If this is what regular Newcastle United away fans have to go through…
It’s a good while since I was last amongst the Newcastle United away fans and it’s a good while since I last navigated England’s highest motorway (more of that later), which is what we did on Wednesday.
Well, when I say this, I mean since the trip to the Etihad in August.
However, before that, and excluding the League Cup Final in February, my last competitive away match was 2002, although when I say that, it was at a rain soaked Barcelona and the match was postponed until the following day. When Shola Ameobi grabbed a consolation goal in the Camp Nou, I was back in the toon, instructed by the missus to attend a Madness concert at the Arena, rather than watching the lads on the telly. The only upside to such a traumatic experience had been watching Man City beat the Mackems from a bar just off Las Ramblas on Sky’s Monday Night Football.
Racking my brains, I reckon the last competitive away match I attended was in January 1995 at Ewood Park, when a Marc Hottiger rocket helped us to a 2-1 win in the FA Cup.
Due to the many away trips I went on in the 80s and 90s counting for nought, my only loyalty point was earned from attending a pre-season fixture at Valley Parade a few years ago. Given such a paltry accumulation, we were pleasantly surprised when we were invited to apply for Man City tickets for the match at the Etihad in August through the ballot scheme. The lad has always been on at me to obtain away tickets but there’s not been much chance of that and whilst previous comments on The Mag have suggested away tickets were plentiful and easy to come by when Rafa Benitez was organising team affairs, other priorities such as the lad playing football at weekends, my work and his schooling, meant we didn’t look too much into whether the likes of West Ham on a Tuesday evening was a viable prospect.
So, we entered the ballot and to our surprise won a pair of tickets. The email confirmation from Amanda Staveley reached us on the Wednesday before the Saturday and so amidst the disbelief and the euphoria, cue panic. How the hell would we get there? Not having much in the way of live connections from yesteryear, I quickly concluded that we had to drive, or more to the point, I would have to drive, which meant sobriety and on a glorious afternoon that saw the mercury climb to the mid-twenties Fahrenheit, a couple of pints wouldn’t have gone amiss.
We set off early, reached Eastlands a good few hours before kick-off, parked in the gigantic Asda opposite the Etihad and hopped on Tram to sample the delights of Manchester city centre. After grabbing a bite to eat, we headed off in the direction of the ground, which from the Piccadilly area takes about half an hour on foot.
The game itself was a bit of a damp squib. We didn’t play well but at least restricted the treble winners to a couple of chances and went down to a very good strike from the World Cup winner, Julian Alvarez. The atmosphere in the away end was something else and the lad thought it was great. We weren’t in the safe standing section, but we nevertheless stood for the full 90 minutes and roared on the lads, with the rest of the 3,000 or so toon fans in attendance.
Quite a bit was said on The Mag in the aftermath of the Man City[1] game, concerning how away tickets are distributed and changes introduced by the club. I’ll not re-run those arguments, but it was evident from looking around the away end that evening that there were a lot of folk riding on the coat tails of those who routinely amass loyalty points just to sell their tickets on. The fact that we had obtained tickets probably had a lot to do with the fact that the Man City match was scheduled for 8pm on a Saturday evening at the height of the summer holiday season, but we had doubled our loyalty points as a consequence and looked forward to Sheffield United, although as I expected, the sold out signs appeared long before anyone with two loyalty points was invited to come forward.
We then beat Man City in the League Cup and drew Man Utd at Old Trafford.
With the prospect of 7,300 tickets, we felt confident and when the sale reached season ticket holders with less than five loyalty points, we pounced. This time, the red side of Manchester sent us paper tickets, presumably meaning that tickets would be easier to pass on than they had been for the Man City game, those being in electronic format and all.
Wednesday evening at Old Trafford was fantastic.
I must admit to having some concerns leading up to kick off. Man Utd[2] had just lost 3-0 at home to Man City in the derby. I’m old school, so still haven’t quite shaken off the belief that if ever a team needs a pick-me-up and their next opponent is Newcastle United, then the three points or progression to the next round of the cup should be a formality. The side Eddie picked didn’t fill me with too much confidence either. Whilst I was really looking forward to seeing Livramento, Hall and Willock, I wasn’t convinced by Emile Krafth and Matt Ritchie being named in the starting eleven. In fact, the mobile app that I rely on for lives scores, wasn’t even registering Krafth in the back four, so it seemed like Eddie was putting out only ten men in a bizarre 3-3-3 formation.
Well, how wrong was I and even if we had played for the duration with fewer men, such was Man Utd’s lack of application, I’m sure we would have still won.
The atmosphere emanating from the away end was raucous as kick off approached. Renditions of the song that Man City had so gleefully sang last Sunday, “Old Trafford is falling down, Ten Hag is somewhat of a clown” causing much mirth amongst the travelling hordes. Matt Targett went of injured within the first five minutes, but a familiar face replaced him and our smiling Paraguayan assassin put us in front with a cool finish on 28 minutes, after a marauding run from Tino Livramento who had dispossessed the Argentine Garnacho before carrying the ball the length of the pitch. “Na, Na, Na, Na, Miggy Almiron” bellowed the away end before “Tino, Tino” was heard echoing around the ground.
Six minutes later, the ball dropped invitingly to Lewis Hall whose half volley beat Onana and with the ball nestling in the back of the Stretford End net and young Lewis sliding for a good half mile on his knees, the away end went crazy. Although I felt chants of “You’ve seen United, now get yourselves home” was a tad premature, I thoroughly enjoyed singing it all the same.
Half time came and went and Man Utd looked a little better for the opening fifteen minutes of the second half. That said, they didn’t really cause us any problems and Joe Willock wrapped it up on the hour with a sublime finish.
At this point, the away end was directing chants of “You’re getting sacked in the morning” at the hapless Ten Hag and as the so-called Theatre of Dreams rapidly emptied, one of our best retorts of the evening, “They’re here, they’re there, they’re every bloody where, empty seats, empty seats” was heard bellowing around the place.
Oh what a night as the Four Seasons used to sing, although we didn’t give it a whirl, that being the preserve of those dreadful Mancs reminiscing about the 1999 Champions Cup Final.
As our thoughts must now turn to Arsenal[3] on Saturday, I’ll get back to the M62.
The journey down was a nightmare. We left at around 2:30pm but didn’t park up until nearer 7:30pm. Basically, the motorway between Leeds and Manchester represented a traffic jam for the entire 45 miles and I calculated we averaged just over 20mph to travel between the two cities. If that wasn’t bad enough, on the journey home, Highways England had decided in their wisdom that it would be a good idea to limit the motorway to a single lane in two different places where Greater Manchester meets West Yorkshire and at Junction 26, they’d decided to shut the motorway altogether.
With my Sat Nav working overtime, we were taken through Bradford and past that tinpot airport they have before getting onto the A1 not far from Harrogate. Even the A1 approaching the Angel of the North was closed, so when we were less than five minutes from home, it actually took another fifteen. To sum it up, it took 12 hours door to door, but only three of them were spent out of the car.
Maybe I need to get out a bit more, but if that’s what our regular Newcastle United away fans have to put up with, then hats off to them.
I can’t wait to do it again though!
HTL