Build a new stadium that we can all get in | OneFootball

A great article on Sunday by Dale Thompson (‘This is a total misunderstanding of just how big Newcastle is’), explaining perfectly just how many Newcastle United fans there really are.

Dale detailing the total misunderstanding by outsiders of just how big the Tyneside population is and the wider region, how NUFC are situated as the massive club of this region.

Plus of course, just how many Geordies (and their descendants) live far beyond Tyneside.

Seventy years is a long time to wait for a domestic trophy and as I read the article, in my mind I could hear Jason Cundy on talksport saying Newcastle United are not a big club. What have they won etc etc?

Well, we have won something now.

Maybe not comparable to what Chelsea achieved through their stolen Russian wealth…but give it time.

Dale touched on the Geordie diaspora of which I am one, those who are scattered around the UK and indeed far beyond these shores.

I moved to Nottingham aged eighteen and going to away games with the eye opener for me, being with the East Mids Mags.

I never knew the mining connection until then but it is all part of growing up learning and evolving.

Moving to London when the eighties ended, I found myself not surprisingly in the company of like-minded Geordies trying to find their way and going to away games with them.

At the same time meeting up with lads from my estate who had been forced by Thatcherite economic policy to get on their bikes and come down to London and work on the booming building sites while the North East was simply neglected.

Some good football-related stories of the nineties and noughties would unfold but it was largely due to the marching powder and other stimulants and not the quality of football.

So, reflecting on Dale’s articlem I now have two teenagers whose mam is born and bred South London of Nigerian heritage (I have shrewdly managed to guide them away from their Arsenal side of the family).

Both kids possess Newcastle shirts with their names and numbers on the back. They have been to games home and away.

Though living in London they are still definitely part of the Geordie Nation.

And just like thousands of others who do not live in Newcastle, are desperate to see the team play live.

Dale put forward, without directly mentioning it, the best reason for a stadium that can house and is fit for a Nation of Newcastle United fans.