Newcastle United fans welcoming this Sunderland and Leeds United revival? | OneFootball

Welcome back Leeds United and Sunderland, is that we should all be hoping for?

I appreciate that the Mackem thing is a difficult one for us all as Newcastle United fans.

However, should we be holding our noses and rooting for both of them to come and join us in the Premier League?

This train of thought was sparked by something on The Mag on Friday.

Sky Sports reporting that Newcastle United fans would be setting a new Premier League record this season.

Sky Sports revealing…

‘The combined 9,425 miles Newcastle must travel to their Premier League away games this season. A new league record. Their next trip takes them to the capital this weekend, and a tough encounter away to Chelsea.’

That Mag article giving this breakdown…

The 2024/25 Premier League clubs, number of miles round trip from Newcastle United / St James’ Park to each of the 19 stadiums:

288 miles – Man City

301 miles – Man U

340 miles – Nottingham Forest

352 miles – Everton

356 miles – Liverpool

360 miles – Leicester

420 miles – Aston Villa

440 miles – Wolves

546 miles – Arsenal

562 miles – Chelsea

562 miles – Fulham

566 miles – Tottenham

566 miles – West Ham

570 miles – Ipswich

582 miles – Crystal Palace

582 miles – Brentford

645 miles – Southampton

689 miles – Brighton

698 miles – Bournemouth

Number of miles to go there and back from SJP to the 19 Newcastle United away games in 2024/25 Premier League – 9,425 miles (***All distances via stats from various online sources)

Average round trip – 496 miles

Number of round trips under 280 miles – None

Number of round trips less than 300 miles – One

Number of round trips less than 400 miles – Six

Number of round trips over 540 miles – Eleven!

In all of my decades of following Newcastle United, I have never known anything quite like this.

Put it this way, back in the 1970s and 1980s, I wouldn’t have fancied jumping into a transit van or a furniture van, to pop down to Bournemouth or Southampton!

How has this mass migration South happened? I think a lot of reasons have contributed but the fact remains that so many relatively well supported clubs of the North, have been replaced by so many relatively not so well supported clubs of the South.

Great distances opening up for your typical away trip.

Even in the Premier League era, we have seen the following clubs all spend at least some time in the top tier, apologies if I have missed any…

Newcastle United, Sunderland, Middlesbrough, Leeds, Bradford, Hull, Huddersfield, Bolton, Sheff Wed, Sheff Utd, Oldham, Man U, Man City, Liverpool, Everton, Barnsley, Blackburn, Blackpool, Burnley, Wigan

An entire Premier League 20 clubs.

Surely Newcastle United fans should wish to see as many of these as possible, as opposed to the likes of Bournemouth, Brentford and other distant pointless clubs of the South?

Maybe change is coming…

This is how the Premier League table currently looks:

Then this is the current Championship table :

As you can see, even if you can’t stomach the Mackems coming up, surely at least three promoted from four of the other five (excluding West Brom) would be a positive step? The North fighting back.

Whilst any three of the current bottom four in the Premier League, get these clubs of the South (Palace, Ipswich, Wolves, Southampton) sent down and replaced by our fellow clubs of the North.

Maybe at long last a case of ‘levelling up’ finally becoming reality for the North.