Falcons bring back good old days with sell-out for Tigers
NEWCASTLE are on course to achieve their first 10,000 sell-out crowd since Jonny-mania took hold on Tyneside, further justifying the club’s plans to expand Kingston Park, their home since 1990.
“With the way the team is playing and the fact we’re getting better at promoting what is going on, it is good to see people coming back,” said Falcons CEO Mick Hogan.
“It is looking as if the Leicester game at the end of the month could go close to being our first sell-out in over 10 years which would be fantastic. I have never known demand like it, particularly for a Sunday game. Even at the height of Jonny-mania, post World Cup, we did well to sell out a Sunday game.”
Proposals include the extension to the north stand, the only uncovered side of the ground, to provide an additional 1,530 covered seats and a hospitality suite, a move which will bring the total capacity of the stadium to 11,730. Player facilities will be enhanced, too, with improved training, changing and rehabilitation accommodation, while work will be undertaken on the car park and outlying community pitches.
Newcastle hope to hear a decision by the end of this year. “If we can continue to develop the ground over the next four to five years and have a capacity of 1415,000, that we sell out a couple of times a year, and we are averaging 10-11,000, we then have a great business. We’ll be able to spend up to the top of the salary cap and challenge even more than we are now,” Hogan added.
Hogan believes that Mark Wilson’s selection for England this summer, in addition to the way the club is developing off the field, will finally put an end to the player drain that has hurt the Falcons in the past.
Besides Marcus Watson, who left for Wasps, the Falcons kept hold of the players they wanted to keep from last season as well as adding some real quality in the form of Maxime Mermoz, Toby Flood and DTH van der Merwe.
“This my third spell at Newcastle and the squad is certainly the best that I’ve personally seen here,” Hogan stated.
“With Mark Wilson getting selected for England a lot of our local guys are now saying to themselves that they don’t have to move to a) be considered by England and b) be a part of a successful club.
“Also, if you’re a player at Newcastle now they can see from the plans, which include a state-of-the-art high-performance rugby department, that we’re not only improving the squad but also the environment that they come to work in.”