Eddie Howe once said there was no such thing as a 'dead game' for Newcastle United. It is any wonder after a whopping 87,452 fans clicked through the turnstiles to watch the Magpies' pre-season friendlies against Atalanta and Athletic Bilbao at St James' Park earlier this summer?
Yes, some Geordies attended both matches, but it is hard to think of many other arenas in the country that would have had such numbers for back-to-back exhibition matches. That remarkable figure was another reminder of the palpable excitement on Tyneside - just weeks after 30,000 online users queued in an effort to snap up the final 1,000 season tickets that went on sale ahead of the new campaign.
Satisfying that demand will be a welcome challenge for the hierarchy moving forward and a very different problem to the one the previous regime faced when 10,000 half-season tickets ultimately had to be given away in the Ashley era. So how will they do it? Well, rather than building a new stadium elsewhere, the owners instead plan to work with the city council to see what they can do in the long-term to one day expand the stadium.
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The challenges the hierarchy face to increase the capacity to between 60,000 and 65,000 supporters have been well-documented, whether it is the East Stand backing onto the listed Leazes Terrace or Mike Ashley selling the lease to the land around Strawberry Place, which makes adding seats to the Gallowgate End that much harder. However, as complicated as expanding the stadium will be, through speaking to various figures, nothing can necessarily be ruled out.
Former owner Sir John Hall previously told ChronicleLive that 'if you've got the time and the money, you can probably solve the problems - but it's going to cost you'. Architect Christopher Lee, meanwhile, who was the mastermind behind the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, said that there are 'always solutions' and progress has been made in arena redevelopment even since the owners first did their due diligence on the club a few years ago.
The hierarchy plan to at least exhaust every avenue and they are certainly not giving up. That already feels significant as John Waugh explained after previously helping Sir John take over the club with the Magpie Group in the 1990s.
"I will tell you one little statement that will make it possible: bloody-mindedness," Waugh told ChronicleLive. "Just being sheer bloody-minded and determined."
Waugh is well-placed to comment. It is more than 30 years ago now since Waugh and fellow Magpie Group member Alan Rooney worked with city architect Trevor Skempton on a feasibility study, which looked into the potential expansion of St James'. As club historian Paul Joannou points out in his book, Fortress St James', one proposal, which incorporated a giant amphitheatre, shopping mall and office complex, gave a flexible ground capacity of between 30,000 and 80,000 supporters.
The plans really were ahead of their time. Vast upper decks were to be added to the Gallowgate and Leazes. A huge hydraulic sliding screen would separate the football arena from a multi-purpose stage and theatre at the Leazes End of the site while more than 200 sky boxes would be constructed by suspension from the roof.
The project had a notional budget of £100m and Skempton believed that it would have been possible to ultimately accommodate 80,000 supporters at St James', but the pitch would have had to be moved a few metres sideways away from Leazes Terrace as part of a gradual development.
"The pitch move was fairly modest because the intention was to complete the stadium reconstruction in several phases so that there would be no disruption to the playing seasons," he told ChronicleLive.
"The club also looked at building a new stadium nearby within Leazes Park. The urgency of the Taylor Report combined with the early success of Kevin Keegan’s team prompted the club to abandon plans for a new stadium, or a pitch move, and redevelop the existing stands instead, notably the expansion of the Milburn Stand."
Skempton's phased development would have potentially made future expansion easier, but Sir John inherited a crumbling St James' Park and opted for a swifter design and build solution, which was the easiest way to get the development done in the timescales and costs the club could afford at the time.
The capacity was increased to 36,610 and all four corners of the stadium were finally covered by the summer of 1995. However, by that stage, Newcastle were already challenging for the title and there was a remarkable demand for tickets. In fact, at one point, there were close to 20,000 names on the waiting list for season tickets.
Newcastle simply needed a bigger stadium - and fast. Plans to build a new arena at Castle Leazes, with the potential for 70,000 seats, failed in 1997 before St James' was expanded to its current capacity, 52,305, by 2000. However, the stadium could have been even bigger with the Skempton scheme.
"John always regretted that we didn't do it," Waugh added. "His fear was we would build a great, huge stadium and it wouldn't be full because the atmosphere with our fans is so good. Then he realised. When it started moving, he thought, 'Oh my God.'"
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