St James’ Park – Do we need to leave to allow the Newcastle United trophies to come along again? | OneFootball

A lot of debate recently on the future of St James’ Park and whether or not Newcastle United will eventually move from our spiritual home.

One comment I read, a Newcastle United fan highlighted the fact that not many of us will have seen us win anything whilst regularly attending our grand old stadium.

So maybe better to part company with St James’ Park as we head into the second quarter of the twenty-first century?

This got me thinking.

Once ‘Newcastle United’ were formed in 1892, success soon followed at St James’ Park.

Within eighteen years NUFC had been crowned league champions three times and had won the first of our six FA Cups. Through to 1955, we added five more FA Cups and another league title.

So, during our first 63 years at St James’ Park, we won ten major domestic honours. Since then, nothing. That’s 69 years of hurt on the domestic front (and counting).

The modern game of association football originated in the mid-nineteenth century and following the efforts of English football clubs to standardise the varying sets of rules, the Football Association was formed in 1863, with the Laws of the Game issued in the same year.

Specifically, in regards the city of Newcastle upon Tyne and where its football club has plied its trade down the years, the origins of St James’ Park as we know it today can be traced back to 1870, when The Town Moor Improvement Act was passed.

This legislation allowed areas of land within the Town Moor to be used for recreational purposes, something that gave birth to Leazes Park, complete with a lake and bandstand. At the southern end of the park, a playing field was situated next to Leazes Terrace, the now Grade 1 listed building, which is of course, one of the main obstacles to extending the modern stadium.

In 1880, Newcastle Rangers FC announced that they were moving to ‘the Leazes Terrace ground’ and played there off and on until 1886 when the lease of St James’ Park was acquired by Newcastle West End.

The stadium’s name has its roots in the hospital and chapel of St James, which dated from the middle-ages and stood on the site of the current Hancock Museum. In the early 19th century, streets that are now adjacent to the stadium were built bearing the name of St James with St James’ Terrace leading up to the East Stand and Leazes Terrace, and St James’ Street running between St James’ Terrace and Strawberry Place.

Newcastle West End constructed a small stand and a press box, but folded in 1892, with Newcastle East End agreeing to take over the lease. East End played their first home match at St James in September 1892 before adopting their new name of Newcastle United following a public meeting that December.

The ground developed at breakneck speed. In 1893 terracing was added when the club accepted the Football League’s invitation to join the newly created Second Division. Following the club’s promotion to the First Division in 1898, more building work took place, increasing the capacity to 30,000. Six years later, this had doubled to 60,000 with the construction of further terracing alongside the new West Stand. During the 1920s, the terracing at the Leazes End was covered.

Other than the addition of floodlights in the 1950s, the development of the ground stalled and even after St James’ Park had been selected as one of the venues for the 1966 World Cup, disagreements with the city council meant improvements did not get the go ahead, which saw Middlesbrough’s Ayresome Park hosting the likes of North Korea and Italy instead. Negotiations between the club and the council then took place to transform St James’ Park into a 70,000 capacity multi-purpose stadium but plans were shelved for financial reasons.

In 1971, following mediation by minister of Sport Denis Howell, agreement was finally reached to develop the stadium but the project was only partially completed with the construction of the East Stand. The redevelopment of the Leazes End was cancelled following the club’s relegation in 1978, leaving a much smaller terrace without a roof that me and my mates frequented in the mid-1980s.

At this time, the fate of the 80-year-old wooden West Stand was sealed by the events at Bradford City’s Valley Parade in which 56 supporters died in a fire in the wooden main stand. The West Stand was demolished with season ticket holders relocated to temporary (uncovered) seating at the Leazes End, and the new West Stand opened in 1987, later christened the ‘Milburn Stand’ in honour of our record goal scorer at the time.

The next major development happened under the Halls and as the club lifted the old second division championship trophy after the 7-1 demolition of Leicester City in May 1993, work was already underway at the Leazes End. The development continued through to 1995 and with the stadium now totally covered it boasted a 36,000 all-seated capacity. After missing out on being a World Cup venue in 1966, St James hosted Euro ‘96 games involving France, Bulgaria and Romania.

The Halls wanted to go further and later submitted plans to build a £65 million brand new stadium at Castle Leazes, a development that went nowhere because of local opposition. Avoiding the cost and distraction of a public enquiry, the club turned its attention back to expanding St James’ Park and a new tier was built on top of the Milburn and Leazes stands, increasing capacity to over 52,000 in 2000.

Back to the point concerning one commentator’s view that most fans won’t have seen us lift a trophy whilst playing at St James’ Park.

Why is that? Is our ground cursed? It seems remarkable that we haven’t won anything for so long. In 2019, CIES Football Observatory published a report on the 50 clubs with the highest average attendance in the world between 2013 and 2018. Newcastle United were 13th, with an average crowd of 50,721. Every club above them had won a trophy in the past 25 years and almost 250 between them since 1969. Only Hertha Berlin (German champions in 1931) in 17th position, had gone longer without major silverware.

The St James’ Park site certainly has a chequered history. Long before the Town Moor Improvement Act of 1870, we learn that where St James’ Park is now located was originally part of the Town Moor which itself dates back to the 12th century. The part of the Moor at Leazes lay just to the north of the town walls and became known as ‘the Gallows Hole’ due to the executions that had taken place on the site since 1399. During the English Civil War, the Scottish Covenantors allied with Oliver Cromwell, laid siege to the city from the site to attack the Town Walls in October 1644.

In 1660, 14 women and one man accused of witchcraft were hanged there, whilst the last execution of an English Witch took place on the site in 1685. The last person to be executed on the Town Moor was Mark Sherwood who was hanged on August 23rd 1844, having been convicted of murdering his wife.

I’ll come back to the witches and the hangings, but in the meantime. here’s a couple of other theories for you.

First up, it’s our mascot, the Magpie. The Magpie nickname stems from our iconic black and white kit, mirroring the colours of a magpie bird. Of course, these weren’t always Newcastle’s colours. Post-1892, following the merger of Newcastle West End and Newcastle East End, the kit was red and white, or red and black. The shift to black and white happened later and it wasn’t until 1976 that the bird graced the club emblem. Between 1976 and 1983, the badge had a circular design showcasing the full club name, a magpie in front of the River Tyne, and Newcastle’s historic keep in the backdrop. In 1983, the club introduced a simpler design that included the initials ‘NUFC’ with a small magpie inside the “C,” laid out horizontally. This design was used until 1988.

Most of us will have heard the ‘one for sorrow, two for joy’ nursery rhyme, but something I never appreciated is that owing to the religious segregation in England, Magpies were considered cursed birds ever since they failed to comfort Jesus during his crucifixion. Does this explain those 69 years of hurt on the domestic front? Maybe, what about that monumental success Newcastle United had in its formative years? Well, it seems we had another mascot back then, a black and white Great Dane named Rex. He appeared prominently alongside the club’s players and staff in the early 1900s, the time in which Newcastle United would truly rise to the top of English football.

Next up, is Hughie Gallacher. Gallacher was signed from Airdrieonians in December 1925 and the scorer of a remarkable 143 goals in 174 appearances for Newcastle United. In the 1926/27 season, 23-year-old Gallacher was given the captaincy, and his leadership qualities took Newcastle United to the League Championship for the first time since 1909.

Apparently, ‘wee Hughie’ was less than impressed at being sold by the club he loved to Chelsea in 1930, and didn’t hold back when he later became an outspoken sports reporter. He was subsequently banned from St James’ Park. “Newcastle United, you’re doomed,” he is alleged to have said before his death.

When the Dutchman, Ruud Gullit was manager of Newcastle United, he clearly thought something was off during his brief tenure, so much so that he contacted local Catholic priest, Canon Robert Spence, who attended St James Park to bless the pitch and throw Holy Water in the home dressing-room. Maybe he should have just picked Shearer and Ferguson to play against the Mackems in the downpour that night?

Being rational, I don’t think Magpies, Great Danes and Hughie Gallacher adequately explain our lack of success.

Back to the witches and the hangings and maybe a bit of irrational thought.

Whilst I’m not a religious person and I don’t profess to have ever seen a ghost, I do wonder whether the extensive construction work that went on in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s somehow disturbed the spirits of those who had met such a grisly end and who had been resting peacefully since the original construction of St James’ Park? Could that be what has had such a destabilising effect on the fortunes of Newcastle United since Bobby Moncur lifted the Fairs Cup in Hungary in 1969? Think about it. Not a single trophy has been brought back to St James Park since work started on demolishing the Popular side to make way for the East Stand in 1971.

Who know whether Newcastle United will leave St James’ Park in the not-too-distant future, but maybe some superstitious types will believe that relocating away from a site that has such a macabre past, is necessary if we are to address our trophy famine.

Just look at the following table – the first column shows that in 1969, only Aston Villa had won more trophies than Newcastle United. The second column shows how many trophies have now been amassed by each club.