HAPPY 125th BIRTHDAY NUFC
Join the celebrations of Newcastle United’s birth
IT is the very heartbeat of a great city. St James’ Park has united Newcastle for 125 years of passion, pleasure, and occasional pain all in the name of sport’s greatest team game.
The cathedral on the hill has become a pilgrimage for Geordies who adore Newcastle United as their own and so it is.
From cradle to grave it’s owned by those who care, regardless of whose name may be on the mortgage forms.
St James’ Park dominates the city’s skyline and, with its station right in the centre of the city, it represents all that pulls us together as one.
When it was developed into the wonderful modern stadium it is now during the Entertainers reign of Sir John Hall, the considerable task was to achieve it while it was still a living stadium in a city centre.
It couldn’t be closed down as with other projects and Hall didn’t want a run-of-themill design but to make a statement by creating
a major landmark in the city and a tourist attraction. The considerable work in the early 90s did, I believe, achieve that.
Russell Jones, managing director of Hall’s company Cameron Hall Developments and a football club director, was put in charge of masterminding the rebuilding programme.
It cost £25m, a huge amount in those days when a completely new ground could be built for less.
“It was like putting on a West End show every other week but still working on the stage at the time,” Jones told me. “The clock was always our enemy.”
I remember reporting from SJP when it resembled a giant slate-grey aircraft hanger with the Press box a crow’s nest perched high above the main stand with the fire escape stairs leading on to a wooden roof!
Further down the years I stood at the Leazes End, crushed shoulder to shoulder when you could move seven foot one way or the
other without your feet touching the ground as the crowd swayed.
If really young, you were passed over the heads of the fans down to the front to sit on the track and have a hero like Wor Jackie fall into your lap as his blistering speed bore him down on goal.
Throughout, SJP retained a magical atmosphere created by passionate people. Football was king so United were kings.
Even women folk, who were not as passionate as their men, knew what was going on and took pride in what was achieved.
The FA Cup three time in five years in the 50s, a European trophy no less in 1969.
Earlier United dominated the Edwardian era, lifting the title and the FA Cup with regularity and were crowned England’s best side back in the roaring 20s, when explosive Scot called Hughie Gallacher began the No 9 legend as leading scorer and club captain.
Football was a sport of the working classes and an area dominated by the pits and ship building was a ready-made breeding ground. That some of our own actually graduated onto the pitch and superstardom was perfect... Wor Jackie, Gazza, Alan Shearer, Peter Beardsley. All living the dream. Our dream. Is the football club the dominant force in the city? How can it not be when 52,000 will turn up for a second-tier match against Burton Albion? When regularly Newcastle will have one of the largest crowds in the entire country despite going almost half a century without winning a single major trophy? It is our way of life. Our heritage. Geordie blood is black and white, not red. Here’s to the next 125 years – though none of us will celebrate that birthday!