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Memories  
Another meander down memory lane (and a runoff in a doorway..) 

A selection of the nominations of NUFC.com readers in two categories: 

1. five things
missed about watching the toon 
2. five things thankfully consigned to the black
   and white dustbin of history.

From Biffa, NUFC.com

Missed:

1. "The Farmers Rest."
2. "The Haymarket."
3. The black and white "10 minute" flag.
4. Noise of the crowd stamping their feet in the old stand.
5. "Peanuts ! Tanner a bag."

Not missed:

1. The NF paper sellers outside the Gallowgate End.
2. The Gallowgate netties.
3. Sweets you'd never heard of, being sold from orange trays by greasy youths.
4. New cars being driven round the ground in some bizarre sales pitch by local garages.
5. The tatty little terrace built on the Leazes End.

From John Dean, Japan

Missed:

1. Doppa -  Lord of the Leazes !
2. McEwan's Eighty shillings (itey shullen) in the Haymarket Hotel
3. The friendly old grey barman in the Haymarket Hotel
4. Match Programmes at 6d each
5. "One-two three an' a bit! Who put Sunderland in the sh*t? --Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Hurley !"

Not missed:

1. The bloody great hump in the middle of the old pitch
2. The miserable old bat barmaid in the Haymarket Hotel who would poke yer with a window pole if you made ower much noise.
3. The b/w photo of Lord Westwood the Pirate in the match programme.
4. Getting beat off the Mackems 3-0 home and away in the same season (1964-65 if I remember right)
5. Being searched for weapons etc on entry to the Gallowgate.

From Steve Parrish in Hertfordshire

Missed:

1. The view of the clock on the Co-op building.
2. The passion at mid-week night games (especially Fairs Cup matches)
3. The singing between rival supporters building up atmosphere from at least an hour before kick-off.
4. Trying to understand why, when the ground could hold 55,000 and gates averaged around 37,000, some people actually bought season tickets.
5. 20 or more different songs a game (these days you're lucky to get half a dozen).

Not missed:

1. The smell from the brewery (as I was well under the legal drinking age in the early 1970's I couldn't understand what the stink was - I know much better now).
2. That wife from Man City who sat in what's now the Milburn Stand ringing her school bell all through the home games against Man City. She was also at it back at Maine Road.
3. Bovril from the "snack bar" in the Leazes.
4. Having to move sharppish to avoid the pissheads (Scotswood Road Aggro Boys?) taking a leak where they stood in the middle of the Leazes.
5. Hoping the pigeons wouldn't shit on your head as you walked out of the Central Station.

From our man in Virginia, Denty

Missed:

1. The smell of smoke from tabs in the cold air
2. The 'Corna'
3. Singing to keep warm
4. "The Magpie"
5. Outsinging the home team

Not missed:

1. South Yorkshire Police
2. West Midlands Police
3. Greater Manchester Police
4. Metropolitan Police
5. Millwall fans (remember Woodall Services...)

From Ian Clark, exiled in Belgium.

Missed:

1. The totty that used to walk round the old cinder track and the resultant roar/comments. Haven't a clue what their job was and I was too busy putting my tongue back in to care anyway!
2. Bog roll hoying when we scored a goal. You could always tell when a home game was coming up as my old school used to end up empty of bog rolls on the Friday before the game.
3. Turning up for home games 5 minutes before kick-off without a ticket and knowing you would get in.
4. The Leazes End roar.
5. Matching up the match programme to the old scoreboard to work out the half time results.

Not missed:

1. The fascists on horseback standing their horses really close to each other either side of the turnstiles and loving it when Dobbin tried standing on you or tried to take a lump out of you with its teeth.
2. Newcastle supporters fighting amongst themselves in the Leazes/Gallowgate ends. Daft t****
3. The little'uns having to hide their scarves when they came out of the match in case they got them nicked.
4. That unpleasant warm, wet feeling when your were standing in a big crowd so couldn't move and the guy behind you decided to share some of his pre-match eight pints with the back of your leg.
5. The OTT racist chants.

From Grant Murray ( A-wing paddock and Gallowgate scoreboarder)

Missed:

1. Blagging free tickets from the bingo caravan for the paddock then hopping over the metal spikes into the ' Gally '.
2. Fellas with tashes going through the kids turnstiles on their knees and  saying ' thanks mister ' while the coppers on the other side let them through laughing for bare faced cheek. 
3. Dickmans pies and bovril .
4. The Gallowgate surge when the ball entered the 18 yard box .
5. Scarves tied like ties dead tight.

Not missed

1. That blerk in the New stand who used to make the Red indian cry.
2. Being pinned against the concrete stantions on the terrace if United scored.
3. Trying to see through the OTT fencing in the Gallowgate , and getting caught on it at Super Kev's last match.
4. 'Mr Chips' going potty on the scoreboard even when the away side scored.
5. Hats with half Celtic or half Rangers with the bobble pulled off the end.

From Tuffy:

Missed:

1. Small bonfires in the old Leazes End
2. The swaying crowd in the Corner of the Gallowgate
3. Peter Beardsley
4. Soccer casuals wearing their fatha's golf jumpers.
5. Being able to get tickets!!

Not missed:

1. Football special trains
2. Worst pre match PR announcer in the history of football prior to kickoff and at half time at home games
3. The toilet cubicles at the back of the Leazes end circa 79-94.
4. Waiting for a ground to match the expectations of its fans
5. Marco Gabbiadini!!

From The Mackenzie Brothers:

Missed:

1. "Golden Goals, Ten Pence"
2. Scotch on the Rocks - the music not the drink.
3. The old duffer in the black suit with elegant white emulsion stripes sploshed down it
4. Passion
5. Atmosphere. It used to start 45 minutes before kick off with shouts of "(whoever) Where Are You?" and build up from there. We even used to get there ridiculously early specially to "soak it up". It died long before the all-seater stadium was invented, I blame the PA System for killing it. Or maybe we got relegated

Not missed

1. That smell of stale sick that you used to get as you walked up that road from the Haymarket (the curvy one with the Trent House on the corner at the top). What the hell caused that week in week out?
2. The schoolboy paddock
3. Scarves around wrists
4. Half time entertainment as clueless blokes and kids got the scores completely wrong in the scoreboard while opposition scarves went up in smoke in the Leazes..
5. Covered in hockle any time a copper came near you to sort out the bother

From Philthy Richardson:

Missed:

1. Being able to pay at the under-16s gate, even when I was an unshaven young man in my early twenties, stinking of booze
2.
The bloke in the East Stand who used to do the Red Indian style holler
3. The quaint ticket office.
4. The absence of corporate johnny-come-lately shitehawks
5. the old club shop opposite where The Farmers used to be (Prudhoe Place).

Not missed:

1. Games against Oxford United
2. Regular FA cup pastings in rounds 3 & 4
3. Howard Wilkinson as a League Manager. Remember his Sheff Wed side of the early to mid 80's ? Yawnarama.
4. The fences they put up round the pitch in the 80s
5. The bar-code Greenalls strip.

From Steve Jackson (Wing paddocks):

Missed:

1. Smell of deep heat filtering through the wooden stand from the changing rooms
2. Trying to guess which of the apprentices who stood by the tunnel with bum bluff tache's leather ties and "salt and pepper" hair would make it.
3. Trying to catch Peter Withe's sweatbands
4. Old ladies passing out sweets
5. The open tunnel where you could ruffle Kev's hair as he ran on the pitch

Not missed:

1. Blokes with kids who still made monkey noises at black players
2. Standing in piss at the bottom, cos I was too small to stand further back
3. Feeling sick after trying to get six pieces of "Klix" chewing gum into my mouth at once after buying it from one of those blokes walking round the pitch.
4. The cold: pjs on underneath me clothes in order to protect me from the SJP wind tunnel effect
5. Unintelligent policemen who would round up all the people on the pitch on the last day of the season and try and push them all into the kids paddock

From Gary Hogg:

Missed:

1. Steam rising from a packed Gallowgate end in the rain (when we were winning).
2. Standing in the Scoreboard with my Dad/brothers/mates instead of sitting in opposite stands
3. The Indian Caller in the East stand.
4. "HOOW MAN! HEY MAN! HOOW MAN!..etc"
5. 10-15 Thousand at away matches.

Not missed:

1. Being in a half empty Gallowgate end in the rain (when we were losing)
2. Scabby fences.
3. The temporary "Silverstone" stand
4. Selling Supermac, Waddle, Beardsley & Gazza to "big" clubs like Spurs
5. Every close season reading about several "Rotherham utility player" types of signing by the club

From Geordie Russell:    

Missed:

1. The old score board with the odd bulb that never worked.
2. Being able to move to another part of the ground if there was an idiot behind you
3. The gates opening 10 minutes before full time so the bairns/cheapskates could get in
4. Trying to con the turnstile bloke and get in as a junior when I was 18
5. People climbing up the floodlights.

Not missed:

1. Geordie aggro.
2. Getting squashed against the barriers
3. The shrubbery on the Gallowgate
4. Edging closer to the exit as full time approached so you could make a run for your bus when the whistle goes
5. The massive amount of coppa's needed to officiate a match

Half measure from Ian Collins:  

Missed:

1. Playing Chelsea in the early 80s and someone climbing up onto the scoreboard and removed the letters C & h from Chelsea and the gallowgate started singing "elsea."
2. Kenny Wharton sitting on the ball against Luton
3. The whole ground singing "you fat bastard" to Gazza when he played for Spurs (not to mention the mars bars thrown at him) and Chris Waddle who thought he was hit by a brick wrapped in a mars bar wrapper (small brick eh?)
4. Traditional last home game of the season with everyone trying to get on the pitch (especially when the fences were up)
5. The corner and scoreboard rivalry.. sing in the corner, why's the corner full of shit, fireworks and watching the crowd in the corner pile forwards...

And also from John Burn:

Missed:

1. Getting in to the match, a programme, a pie, there and back on the bus for less than £5 (in 1987!)
2. Kenny Wharton sitting on the ball when we beat Luton 4-0.
3. The 'Roeder' or 'Gazza' shuffle
4. The smell of proper 'baccy' - one of my earliest memories, when stood in the West Stand Paddock
5. Graduating to different parts of the Gallowgate End the older I got.

From Martin Phillipson in Canada:

Missed:

1. "Get your flasks out for the lads."
2. "An N and an E and a wubble U C."
3. The Howay the Lads song with the crackling vinyl at the start.
4. The Electronic Scoreboard.
5. Zico Martin's hand wave before a corner and the "woooohs" from the crowd.

From Jarrod Bailey:

Missed:

1. Darren conducting the gallowgate-end singing from his barrier in the scoreboard throughout the match
2. Snowball fights with the corner when the weather permitted.......
3. Getting in for two quid
4. Squeezing through the gap between the top of the wall and the adverts at the back of the gallowgate to escape getting crushed against the wall on the way out.
5. Those little men on the old scoreboard that danced every time the Toon scored.

From Dave Anderson:

Missed:

1. The Black 'n' White (refurbished to 'strings' or summat)
2. The Darn Crook (Rosies)
3. Pay on the door
4. Sway on the terrace
5. Singing, Flags and scarves, Tommy of the Gallowgate.

Not missed:

1. Police escorts (esp for 2 hours 1 mile from an away ground)
2. Dubiously full bottles in the back of coaches
3. Various attempts at a number 9 to be proud of (Rafferty, Whitehurst etc etc)
4. Playing Shrewsbury
5. Being a "sleeping giant"

From Scott Forster

Missed:

1. Standing where I wanted, instead of sitting where I'm told.
2. Armstrong Galley, the people on them not the busses.
3. Lighting fags for Stevey
4. Watson, Elliot and Clark. 100% Black and White.
5. The Blue Star

Not missed:

1. Police Horses
2. "Could the Newcastle fans please wait....." giving the locals time to get in position
3. Being "splashed" while wearing shorts at Bolton
4. Running through Stanley Park
5. Most things involving "South" or "hampton" in the same sentence

From Chris Robinson:

Missed:

1. Keegan's burgers (no not Kevin) so rare they mooed, and surely a prime
source of BSE before anyone had heard of it.
2. Standing in the "corner"
3. "We'll support you ever more" after failing to get promotion....again.
4. "We've got more fans than you" at away games.
5. Silk scarves tied roond both wrists !

Not missed:

1. Neanderthals grunting racist abuse.
2. People pissing in my pocket.
3. Queuing like cattle at the Gallowgate end.
4. Having to take a dump in the Gallowgate "toilets"
5. Getting crushed on the way out.

From Martin Roberts:

Missed:

1. Getting into my first ever home match in 1964 for 1/6d (seven and a half pence to the under 35's).
2. PA announcement v QPR in 1968 "May we have your attention, the score at Upton Park is West Ham 8 Sunderland 0" (Cue bedlam - Geoff Hurst scored 6)
3. At Celtic home friendly in 1967. Celtic fan to mounted PC "Whats your horse called Jimmy?" Plod " He's called Sabre" Jock "Does he do tricks" Plod "of course he does" Jock "Roll over Sabre"
4. The Sombrero song (circa 1974)
5. The entire Leazes End chanting "sheep-shaggers" v Carlisle in 1974.

Not missed:

1. Queuing for the Leazes end when admission cost 45p and the gatemen never had any change.
2. Graham Oates, Pat Heard, Ray Blackhall, Mike Larnach and Frank Pingel
3. Gary Rowell
4. The smell in the Leazes on Fairs cup nights - a heady blend of woodbines, beer fumes, fried onions and farts.
5. "You're going to get your F***ing heads kicked in " after every visiting team goal.

Biffa
 


Page last updated 25 June, 2009