In about October 2001, I wrote into Newcastle United at St James’ Park and asked to be put on the waiting list for a season ticket. In July 2002, I received a letter saying that the club had some season tickets remaining for sale and would be allocated to people on the waiting list on a first-come, first-served basis.

I might not have been first, but the application was completed and returned back into the post the following day.

My first season as a Newcastle season ticket holder led to me missing games (apparently, something about “going on honeymoon”?) including missing some of Newcastle’s foray’s into the Champions League. I remember being slightly perturbed to discover that they kept losing games: having lost the first three games of the Champions League they looked dead and buried, but became the first (and possibly still the only?) team to qualify for the second phase after losing their first three games by beating Juventus and Dynamo Kiev at St James’ Park, and then, fantastically, winning in Rotterdam against Feyenoord, before finishing third in the league, ahead of Chelsea.

I kept up my season ticket for the following campaign: which was a bit of a stuttering season where we failed to qualify for the Champions League (beaten in the qualifier) but then had a good UEFA cup run, and stumbled to fifth in the league (look, it didn’t sound so good then, okay?).

Robson was shown the door early the next season, on 30th August 2004. At the time, I thought it was right for ihm to go (indeed I would have thought it would have been better to replace him during the close season, allowing a new manager more time to do his thang). Unfortunately, that new manager was Graeme Sourness (sorry, slip of the tongue, Souness) who seemed to have a few minor problems.

There was the dour, unpleasant football. There was the dour, unpleasant interviews. There was the rushing everyone back from injury and having them break down again twenty minutes later. There was the fact he pushed Bellamy out, saying he could have an argument in an empty room. Admittedly, that’s true — but it’s a bit rich coming from Souness, the only other person who could argue with the empty room…

Over time, Souness seemed to have less and less of a plan. His buys (whether by choice or forced on him by Shepherd may be open to debate) were questionable, with Boumsong and Luque joining for over £8 million each and each being about as much use as the proverbial chocolate fireguard. When Newcastle were trounced by Manchester City after a display where we didn’t seemingly even know how to pass the ball, or even who to, I called for his head.

Souness, for the love of God, go!

The following day, he was sacked, and replaced by Glenn Roeder. Three days later, I saw Alan Shearer score his 200th Newcastle goal. By this time, we were suffering from ‘children’, which pose a significant drain on your finances, and so I had decided that this would be my final season ticket for a while as the combined nursery fees for two children were not insignificant.

But I thought I’d go out with a bang, and got “posh seats” in the Sovereign Club area of the ground. Three years earlier, my first season ticket had cost somewhere in the region of £390; this was in the region of £800. And very nice seats they were too.

But having seen Shearer score his final goals for Newcastle, I decided it was time to put down my season ticket for a while, and just take in the occasional game.

Roeder had a full season in charge: he didn’t particularly impress, and was duly encouraged to jump (before he was pushed) but then I didn’t think he’d been particularly well backed by the chairman, and I then quoted a point I’d made in the Souness article, where I had said:

If the right man is not found and backed, then I suspect even fewer fans would be willing to forgive Shepherd next time, and ‘Shepherd’ will quickly replace Souness next to the word ‘Out’.Souness, for the love of God, go

This time, I added on the bottom:

I want Shepherd out, and I want him out now, before he does any more damage to my club. If you didn’t want Glenn Roeder, you should have appointed someone else. If you did want him, you should have backed himBye bye, Glenn

How prophetic those words were. Seemingly only five minutes later we appointed Sam Allardyce.

I was slightly optimistic at the time, hoping that Sam would add his hard, muscular edge to Newcastle’s traditional flair play:

That is to say, I’d like to see Newcastle able to marry the physical and skill aspects of the game together, in contrast to previous regimes which appear to have concentrated on one very much at the expense of the other.Big Sam Meets Laura Ashley

Unfortunately, as we all know, Big Sam decided to concentrate on defence. So much so that the team would sit on the edge of our penalty area for ninety minutes at a time, sometimes never mustering a single attack and he would wonder why we were losing games. Plus there was the fact that he didn’t seem to like people passing. Or, in the case of several players, people playing in their favoured positions.

There was the odd good game: I took BTP to see his first game of football the day after his 4th birthday, and we beat Spurs 3-1 (a monday night game, I’d managed to get tickets in the family enclosure). We both loved it, and I felt I was doing one of those “proper dad” things. But those good days became fewer and further between.

You’d think it would be taken as a hint when fans started singing “we’re shit, and we’re sick of it” (a chant which the chairman has hinted he was tempted to join in with). But still he hung in there.

And then, at 12:10 a.m. on January 9th, 2008, I said:

And up until Christmas, I’d been supportive of Allardyce. Sure, I’d objected to the style of play (hoof it up and hope something useful happens) — particularly when we’ve actually got players with skill capable of playing something called… oh hang on, I remember now… attractive football.[...]

And like I’ve said before, what Newcastle fans want is attractive, winning football. We’ll settle for dour winning football. We won’t complain too much if served up with high-quality losing football. [but what we are getting is] shit, losing football.

Should he go? My gut reaction says yes.

The Balding Sword of Damocles

Later that day, Allardyce left Newcastle ‘by mutual consent’, leaving me to ponder how my blog posts seemed to be personally responsible for whether or not the Newcastle hierachy chose to get rid of a particular manager.

Kevin Keegan was appointed. Oh, I remembered the Keegan days. I wasn’t a season ticket holder then: there was 15,000 on the waiting lists then (I became a season ticket holder when the ground was expanded by about those 15,000 seats). But it made me want to go back.

So I phoned up the box office, to enquire about Family Enclosure season tickets (as for the Spurs game, one adult and one child in the family enclosure was about the same price as one adult in the cheapest seats elsewhere). Unfortunately, I was told that there was a waiting list of about 10 years for these.

Hmm. So by the time we could get a family ticket, he’d be almost too old to go as a child anyway. Bugger. But, as he’s only 4, I didn’t feel anywhere other than the “family area” was really appropriate, and so I just left it.

Until I spotted this on the Newcastle website over the summer:

From the start of the 2008/09 season the family area will move to Milburn Level 7 which will enable us to accommodate almost three times as many families as beforeNewcastle United: 2008-09 Season Tickets

Hmm. Well, maybe it couldn’t hurt to phone up again, could it? With luck, the waiting list should be virtually zero, so I might get in next year or the year after…

But this time when I phoned (after taking the usual forty minutes to get through) I was told that there were actually still a few of these tickets left. When I enquired how much, and found out that it would be around £440 for both tickets, I jumped at the chance. (The cheapest single adult season ticket available anywhere else — in not so good a spot — was £429).

So I’m back, and this time I’m taking one of the little ‘uns.

Only I was just starting to get a little concerned as the football season starts… well, today, and my season ticket hadn’t arrived. I had tried ringing the box office a few times, but just got an engaged tone. But I tried again, this time phoning from the year 1913 (it will make more sense if you read tomorrow’s post), and got through straight away to a recorded message, which said something along the lines of:

We have experienced technical difficulties in the printing and distribution of this year’s season tickets and as a result there has been a delay in sending season tickets out to supporters. Supporters will begin to receive their season tickets from the middle of next week. If any supporter has not received their season ticket by Thursday of next week please contact the Box Office [...]
In order to allay any fears, we guarantee that if you have purchased a season ticket then you will gain access to St James’ Park on Saturday 23 August to see Newcastle United take on Bolton Wanderers in our first home game.Newcastle United: Season Ticket Delivery Update

Ah, well that’s all right then, I was beginning to get a little concerned…

However, in the hopes that the Newcastle hierachy do read this regularly and act on my suggestions, I’d just like to add a bonus extra bit at the end here: can we please sign another quality striker. And ideally a midfielder and a defender too.