their fans fickle!

Considering they haven’t won anything of note during my lifetime, have high ticket prices, and have had a succession of owners who treat them with utter contempt, the fact they still get close to 50,000 every home game is remarkable.

Anyway, go and beat the smelly fuckers on Saturday and give yourselves a chance of hosting a bunch of proper fans from that area next season![/quote]

Of course I’m defensive when people miss or deliberately ignore the blindingly obvious. Newcastle is in a part of the country where football loving fans are in ample supply with very few clubs to support. Go north of the City and the next teams you come across are Hibs and Hearts ffs. Towns north of Newcastle like Alnwick, Ashington Cramlington etc are a very long way from other clubs so if you want to watch football its the Toon or nowt. The worlds game is football and folk want to be involved by being at the game. This means that when they got relegated last season those who spat the dummy and didn’t want to go again were easily replenished coz its supply and demand is it not. They are lucky enough to be in such a vast catchment area unlike us . So yes ill defend our attendances to the hilt coz of nothing more than geography.

They have but from the pubs. All gone back to boyhood clubs.[/quote]
Agree 100%

A lot of those who turned up for the first season in the PL were United, Liverpool, and Everton fans, and many of them bought tickets for them and their kids.

I know dozens of ’em.

They’re now back to once-a-season trips to Anfield and watching the rest of the games on Arabic TV.[/quote]

Sadly funny but true lol.

Nuneaton – you seem to be getting very defensive over something. The facts are that a handful of times 35 years ago, Newcastle half-filled their ground. And as much as it hurts me to say it(!), that doesn’t make their fans fickle!

Considering they haven’t won anything of note during my lifetime, have high ticket prices, and have had a succession of owners who treat them with utter contempt, the fact they still get close to 50,000 every home game is remarkable.

Anyway, go and beat the smelly fuckers on Saturday and give yourselves a chance of hosting a bunch of proper fans from that area next season![/quote]

Of course I’m defensive when people miss or deliberately ignore the blindingly obvious. Newcastle is in a part of the country where football loving fans are in ample supply with very few clubs to support. Go north of the City and the next teams you come across are Hibs and Hearts ffs. Towns north of Newcastle like Alnwick, Ashington Cramlington etc are a very long way from other clubs so if you want to watch football its the Toon or nowt. The worlds game is football and folk want to be involved by being at the game. This means that when they got relegated last season those who spat the dummy and didn’t want to go again were easily replenished coz its supply and demand is it not. They are lucky enough to be in such a vast catchment area unlike us . So yes ill defend our attendances to the hilt coz of nothing more than geography.[/quote]

Newcastle’s attendances are often brought up by other fans, but always as a negative, so I’ll try and briefly address the usual comlpaints;

“There was a period when attendances were poor!”. Yes, of course there was, just has there has been for every club. But the broader picture of those few seasons with lower attendances shows a fanbase divorced from it’s club, betrayed by it’s owners, it shows occurred in a period of English football where attendances were down all over, a result from hooliganism and poverty.

“Newcastle is a one club city, of course they have big attendances.” There’s only a subset of that population who actually attend matches, otherwise every home game would be sold out and waiting lists would be huge. Just like despite all your local clubs eating into your catchment area, there is a population who refer to themselves as Wigan Athletic fans and attend games. I don’t think that if Gateshead get League status and shoot up the divisions Newcastle United would suddenly see <20k attendances regularly.

You cite town like Alnwick, Ashington and Cramlington being far from any other clubs and while that's true, they're not exactly far from Newcastle. Crammy and Ashington are only about a 10 minute train ride. Beyond them to the north and you're in the middle of nowhere. Northumberland is the least densely populated county in England (Wigan's Metropolitan area has a larger population.

We are a 1 club city, but go south of Newcastle and we're sharing a catchment area with Sunderland, another very well supported club. Don't forget that when you get into rural communities there's less affiliation to the local "big club". You're as likely to see kids from Berwick wearing Celtic or Ranger's tops as you are Newcastle.

There's plenty to dig Newcastle fans for, but our attendances are demonstrably impressive and have been over the century or so we've existed. Even for those 2 seasons in the early 80s where our club was on it's arse we pulled in c17k, which while well short of our capacity at that time is still impressive for a side struggling the 2nd tier side at that time.

Nuneaton – you seem to be getting very defensive over something. The facts are that a handful of times 35 years ago, Newcastle half-filled their ground. And as much as it hurts me to say it(!), that doesn’t make their fans fickle!

Considering they haven’t won anything of note during my lifetime, have high ticket prices, and have had a succession of owners who treat them with utter contempt, the fact they still get close to 50,000 every home game is remarkable.

Anyway, go and beat the smelly fuckers on Saturday and give yourselves a chance of hosting a bunch of proper fans from that area next season![/quote]

Of course I’m defensive when people miss or deliberately ignore the blindingly obvious. Newcastle is in a part of the country where football loving fans are in ample supply with very few clubs to support. Go north of the City and the next teams you come across are Hibs and Hearts ffs. Towns north of Newcastle like Alnwick, Ashington Cramlington etc are a very long way from other clubs so if you want to watch football its the Toon or nowt. The worlds game is football and folk want to be involved by being at the game. This means that when they got relegated last season those who spat the dummy and didn’t want to go again were easily replenished coz its supply and demand is it not. They are lucky enough to be in such a vast catchment area unlike us . So yes ill defend our attendances to the hilt coz of nothing more than geography.[/quote]

Newcastle’s attendances are often brought up by other fans, but always as a negative, so I’ll try and briefly address the usual comlpaints;

“There was a period when attendances were poor!”. Yes, of course there was, just has there has been for every club. But the broader picture of those few seasons with lower attendances shows a fanbase divorced from it’s club, betrayed by it’s owners, it shows occurred in a period of English football where attendances were down all over, a result from hooliganism and poverty.

“Newcastle is a one club city, of course they have big attendances.” There’s only a subset of that population who actually attend matches, otherwise every home game would be sold out and waiting lists would be huge. Just like despite all your local clubs eating into your catchment area, there is a population who refer to themselves as Wigan Athletic fans and attend games. I don’t think that if Gateshead get League status and shoot up the divisions Newcastle United would suddenly see <20k attendances regularly.

You cite town like Alnwick, Ashington and Cramlington being far from any other clubs and while that's true, they're not exactly far from Newcastle. Crammy and Ashington are only about a 10 minute train ride. Beyond them to the north and you're in the middle of nowhere. Northumberland is the least densely populated county in England (Wigan's Metropolitan area has a larger population.

We are a 1 club city, but go south of Newcastle and we're sharing a catchment area with Sunderland, another very well supported club. Don't forget that when you get into rural communities there's less affiliation to the local "big club". You're as likely to see kids from Berwick wearing Celtic or Ranger's tops as you are Newcastle.

There's plenty to dig Newcastle fans for, but our attendances are demonstrably impressive and have been over the century or so we've existed. Even for those 2 seasons in the early 80s where our club was on it's arse we pulled in c17k, which while well short of our capacity at that time is still impressive for a side struggling the 2nd tier side at that time.[/quote]

Exactly my point marrer we will never take fans off the big 4 likewise Gateshead wouldn't effect the Toon. When people slag us off for small attendances they never look at the geography of it and look into the history. Its easy tired journalism to just say "shit crowds no fans" etc. Where are we supposed to build a fanbase from. The toon are lucky in that respect that's all I'm saying.

Only got 20,000 ave in our first Prem season where we had a few 25,000 sell outs …. partly due to novelty, partly due to born and bred Wiganers going into the home ends with their Utd/Liverpool/Everton affiliation under wraps …..and of course a very healthy away following which maybe averaged 3,000 that season.

Thereafter the Prem averages were more like 17/18K……I reckon we only really had 14-16,000 regulars during that time…..We’ve lost just over a third since then……not 10,000