Sam Dalling was at the Etihad for TF to witness a defeat as predictable as it was disappointing. What he saw was a glimpse into our possible football future. He didn’t enjoy it.
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Doubts as to what awaits? They dissipate swiftly as the tram rolls into view. Destination “Etihad Campus”. Here’s what you might win should you choose to accept it.
Who doesn’t, after all, want to spend their Saturdays – or Monday / Friday nights – marching monotonously to some former wasteland, miles from the city, light years from any sense of belonging?
What beats a pre-match slalom betwixt snaking queues of “users” desperately awaiting their fix of artisan coffee or sourdough pizza? Gorgonzola? Nah, give me Calvin Zola, please.
Take a second. Maybe take five. Stare at your own reflection. Pause. Ponder long. Ponder hard. What is it you want from a football club? Like, really, what does your ticker aspire to?
Not just what does the fuzzy, somewhat naive, glory-chasing version of yourself crave. What do you – the innocent child who fell daftly in love with an idea, a smell, the notion of something wonderfully hopeless – chase?
If, truly, being the “next Manchester City” is your dream, best of British, doff of the half and half beanie to you.
For me, Clive? No, ta. I genuinely pity the real City supporters, the 30,000 odd who packed Maine Road in the English third tier. They must despair.
Their reality now? Condemned to a lifetime spent surrounded by plastic bag clutching, artificial support.
Like, do any of them really have the wedge to follow up on the pre-half time adverts for waterfront apartment in the UAE? My Gutierrez senses tell me that those that do, probably aren’t being swayed into a purchase by some perimeter LEDs at an FA Cup quarter final.
Look, Manchester City are better at football than Newcastle United. That information is neither new nor surprising.
Those looking for micro-managed, financially illicit (allegedly), on field action, gather now. Max out the credit cards, gorge on your cheeseboards, and bag yourself a lovely gander at Jack Grealish’s calves. Tunnel club? Fucking do one.
Because this is what you get if you expand, if your focus becomes pulling in the corporate coin. Of course, Ange is a defender of the tourist ticket holder – that is, after all, what Spurs is built on. The one-off fan, the type who will rock up three hours early and depart with a selfie or eight, plus a pouch brimming with overpriced merch.
Look, if this feels like a rant, that’s because it is precisely that. Why do I go to football? To meet my pal at the Piccadilly Tap, to savour more whisky than is good for me, and to scream aimlessly at Jacob Murphy or Dan Burn.
And to feel a sense of belonging, a tingle of anger, of joy, of despair, of whatever the fuck it is I feel. For it to be real. For that moment to matter more, and yet matter less. To be fully invested, and to dare not dream of drifting away even when two behind. Because there is always hope, right?
Never do I want being a game from Wembley to be just to be another notch, a decision about whether to bother. Why go to a last eight tie when you can go to a final? What’s the point?
Yes, what is the point? Well, the point is this: don’t lose your soul. A trophy room brimming with silver is no use if no one actually gives a fuck any more.
So give me a knockout via a pair of deflected strikes, give me being an Isak chance away from a tangible sliver of hope, if it remains Newcastle as we know it.
I never want to turn up and simply expect, to have a sense of entitlement, to view football as some sort of product.
Be careful what you wish for, folks. There endeth the lesson.
Sam Dalling
Does the stadium still have that fuck off huge picture of Denis Tuart performing his overhead kick in the 1076 League Cup Final hanging from it and one of the first things you see when you ascend the steps from the tram stop?
The article raises the idea that Newcastle fans might want our club to be the next Manchester City. We don’t. We just want to compete and be successful, to win some silverware. Lots of successful clubs have great fans and atmosphere (Dortmund for one, Barcelona another). It’s not a choice between romanticised failure and real fans, and success and plastic fans: it’s not a simple either or.
Given the choice the bloke who wrote the article above seems to prefer romanticised failure as do a lot of fans . Failure is easy anyone can do it . I prefer winning and if that means following Man City down the road theyve travelled then so be it . The article is a bad tempered childish rant against a successful club . Give me ambition and trophies every time . Alright our kid ? : )
Successful financial dopers. The romance!
Loser
Great article, I’m so pleased you wrote this and really interesting lively comments.
It’s not too late as that was Man City and not us, we’re still early on in our ground/club transformation.
I was there yesterday and our owners will have been as well, they must have had much to think about on the way home, they will not want the same sterile atmosphere at Newcastle.
It must be possible to keep the hard core vocal support in crucial parts of the ground that can be accessed closer to kick off and have other sections for “tourist” fans who can arrive early clutching their plastic bags in silent awe and take their selfies.
Please please please either stay at SJP or very very close.
I am what may be called a legacy fan- I remember the atmosphere being at times pin drop quiet, from Gullit through Robson through Souness through Roeder. (Coupla greats there by the way). Then there were about fifteen years I have stricken from me memory so I can’t comment on them! Atmosphere was up and down, definitely down in the later years.
The last two years have been the best I’ve known. I suppose a lot depends on where you are in the ground. I worry the youngsters are getting a bit histrionic/dissatisfied with what I still consider unexpected success- that probably says more about the internet age than what goes on on the pitch.
And I’m in total agreement with staying at SJP- I don’t really know what the point is in creating a new stadium when we’ve got one comparable with some of the largest in football anyway (which could still potentially be added to if we can still be ar*sed when the takeover novelty wears off and the students and tourists lose interest. Liverpool’s is sixty. Everton have contravened the laws by overspending on things not least the new stadium. That’s a different debate, but I think it would be utter madness to destroy a swathe of the city’s parkland for a billion quid, when we already have a giant stadium! This issue frustrates me:)
And (sorry to go on), people think the architectural and logistical issues around extending the Gallowgate are insurmountable…. Well, (heavy sarcasm alert), let’s just raze the entire structure to the ground then!, build and cultivate an enormous nature reserve and a brand new shiny stadium halfway up the road where there’s no room anyway. Coupla billion should do it, (sarcasm over) and everyone would regret it. Surely putting a few thousand on the Gallowgate makes more logistical sense than that. We are not a daft American franchise, as I think Darren Eales has probably already worked out.
So a massive chunk of the fan base has spent more than 4 years actively campaigning for the increased commericialisation of our football club – a fan led campaign for state ownership is surely a low point reached by any football supporters around the world – and now suddenly we don’t like the possible consequences?
I’ve seen a banner celebrating a financial transaction covering the entire gallowgate end to commemorate the anniversary of a takeover, fans demanding awful sponsors rather than opposing them as we used to, and there seems to be a split in the fanbase about whether SJP should be renamed after an autocratic regime’s oil company.
Very surprising to see these warnings about ‘not selling your soul’, as I was under the impression that most of our fans were enthusiastic about tarnishing nearly everything if it means more money coming into the club. The most revolting away kit and 3rd kits in world football history seem to have been immensely popular amongst supporters.
If you don’t like the almost inevitable consequences of your actions then maybe its time to start behaving differently?
This with bells on.
Anyone with half a brain could see what was coming when we were bought?
‘Wa Rich’
We were already rich. Just not with cash.
Agree with the above. We weren’t happy with Ashley, because he didn’t spend money and had no ambition beyond survival so he could continue advertising his tat around the ground. Then we get new owners, from a morally dubious petro-state, and we’re all delirious, drinking cans outside the ground. After 2 years it dawns on some that this bright new dawn might not be all it’s cracked up to be, and the new ownership might actually want to grow the club, as many on TF have called for. Then we realize this means more tourists, possibly a new ground and all the crap that comes with modern day ‘elite’ sport. What exactly do we want? I assume we’re now looking for an owner who will pump money in, but keep everything the same as it was before? Dream on. We sold out years ago.
Completely agree with all of that. The ownership is a stain on the club.
Old fart alert. All that techno shite music before kick-off? No thanks. And that halftime arsehole laughing his nut off at reverse playbacks of glory hunters stuffing their faces? Who the hell thought that was a good idea?
Thought provoking Sam, the solution for me is a new stadium with a Dortmund style 20 thousand plus safe standing area
priced so anyone can afford.
Seems a somewhat bizarre perspective to take when the only way you will get what you want is to invent a time machine ? Not happy with Ashley, an owner who refused to invest? Not happy with the Ruben’s and PIF, owners who want to invest but are not allowed ? All successful clubs have to have the corporate side you so despise to succeed, so what exactly is your solution ? Or would you prefer to continue as a makeweight fulfilling the role of the plucky participant who gives the illusion of credibility of competition to the perennial winners ?
I’d 100% rather we won nothing whatsoever ahead of playing in front of a soulless crowd in a stadium full of tourists and corporates in the middle of nowhere, absolutely. I don’t actually go to the match based on how successful we are and haven’t in over 40 years. And obviously most NUFC fans are in the same boat, given we’ve won nothing in forever.
Admirable stance but you may need to find another club because it is going to happen regardless of your wishes and in over 40 years following them I have known plenty of rubbish atmospheres along with the spellbindingly brilliant ones so it’s hardly anything new brought about by tourists. Personally, I now watch hoping to see a kick ass team playing in black and white, and the atmosphere is secondary even if I did spend a large portion of my youth and middle age singing myself hoarse.
I don’t support NUFC for trophies though. Maybe that’s wrong, I don’t know.
110% agreed
And this is exactly why I disagree so much with the idea of a new 90k seater all-purpose super-stadium.
We will inevitably end up with a library – thousands of tourists and empty seats, being outsung by the away fans while their team is being smashed on the pitch.
Absolutely spot on, Sam. Of course this is exactly where we’re headed with our ownership , we all know it in our hearts and it is spelled out large by their barely disguised contempt for the NUFC ‘legacy fan’. The laughable irony is that we’ll end up with all of the downside of some soulless megadome with none of the success.
Man City fans will be killing themselves laughing reading this
Up there with the best reports ever written, Sam
Its not a report its a childish rant designed to deflect criticism away from the performance / result and Eddie Howe