I dunno about you lot, but I get very worried about our support in the future since there are still relatively few opportunities for bairns to get into the ground. My biggest fear is the lot of them decamping to the Stadium of Light where they'd be welcomed with open (and apeishly long)arms. Why don't the club use the resrves and bairns' games as a way of attracting the kids? Let any kid who wants in come to the game free. They'd see the odd crocked star as well as the up and coming kids and second string, be close to the action and probably have a top night out. It would boost the reserves themselves by giving them a decent crowd. This would cost the club next to nothing. Am I missing something?

-- Anonymous, August 10, 2000

Answers

>>>>>My biggest fear

Now THAT must be something coming from you Dougal. It surely heads a very long list... (-;

Excellent point Dougal. Yes, kids should be encouraged to come to resorves and junior matches and the impromptu appearances of one or two star players at these events would heighten interest. (The trouble is that the kids would get pushed out of the way by me, Steph and Softie I suspect).

Great idea. Why not write to The Good Shepherd? It's a cracking idea and one I'm sure the club could use to start repairing a badly damaged image with regard to the relationship with fans. The only downside is that such games do not begin to convey the atmosphere & excitement of a game at SJP and so might not whet the appetite in the desired way, but you're right - the next generation needs to be courted constantly - there are a great many competing entertainments these days for the money and time of the individual potential fan. (And I'm not including the SOL amongst the competition!)

-- Anonymous, August 10, 2000

The more I think about this, the more convinced I am that it's workable. The club could have freebies for kids, family deals for about #3, or even voluntary contributions for causes dear to our hearts (a small pension for Jackie's widow or for someone like Alf McMichael who, I'm told, is living in incredibly narrow means).

-- Anonymous, August 10, 2000

I'm gonna report youse twos to the NSPCC. Poor little mites. Fancy making the little buggers stand oot in the cold at Kingston Park. It's aal reet fer yeez wi yer nips o' brandy and the like. The kids have only got nicked cider to drink. Aha - it's OK - Steph will look after them!

-- Anonymous, August 10, 2000

At least the little runts sing. It's more than could be said for alot of folks at SJP! though it was odd hearing "Black and white army" at a rather high pitch, it was better than not at all. :-)

-- Anonymous, August 10, 2000

Following on from Jonno's posting about the downside of not being able to savour the atmosphere at St James', why not create a voucher scheme which rewards regular followers of the reserves with a slightly discounted ticket for 1st team matches.

-- Anonymous, August 11, 2000

The thing is, they are making so little from the reserves that it has to be a lack of imagination rather than tightness that is stopping them using the reserves properly. There were about 1800 watching when we beat the Makems reserves at Kingston Park. There were 15,000 at the away fixture.

-- Anonymous, August 11, 2000

Where did the Mackems play their home game? SoS? KP is hardly the best venue to attract folks. I still think we should play high profile resorves games (and the Mackems) at SJP. Leave the Shrewsburys etc to KP but build some atmos at SJP when appropriate.

-- Anonymous, August 11, 2000

Seeing Newcastle live and having our supporter base eroded are not inextricably linked. I agree with the ideas you put forward, Dougal, but I don't worry as such about our future support. The support is generated by success (even locally), and in a strange way the scarcity of tickets sharpens the hunger, don't you think?. We can't ignore the kids and get too complacent about levels of support, so your ideas can be nothing but positive, but I'm still not 'worried'. I'd far rather have a full stadium with the inevitable difficulty of getting tickets, than a 'roll-up, roll-up, free tickets for all' attempt at buying popularity.

-- Anonymous, August 11, 2000

The reserves are definitely going to improve this season. The removal of the players who aren't good enough for the first team and yet won't improve through playing in the reserves gradually raises the competitiveness and status of the reserves. The ideal mix should be: midfielders and forwards up to about 22 (if they haven't shown it by then they probably never will - for every Ian Wright, Kevin Phillips or Les Ferdinand there are a thousand Andreas Anderssons); defenders up to at least 24 (experience is the key); a third choice keeper (the young'uns should be loaned out like Given and Harper were to gain experience in the heat of the action so this berth is best for the backup keeper) and any first teamers returning from injury or those fringe players who are being kept out by someone in good form and are therefore losing match fitness.

It's not entirely Dalglish's fault (can't believe I can say that now) that he had to buy so much mediocrity. When the reserves were reinstated he couldn't just promote the Juniors and leave them to it, so various bodies had to brought in to bump the numbers up in certain areas. When you see that 3 seasons on the juniors have only given us McClen, Kerr and Green of any note to be promoted, you realise why the Hamiltons, Bradys and Serrants were bought (Griffin, Dalglish, the Caldwells, Robinson and Coppinger are the purchased reserves who have progressed). Buying in bulk he had to offset cheapness with potential: most had featured as U21 Internationals so had to have had something, but also needed to be cheap enough that we could afford the 'job lot'. It was certainly no good buying the finished article to play in the reserves as that is pointless as well. What we have is Griffin as the major success story from the reserves so far and a whacking profit on Robinson to offset the losses on the others.

The rate of failure is no more than should be expected in the reserves, it just looked a lot worse because we had actually bought them all. Now we are discarding 7 or 8 a season but it will be simply a case of not renewing contracts rather than buying and failing to sell. That is the furthest I will ever go in standing up for him: explaining away some dodgy signings for the reserves is one thing, it does not condone the spending of money gained from the sale of great players on first team 'stars' who simply weren't up to filling the boots of their predecessors and in no way compared favourably with regard to wages.

Making it attractive to attend would involve fielding star players, and that's not what the reserves are there for. Playing at SJP would return us to the same problem that prompted us to pull out of the reserve league in the first place in that the pitch would suffer. Since they have relaxed that ruling, you will notice that virtually every other major club has also elected to not play their reserve games on their first team pitch. Anyone else who went to the reserve game held at SJP against Stockport County in 1998/9 (Nobby and Perez's debuts) will remember that the atmosphere was lousy despite having 10,000 present. The standard of football is frankly rubbish for the most part, so I seriously think it would be more likely to put kids off going rather than encourage them.

Just leave the reserves as a fringe sport for masochists and use the 2,500 spares to make sure that little Johnny gets in on his birthday. A simple cross reference with the Junior Mags list to offer little Johnny a free seat on the home game closest to his birthday and the chance for 3 seats to be used by family/friends alongside him would be a far better use of resources than buggering up the SJP playing surface to watch the not-quite-competitive football of the reserves.

-- Anonymous, August 11, 2000

>>>>for every Ian Wright, Kevin Phillips or Les Ferdinand there are a thousand Andreas Anderssons)

What a nightmarish thought Softie ... (-;

-- Anonymous, August 11, 2000

Sorry, Softie, I'm not really talking about bairns who come along with their parents, I'm talking about gangs of ten lads who want to go to a game with their mates (as they could in the past). That'll NEVER happen again at SJP. The reserves sounds like SJP was ten years ago - cold, laregly uncovered and crap football.

-- Anonymous, August 11, 2000

Ps. Monty Magpie will never do what the Schoolboys enclosures used to do. Sad but true.

-- Anonymous, August 11, 2000

Groups of lads come to Kingston Park and spend their time industriously shouting abuse at the opposing keeper and kicking gravel into everyone's eyes. As I said, the reserves simply don't offer a good enough spectacle to hold youngsters enthralled.

I think that if Monty Magpie gets you into SJP for free once a season then you are far more likely to be begging your mam and dad for a chance to go to Cup games when we will be lucky to sell 75% of our tickets in the early rounds. My personal experience was that it was my first trip to a full (yet not overly-passionate) SJP that got me wanting more, and it's only that hunger for more which takes me to Kingston Park: I watch it out of necessity, not desire - it wouldn't make any difference where it was played.

-- Anonymous, August 11, 2000

I'm not sure I agree with this. Remember there are lower league clubs who don't have first teams as good as our reserves and it is these clubs that are picking up the family supporters as they are cheaper. My point was that as a gesture it's almost no lose for the club if they give away freebie packages. I can't honestly see that many more people going in Januray than currently go but the club would at least have done something positive. Screach makes a good point, though, and one that has been used by Bobby, too: our facilities from training, to reserves to youth set up are crap and need revamping badly.

-- Anonymous, August 11, 2000

Softie,

I think the idea of free tickets for Junior Mags on their birthday is brilliant. Why not suggest it to the club.

For some perverse reason I like the resorves being at KP rather than SJP. Maybe it's because you get a different perspective, closer to the action, I don't know.

-- Anonymous, August 11, 2000

Dougal, a week on Monday you'll see what I mean. Reserve football is generally poor. The best fringe players end up being hoiked off at half time to prevent them getting injured as they prepare to sit on the bench for the first team, while the rest of them just get more dispirited and the game peters out. You can't change that. It's simply not the same as a First Team game. Even the Northumberland Senior Cup games seldom get going as the opposition are usually so inferior. You can't dress it up as something glamorous. It isn't.

These lower League sides which are so much poorer than our First Team get people going along because they are still watching First Team football that actually matters. The results get read out on the telly, the league tables are in every paper on the Monday....that is what counts. If you use the reserve tickets as vouchers for First Team games then you will simply get thousands applying every week and still nobody turning up. Reserve team football is a game played by people not yet good enough to appear on a Saturday. Plain and simple.

-- Anonymous, August 11, 2000

Fair enough, Softie. I haven't been to the reserves for years (so long ago that I'm not even sure it wasn't just competitive training for the second team) so I'm not really clear on the facts. The programme notes on the Junior Magpie Club do suggest that there are some good offers like coaches taking kids to Wembley and things.

-- Anonymous, August 11, 2000