Clueless Manchester City fan sums up ignorance of just how many Newcastle United fans there are | OneFootball

Earlier this month, I explained how so many outsiders don’t understand just how many Newcastle United fans there are, now this clueless Manchester City fan has just so perfectly illustrated the point.

Revelling in his ignorance, actually having the nerve to lecture us on how small he reckons the NUFC fanbase is…

Manchester City fan Adam Purdue commenting on The Mag, in reply to an article on Tuesday – ‘Would I be up for making a 30th trip to Wembley in 14 years? Let me think…’

You’ll hopefully have lots of trips to Wembley to enjoy in the coming years.

As for me, I’ve been about 10 times and that’s enough for me. It’s rubbish. I’d rather spend my money on a good old away day. Domestic or European.’

Adam Purdue, the Manchester City fan, commenting again:

‘The population of Newcastle is 300,000 people

Man City have sold over a million tickets at Wembley in the past 15 yrs.

I’m not having a dig at Newcastle but get real

It’s not just Wembley, it’s Europe too. Year after year.

Domestic cups, kickoff times changing, ridiculous train fares.’

An education for our Manchester City fan friend…

How big is Newcastle?

This is something that those from outside have struggled with, especially our southern friends, which of course, includes our friends from Manchester….

That is, the southern friends who haven’t a clue and who have never even been to Newcastle Upon Tyne, to St James’ Park, to the region. Yet think they know it all.

Plenty of them wanting to believe that Newcastle Upon Tyne is some insignificant small village on the banks of the River Tyne, populated by a strange tribe of difficult to understand locals. Locals who they want to believe live a backward existence, who should be patronised at best.

Never has this been brought into sharper focus than in recent weeks, with the Newcastle United triumph at Wembley and the subsequent celebrations in the city of Newcastle Upon Tyne, plus of course now this Manchester City fan.

The figure regularly quoted, of Newcastle United fans who attended the trophy celebrations in the city centre (including the Town Moor gathering), was around the 300,000 mark. A truly remarkable number.

Even more remarkable though for these many clueless people, outsiders, is the figure they are then quoting for Newcastle’s population…

The official population figure for The City of Newcastle upon Tyne from the 2021 census, is a population of 300,100.

In one lame conversation I heard earlier this month on one particular radio station renowned for stupidity and anti-Newcastle United/anti-Newcastle Upon Tyne bias, they found it hilarious that all but 100 of the entire Newcastle population had turned out for the cup celebrations.

A patronising view at best, that this village on the banks of the Tyne had all turned out to celebrate the long-awaited triumph, wanting to back up their prevailing view that our city and football club and region is some distant unimportant outpost.

Now we have this Manchester City fan spouting the same.

For me, this is all part of why they don’t really understand Newcastle United and just how big a club we are, how massive a fanbase NUFC actually have.

Let me explain

Here are a few important pieces of information…

Here is an explanation of what Newcastle Upon Tyne actually is:

‘Newcastle Upon Tyne is England’s northernmost city and metropolitan borough, located on the River Tyne’s northern bank opposite Gateshead to the south. It is the most populous settlement in the Tyneside conurbation and North East England.’

Conurbation?

‘An extended urban area, typically consisting of several towns merging with the suburbs of a central city.’

Sunderland?

‘At the 2021 census, the built-up area of Sunderland had a population of 168,315, and the wider borough had a population of 274,200.’

Tyneside

So, the city of Newcastle Upon Tyne only covers a small part of what is the conurbation of Tyneside.

Tyneside also takes in Gateshead, North Tyneside and South Tyneside. Gateshead alone has a population of around 197,700 (Office of National Statistics Mid-Year Population Estimates 2022).

If somebody came up from the south (including Manchester…) for the first time and travelled from Newcastle city centre down to Tynemouth and Whitley Bay, they would just think it was one big city/population, which it is really. People live in the like of Whitley Bay, Wallsend, Tynemouth and North Shields but it is a dual existence, as pretty much all of them will identify with Newcastle Upon Tyne as their city, as well as coming from North Shields etc.

Very much the same for the vast majority of people who live in Gateshead, also as you go along the south bank of the Tyne and places such as Hebburn, South Shields and so on. They live on Tyneside (not Wearside!) and by far the majority will identify with Newcastle and Newcastle United, not Sunderland.

When it comes to football, Tyneside and indeed the broader region, are Newcastle United supporting. The one city one club thing, is in reality…one region one club.

Tyneside is in reality, a massive conurbation/area that has only one major football club. The conurbation of Tyneside has close to a million people living from Newcastle Upon Tyne down to the coast on both sides of the Tyne.

The population for Wearside is quoted at around the 335,000 mark. However, that includes over 100,000 living in Washington and Chester-le-street. Those areas are mixed when it comes to football but for sure the majority would class themselves as Newcastle rather than as Sunderland fans. That population figure for Wearside even includes some of the more southerly parts of Gateshead, such as Birtley, Springwell and Ouston.

Taking the north east as a whole, the region has a population of up towards three million.

If asked to name the football club they most identify with, my guess is that around two million would say Newcastle United.

When you then take this into account, it becomes a lot easier to understand why 300,000 turned up in the city of Newcastle Upon Tyne to celebrate Newcastle United winning a trophy, at last.

It also of course, explains why there is such huge crazy demand for tickets when it comes to Newcastle matches. Simple fact is, NUFC have far more fans than Manchester City.

The Geography of our situation means that Newcastle United fans have  easily the furthest to travel of all Premier League fanbases when it comes to away match, it does though mean that as well as being the dominant and easily best supported club in the north east, Newcastle United also have a massive area outside of the region to target.

Leeds is the next closest major club (beyond Sunderland and Middlesbrough) to the south, to the west you finally end up at Carlisle whilst no other English clubs at all to the north, only Berwick who play in the Scottish leagues. I am not claiming the entire area to the northern tip of Scotland for Newcastle United, however, fair to say that NUFC have many fans to the north of Tyneside, including many in Scotland who support clubs up there, but who will also have some affinity with Newcastle United as well. The closest place to where they can watch (English) Premier League football.

As well as the above, we also of course have the undeniable fact that for decades and decades, so many Geordies have moved elsewhere, often down to work/career prospects. The saying that wherever you go you will always find a Geordie, or at least descendants from Geordies who moved years ago, is very true.

For round figures, I think there are more than a million people outside the region, in the rest of the UK and overseas, who would see Newcastle United as their football club if asked to name one.

Far from being a small and insignificant football club, city and region, as Newcastle United fans we are part of something massive.

A huge fanbase that so many don’t have a club about.

Newcastle United have millions of fans and our football club is huge, only held back by club ownership incompetence and/or greed for the vast majority of years since certainly the early 1950s.

This fanbase also includes those poor unfortunates who had no connection to the city or football club, yet down the years somehow chose to follow Newcastle United rather than the clubs who were winning trophies AND who stayed with us, from whenever they started supporting NUFC. Now along with the rest of us are starting to enjoy some long awaited and much deserved success.

This is why the others fear us, a Newcastle United that is now ambitiously run and a club that has such a huge fanbase, what a toxic combination for those other clubs and fanbases who wanted to believe they could have it all to themselves when it came to controlling the power, the money and the success on the pitch.

Why are there so many Newcastle United fans than Manchester City fans?

As I explained above, Newcastle United is THE club that dominates a very large region.

Even if you restrict that to only 35 miles of Newcastle United, you only have two (much smaller) other clubs, Sunderland and Middlesbrough.

Manchester City, despite all the trophies their owners have bought, don’t even have anything remotely close to the biggest fanbase even in their own city. I know we joke about Man U fans not coming from Manchester and of course most of them don’t! However, the Man U support in Manchester, the Manchester area, is massively bigger than Man City’s. It is nothing to get upset about, it is just fact.

Indeed, within a 35 mile radius of Manchester/Manchester City, Man City have Man U, Liverpool and Everton, In terms of size of fanbase I would say that the trophies bought by the Man City owners have brought in enough glory hunters to probably edge them ahead of Everton in terms of size of fanbase.

(Some of the 10,000+ empty seats on Sunday at Wembley in the Man City sections)

Again, no disrespect to Manchester City fans, they are a decent size fanbase, just nowhere near as big as Man U, Liverpool and…Newcastle United.

The one city – one club thing is of course a massive advantage, it is an anomaly really that such a massive population on Tyneside only has one major club, indeed, only one club in any of the four divisions unless hopefully Gateshead get promoted against the odds.

The population of the North-West is of course far bigger than the North-East BUT when you look at all the clubs the respective populations need to support, it is oh so very different.

Newcastle United only have the Mackems and then to an extent the Smoggies.

Manchester City within a 35 mile radius have the likes of Man U, Liverpool, Everton, Blackburn, Bolton, Salford, Stockport, Oldham, Rochdale, Crewe, Wigan, Preston, Bury, Huddersfield, Burnley and so on. Even the likes of Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford and Barnsley are 40 miles away or less!

I feel lucky that up here in Newcastle Upon Tyne (Tyneside and beyond!) we are a bit of a one-off, we are also a bit of a northern outpost.

Pretty much everybody up here supports Newcastle United, apart from very restricted small areas that are Sunderland heartlands and to an extent, Middlesbrough ones.

If you have even the faintest Geordie accent, as so many of you will testify if you are away on holiday, then everyone you meet will just assume that you are a Newcastle United fan.

This happens pretty much nowhere else with people from other English cities/regions, if you hear a cockney, Brummie, Manchester, scouse accent, you can only guess.

Our Manchester City fan wants to believe that Newcastle United fans are drawn from a population of around 300,000.

The truth is that you need to start at 3million and go up from there.