St James' Park: Newcastle United 1-0 Leicester City

Tuesday, 1 September 2009

Newcastle United 1-0 Leicester City

Aerial shot of St James' Park (Bing Maps)

Ratings

Overall Ground Quality : 9/10

Ease of getting there : 9/10

Atmosphere : 9/10

Programme : 8/10

View of Action : 8/10

Quality of the game : 8/10

The "football" feeling : 9/10

Chances of coming here for a random game : 2/10

Legroom : 10/10

Surrounding area : 8/10

Overall : 80/100

Gallowgate End

Milburn Stand

Welcome to St James' Park

Sir John Hall stand (Away end)

East stand

Sir John Hall stand towering the East stand

Gallowgate End

Milburn stand

East stand

Sudden downpour

Gallowgate End

East stand

Milburn stand

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Newcastle United 0-2 Leicester City

It has been a while since Adrian and I (Ross) last went on an away day following the Foxes. Our last trip was our Champions League adventure to FC Porto to see Leicester City get thumped 5-0. Opportunities have been few and far between for us of recent times due to City’s success however we found tickets for Newcastle United away hadn’t sold out. With a weekend free, we took the opportunity!

Our away day began from my house at 8am travelling up the M42, M1 followed by a short spell on the M18 and before joining the A1 for the rest of the journey. At that time of the morning, we found the road networks were trouble free making the journey much easier. We stopped for a short break on the way just outside Darlington before continuing on the A1.

We decided to come off the A1 early to visit the iconic Angel of the North sculpture which looks over Newcastle-upon-Tyne. After our brief stop, we made our way to Gateshead parking the car on a road called Chester Place before walking towards the Metro station in Gateshead. With the city centre only a short distance away, we decided to walk instead of taking the Metro. As we walked across the High Bridge, we admired the view of Tyneside and the bridges that cross the river before continuing our walk. At the other end of the High Bridge, Newcastle Castle impressively stands tall looking across the city. We continued our journey on foot into the city centre to see the Monument before indulging into our pre-match meal, a baguette from Greggs!

Fully refuelled with our respective Ham & Cheese and Tuna baguettes, we made the final leg of our journey up the hill to St James Park where we explored the area and also visited a very autumnal Leaze Park.

At 2 o’clock, we bought a programme and decided to make our way in. St James Park must have the most steps up to the away end in the Football League with an incredible 14 flights of stairs! When we got to our seats, the view across the city from the away end was incredible where you can see all the city landmarks.

The oldest stand currently at St James' is the East stand which building work started in 1972. In 1993, the stadium had major work completed which included the rebuild of the Gallowgate End, the Sir John Hall stand and the Milburn Stand. By 1995 the stadium was a bowl and had a capacity of 36,610. During the 1990's there was proposed plans of a new stadium at Leazes Park, not far from St James' Park but the council refused a new stadium to be built there as it was historical area of Newcastle. In 1998, more stadium work commenced when the Milburn stand and the Leazes End (now Sir John Hall stand) were given a second tier of seating and a corner which joined the two stands together. This made the capacity of the stadium increase to 52,143 and was opened ready for the 2000/01 season.

It’s 9 years since our last visit to St James Park, in August 2009 it was staging Championship football and if the club aren’t careful that’s exactly what they could be doing 10 years later.

The city of Newcastle is great, it has a superb stadium and a great feeling around for football. The club have one of the modern great managers but sadly a very rich owner that is not a Geordie and has no feeling or interest in the club.

Despite raking in millions from being in the Premier League this money does not seem to have been invested in the squad, and although the attendances are a first class 50,000 plus the squad is very much second rate.

The opponents Leicester City are currently going through a transformation. The triumphant 2016 title winning team has been broken up as age starts to kick in and French manager Claude Puel is not only trying to rebuild a side but get across a different style of football, more possession based rather than high tempo counter attacking. The French Revolution!

The locals will (I guess) accept home defeats at the hands of the top 4 team but Leicester City?

Maybe not, clearly the only time we heard any chanting from the home faithful was one of anger towards the owner Mike Ashley.

The match itself was one of few clear-cut chances but Leicester controlled the game with good possession at times, the one criticism would be the final pass.

They deservedly went ahead with a Jamie Vardy penalty after the ref spotted a hand ball by Yedlin, as Maguire thumped in a left foot shot following a failure to clear a corner.

It was game over midway through the second half as the impressive Maguire headed home unchallenged from a Maddison corner.

Newcastle had shown very little, Diame headed wide in the first half and the only time City goalkeeper Schmeichel was troubled was a spectacular effort, Beckham-esque from Jonjo Shelvey, whose attempt was literally in his own half.

As comfortable an away win as you will see, plenty of positives for City but Newcastle still looking for their first league win of the season.

Many home fans were reaching for the exits and heading for the Toon, a long time before the final whistle.

After the match, we darted down the stairs before being directed by stewards out the ground (not the way we wanted mind you!). We made our way down the hill back towards the city centre before reaching the High Bridge again heading towards Gateshead. Incredibly we found ourselves back at the car by 5.30pm and made our way back onto the A1. After some minor traffic on the A1, we passed the Angel of the North and the Riverside Cricket Ground, the home of Durham CCC. At 6pm, we decided to stop for some food at McDonalds outside Darlington for half an hour. Our journey home was relatively trouble free which saw us arrive back in Leicestershire by 9pm.

All in all, a great away day for us happy Foxes!

Newcastle United 1-0 Leicester City
St James' Park, home of Newcastle United. Our first stop on our voyage up to the north east was the Darlington Arena. We were given an unexpected tour of the stadium by the stadium maintenance man*. After our tour of the Darlington Arena, we visited Feethams which is the former home of Darlington. We arrived in Newcastle at 2pm. When we finally checked in we got the bus into the 'toon' (Town in Geordie). It’s worth having a look at the bridges on the Tyne River. This was followed by an uphill climb to St James' Park. The oldest stand currently at St James' is the East stand which building work started in 1972. In 1993, the stadium had major work done which included the Gallowgate End and the Sir John Hall stand was rebuilt and finally the Milburn Stand was modified. By 1995 the stadium was a bowl and had a capacity of 36,610. During the 1990's there was proposed plans of a new stadium at Leazes Park, not far from St James' Park but the council refused a new stadium to be built there as it was historical area of Newcastle. In 1998, more stadium work commenced. The Milburn stand and the Leazes End (now Sir John Hall stand) were given a second tier of seating and a corner which joined the two stands together. This made the capacity of the stadium increase to 52,143 and was opened ready for the 2000/01 season. After a long walk up the many stairs at St James' Park, we reached the over-priced concourse area and the top tier of the stand. Just before the game, a sudden downpour began. So strong that we could only just see the crane behind the Gallowgate End. The game finished 1-0 to Newcastle United after a Danny Guthrie goal. After the game we walked to Eldon Square bus station and caught our bus back to the MetroCentre and got back to the hotel at 10:40pm.
The next day we visited Gateshead International Stadium home of Gateshead, The Stadium of Light home of Sunderland, Victoria Park home of Hartlepool United and Finally the Riverside home of Middlesbrough and their former home Ayresome Park. Overall our trip to the North East was a success and a very enjoyable trip

*Thank you to Darlington for giving us a tour of your fantastic stadium and good luck during the season

Tuesday, 1 September 2009

Newcastle United 1-0 Leicester City

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