Celtic valuable reminder – We made our own fun | OneFootball

It is Celtic in 16 days time.

Newcastle United fans heading up to Glasgow.

The first friendly of pre-season as United prepare for a massive 2025/26 campaign ahead.

As a welcome aside from the never ending ‘no signings yet’ debate, we have had a more positive distraction with this Celtic match.

The fact that now 10,000+ Newcastle United fans will be at the match.

Celtic struggling to fill the ground with their own fans, thus happy to sell as many tickets as possible to Newcastle United fans to make up for it.

This set me off…

It took me back to the late 1970s, into the 1980s.

Celtic a valuable reminder, we made our own fun back then.

The football was important back then, up to a point. However, we made our own fun regardless.

At St James’ Park, I lived from home match to home match, going in the old Leazes End of the 1970s. As a kid it was the only place to be, the intoxicating combination of excitement and fear. The various gangs from the various areas of Tyneside who dominated it. I loved the football, Newcastle United, but I loved the adrenaline rush far more of being in that old Leazes End with the roof on.

The nonsense talked these days about the Gallowgate End being THE end at St James’ Park is absolute nonsense. The Leazes End is the spiritual home of Newcastle United fans, the Gallowgate End was for old men and away fans.

By necessity, Newcastle United fans did migrate to the Gallowgate End, due to the terrible decision to pull down the old Leazes End in the late 1970s. It was a next best kind of thing, switching from the Leazes End to the Gallowgate Corner, or for some, the Gallowgate Scoreboard.

The characters, the atmosphere, the ending up 20 yards down the terracing when a goal went in. Those were the days.

You were part of something special, a seething mass of people who were all up for a good time.

I feel so sorry for the youth of today, young Newcastle United fans who know nothing of the madness of the terracing.

The pinnacle of course was away matches.

I am always dubious when Newcastle United fans claim to remember in great detail their first ever match at St James’ Park. For most of us that means remembering a time when you were still at junior school, for many it means when in the infants, so I think it is well dodgy these claimed detailed memories.

For your first away match though, I am far more believing. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, your first away match would almost always be a case of when you were a good few years older (than you were for your first home game), so it is more believable you might remember it in decent detail. Especially if you went with your mates, rather than under adult supervision.

For those who go up to Celtic in a couple of weeks time, the younger fans will love it, especially those for who it is their first ever away game. It might not be as much of a free for all as it was back in the day, but being amongst a travelling 10,000+ black and white army, is something special. Something you can’t wait to tell your mates about. The actual Celtic v Newcastle friendly will be rubbish, friendlies always are. However, that doesn’t stop you enjoying yourself, or it shouldn’t. I am sure it will be a canny atmosphere (for a friendly) in the Newcastle end. If not, then something will have gone wrong.

It seems incredible now, like another world, that you could just decide at any time to go to an away match and all you needed was the money to do so. Indeed, you had a fair few who didn’t have the money and yet still went, hitching a ride and so on.

For those of you around back then, heading to places like Old Trafford, Ewood Park, Elland Road, Leeds Road (what a day when Newcastle got promoted at Huddersfield back in 1984, we had three quarters of the ground!!!) Anfield and so on, via transit van, coach, football special train or whatever, it was just the most natural thing in the world. You just needed to get there in one piece (which sometimes was a challenge…) and hand over your cash at a turnstile.

It sounds so simple and it was.

These days it is anything but simple. Away games restricted in all but a tiny number of cases to 3,000 Newcastle United fans or even less, then you have to be a season ticket holder for starters, then numerous points drops, ticket ballots and so on, then the club’s secret police trying to catch out anyone who might have committed the ultimate crime of giving their ticket to a friend or family member, risking loyalty points loss or even losing their season ticket.

Nobody even had a season ticket back in the 1970s and 1980s, not if they went in where the atmosphere was best at St James’ Park.

The vast majority back then at St James’ Park didn’t have a season ticket and nor did they have a seat.

Now it is the exact opposite.

Anyway, away games back then, in the late 1970s and in the 1980s, rarely disappointed. The football was often rubbish but nobody really cared all that much, as having a good time was more important.

Again, this is where it has become an exact opposite these days, compared to back then.

In the ‘olden’ days we were all determined to have a good time regardless, now for pretty much everybody, the enjoyment (especially at home matches) is almost entirely based on how the team does on the pitch, not on the entertainment we create for ourselves off it.

The nearest thing we still get to that is these odd matches when relatively huge away followings are allowed. So for those of you heading up to Celtic in two weeks time, enjoy yourselves, no matter what happens on the pitch.