Earlier in the season, Plymouth’s trip to Newcastle was covered by the Football League Show cameras, which meant that away fans already getting up at four in the morning before making a massive journey north in the exceedingly slim hope of seeing little other than their team’s defeat, were further expected to share their sandwiches with Kevin Day.
Perhaps mindful of that, not as many showed here for the Cup game, far fewer in fact. And there was no sign of Kevin Day either. Likewise the home fans- whose attendances this season have been largely astonishing- were short in numbers; the lowest FA Cup ground in ninety years. Only a couple of thousand more than Middlesbrough managed in their third round cup game. That bad.
Among all the questions the crowd is said to have raised- short term questions relating to January transfer window and longer term questions on whether or not this signifies a shifting of priorities from fans who were always said to have an affinity for this cup (I.E, the cup where we traditionally do quite badly in, but not as badly as we do in all the others)- the thought most prominent on my mind as I took my seat was: going on forty thousand of the bastards are empty and I somehow find an obstructed one. I saw Peter Lovenkrands’ first goal- a neat little finish from a good move down our left- from over the little wall separating the two tiers
of the East Stand. I’m assured that it was very smart.
A couple of seat swaps later, and I ended up by the ludicrously self dubbed ‘Toon Ultras’. There are two schools of thought on these lads, who have made it their life’s goal to ‘bring back the noise’ at St. James’ Park. These schools of thought tend to depend on how far you are sat from them at any one time. From their usual distance up in Level Seven, they seem a hardy, and largely harmless, bunch. Sat by them and you realise how largely confused their entire remit is.
Their idea to bring back the noise is a valid one, but one governed not by their own match going experiences, but by the experiences of older fanzine writers. This is evidenced by their rather needy desire to be moved around to the ‘old corner’ for home cup matches such as this one. The corner was once a focal point for Newcastle United fans of a certain type but has been, for the past fifteen years, as bland an area in the stadium as anywhere else. Getting in there seems like a craven bid to assert their own identity on the match day culture, but so muddled is this said identity that the best they can do is cling to somebody else’s from a time long passed.
And the lack of any organic personality of their own leaves them little more than a collection of charmless clichés- a group of bores doing what they think they’re supposed to do because it’s what you used to do at the football, before they ever actually went to the football. In truth it would be easier, and to their and the rest of the stadium's vast benefit, for them to go to matches with their friends in 2010 and sing whatever songs they want to sing, without being overly concerned about impressing any passing True Faith writer.
I saw Lovenkrands’ two further goals sat with them- a header and a half volley- before the chants of ‘Get your tits out for the lads’ forced me to move. And not just because I drank and ate more than I should have over Christmas and was worried the chants were being directed at me either.
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