St James’ Park dilemma – The vision of the Newcastle United owners for the future? | OneFootball

Right everyone, just bear with me while I tell one of my little stories.

Years ago, I moved onto a nice new estate in the north of Newcastle (I won’t go into detail because either it won’t mean anything or people will work it out anyway).

That nice estate had a lovely new first school on it and as Mrs S had a baby in her tum at the time, this was ideal for us. Our kids attended this first school in the years that followed and loved it, then by the time our eldest left, there was set to be a nice new middle / high school built elsewhere on the estate for a nice smooth transition.

Our eldest is now in her third year of middle school and ground has yet to be broken on that school, with my kids needing to take a bus ride to a constantly filling temporary building, with the promise that things will be on track by the end of the next school year ringing hollow.

There are a few factors in this; the unexpected pandemic, contractor availability etc, but a major obstruction seems to have been consistent planning objections by a local environment group who consider it to be too close to the local nature reserve. This included objections to upgrading a disused field to be the school playing field and to secure a mud path for access to the site, both of which crossed the line in my opinion, from serious objection to time wasting and obstruction.

In cases such as these when planning permission is mooted, you can log onto the council’s website and lodge support or objections to the plans online.

I went on at one stage to register my support and was gobsmacked at the list of objections from far afield, as folk from Reading and Milton Keynes were sticking their oar in on a development in a city they’d likely never visit without full appreciation of the local impact. None of this stopped the development outright, but it caused difficulties that led to the extensive delays we have had to put up with.

Those who have stuck with me this far might see where this is going now.

The extension of St James’ Park, or the prospect of Newcastle United moving to a new location, has once again been in the headlines, as Luke Edwards’ speculative story on the matter seemed to spawn much discussion that makes me suspect the club themselves may have something to say relatively soon.

The party line is that we will endeavour to remain at St James’ Park and options are being explored. Here’s where I start to have doubts, given my experience above.

Two of the mooted options for extension, involve building on Leazes Park, or Castle Leazes (the land on the other side of Leazes Park, which is part of Town Moor land), thus creating more space to remodel a new stadium.

I honestly think these are non-starters.

Given the objections I have seen to a kids school, just how many people do you think would line up to shout down the concept of Saudi run big business bulldozing local parkland?

The environmental mobilisation as per the above would be one thing, before you even get involved in the regular critics of our ownership and the gleeful intervention of bitter fans of certain other clubs?

The council may even get onside with plans to relocate parkland on the existing site, but given there were people there who objected to the prospect of the Stack on the old car park (basically an open air pub in an area full of pubs) this is far from guaranteed. Even if it were forced through, objections at every stage would bring years of development hell.

Moving round the ground, the much publicised problem of Leazes terrace being a listed building is another problem people seem to be oversimplifying. There may be workarounds, but moving or bulldozing the buildings, is a step that will meet fierce opposition. This would likely be worse than the parkland, as I can’t see any compromise solution like the “switcheroo” idea mentioned above. I think it’s generally accepted that this may well be the biggest obstacle to the “full bowl” ideal.

The Gallowgate should, in theory, be different. Given that the Halls and Shepherd had produced some provisional plans for further extension some 20 years ago, this remains a distinct possibility.

The first issue to the south would be Strawberry place, which I’m sure could be dealt with. I don’t believe this is needed as a thoroughfare for traffic, although access may be needed for ambulances going to the RVI, which could potentially be done in the same way traffic can traverse the underneath of the Milburn stand, but as a public road it can close for me.

The Metro is less straightforward. I always thought St James’ metro station was a total white elephant and could be done away with if it’s in the way. Apparently though, it remains the beginning of a potential link to the west end of the city, and that idea would be killed if it were to be filled in. People wouldn’t like that, and it could be counter productive to the future infrastructure of the city, so the metro would need to stay and be incorporated into any development. Again, I think this could be done.

However, given all of the other issues, how viable would it be to go ahead with Gallowgate extension? In the past the stands have been built and rebuilt in the close season, so it’s a decent possibility it could go ahead without disrupting matches, but what do you actually gain?

The extension of the Leazes and Milburn to add the top tier of St James’ Park saw the capacity increase from 36k to 52k. Even if you could do both corner,  I think the Gallowgate would still see less of an increase.

Would it be worth this extensive rebuilding for ten thousand more seats? And would this be enough to give the financial and competitive edge that the likes of Spurs have gained through investment in modernised stadia?

Again, I’m going to go anecdotal here. Last summer, I made my first trip to the O2 (formerly the Millenium Dome). With our arena crumbling a bit, bigger bands have started missing Newcastle off their tour agenda, and I wasn’t going to miss Iron Maiden was I? The design of the place caught my interest, as the actual concert arena is right in the middle, with a sort of doughnut shaped mall running around , full of bars, restaurants and merchandise stalls. For a concert you need to pass through a ticketed gate to enter the doughnut mall, but I’d assume it’s accessible to all when there’s no show on. Getting away afterwards is a bit like leaving Wembley, with one underground station and no nearby options to grab a pint or a bite.

I thought of the O2 when what I thought was a heavily suggestive email from NUFC landed in my inbox. The club conducted an in depth survey asking how much you spend on matchdays, with ridiculously specific questions about how far away from St James’ Park you venture to get a pint or a bite before and after games. I mix it up a bit throughout the season, so this was a bit difficult anyway, but I felt concerned that the hidden question was “how much are you spending elsewhere that we could be taking off you, in particular if we trap you in a ground that has no other alternative competitors?”

The O2 came to mind, giving you plenty of options, but all of them feeding the machine at the centre.

It feels to me like that is the vision of the Newcastle United owners and, let’s be honest, they’re never going to do that in the city centre. Even if the land the Arena currently occupies was available (I believe it’s been sold for housing) or if you could sort the Leazes Park option, these are still within walking distance of the pubs, clubs, restaurants and facilities of the city centre.

To really kill off the opposition, the ground needs to be stand alone, somewhere that your only options for food are the self contained Bella Italia or Handmade Burger Co, while extensive options for drinks are available in NUFC embossed plastic glasses from the integrated Wetherspoons or All Bar One.

The Reubens (pictured above –  brothers David and Simon) owned land around Gosforth Racecourse and undeveloped areas near the airport have been mentioned in previous rumours. I’m not gonna lie, that’s convenient as hell for me, but I would be strongly opposed to it.

The beauty of St James Park is how much it represents Newcastle United’s connection with the city.

Visitors drawn to the club fall in love with the place, not just the events on the field like the more feckless international followers of Arsenal or Man Utd. For me, a huge benefit of a successful club would be the impact it had on the wider city of tourism, redevelopment and opportunity, including for independent businesses. Give me Zapatista or the Meat:Stack any day over some integrated chain restaurant playing Coldplay and serving free thimbles of popcorn.

I really don’t know what the best option is.

I’m sure the Spurs stadium replica three miles out of town will be packaged as the superior choice whenever the club see fit to push it, but I would hope a sensible option can be sourced that keeps the ground in the city, with the place buzzing as it does every matchday.

We await the next development on this and I particularly hope I don’t get the chance to say I told you so.