My First visit to St James' Park

By Jack H (Aged 10)
February 26 2007

Everyone remembers their first visit to St James' Park with great affection. Recently I took my son to his first game. He tells his story here:

My first visit to watch Newcastle United play a match was at St James’ Park (Newcastle Utd v Zulte Waregem) on Thursday 22nd February 2007 this was in the Uefa Cup.

First, we went to Frankie & Benny’s at The Gate for a pizza.

Then we went straight to St James’ Park.
I bought a programme on the way to the ground.
We arrived about 30 minutes early.
We went for a look in the club shop.

We went to Shearer’s bar and met up with some of the old members from Tyne Talk. (Steer, Rodders and Jessica)

Then we went to find our seats.

We had make our way to find the Milburn stand. Our turnstile number was 7/8/11/12, which was easier to find than we thought it would be as there were signs that clearly marked the entrance.
We then had to find our access point which was a bit harder to find because there were fewer signs.
Eventually we got into the stadium and found our seats quite quickly as there were lots of stewards who were there to help you.
Our seats were on the second row from the pitch and as we sat down, my Dad pointed out that John Barnes and Peter Beardsley were talking to each other for the TV just in front of us.
John Barnes and Peter Beardsley are both ex-footballers who used to play for Newcastle United a long time ago.
The away fans were whooping and shouting up above us in the stand. We had seen some fans earlier and lots of them seemed to be drunk. My dad said that this was because they were as good as out of the Uefa Cup and had only come along for the beer.

The players jogged out onto the pitch and all of the crowd were cheering and clapping for them.

The match started slowly with Newcastle kicking from The Gallowgate End.
I already knew the players but my Dad was keep telling me who they were and kept telling me what he thought they were doing right and wrong.
There were lots of men in the crowd that thought they knew better then Glenn Roeder.

Obafemi Martins scored the only goal of the game.
I even saw him do his acrobatic celebrations afterwards.

My favourite player was Damien Duff.

The match was a quiet one in the end and no-one had guessed the scoreline correctly.
I said 5-0
My Dad said 3-1
Steer said 2-1
Rodders and Jessica said 2-0

I look forward to returning to St James’ Park again for another game soon.

Until then “Howay The Lads !”