Internet Football Ground Guide - Away Days, St James Park, Newcastle United

St James' Park - Newcastle United FC
Saturday January 1st 2005
V Birmingham City, Premier League 3pm
By Nicky Rockall

1 Why you were looking forward to going to the ground (or not as the case may be)

I was looking forward to going to the ground as I have heard and seen from the TV that it's a great ground. Wanted to see for my self! Was also looking forward to seeing the Blues beat (hopefully) Newcastle and win their 1st game of 2005 (well it ended 2-1 so that was not the case!!)

2. How easy was your journey/finding the ground/car parking?

The ground was so easy to find, as was the parking. We were coming from Northampton and so we looked at the directions on Ground Guide (as always) and followed them, when we got into Newcastle we followed the signs and found the ground really easy! There is car parking about a 2mins walk from the ground and we found a space really easy. Cost us Ł5 to park all day- not bad!

3. What you did before the game pub/chippy.... home fans friendly?

Before the game we went into the Shearer Bar- WOW!! That was impressive! No problem that we were away fans everyone very friendly. The Bar was amazing- there were screens everywhere and it was really up to date and modern, the place was very busy and there were no more places to sit so we had a drink and left. Wanted to get food so we walked about 5 mins and were on a strip of pubs walked down a few couldn't get in one place as were had my boyfriends little brother (well he is not little 6 foot 4!! but they wouldn't let us in as you have to be over 18!

Went to a few more but they were so busy so we walked back to the ground and had a burger at the van outside the ground- did the job lovely. Went for a drink in a pub just down from the ground- think it was called the sports man, very nice in there not atmosphere and there were away and home fans.

4. What you thought on seeing the ground, first impressions of away end then other sides of the ground.

Got into the ground and had to walk up 14 flights of stairs- personally I am not to keen on heights so I found it a little bit high at first but soon got used to it!

A 1st impression of the away end was the height, we were really high and kind of out the way but it was still a good view. We had home fans to our left and right but there were no problems we had the banter. The ground was really nice all together though. Looked really big. The seating was good, we had loads of legroom and weren't squashed in too much.

5. Comment on the game itself, atmosphere, stewards, pies, toilets etc.

The game itself was disappointing as we lost 2-1. Weren't playing to well 1st half........ But that's a different story. The atmosphere was good were tried to sing but when the home fans started we were finding it hard to compete!! But we did our best. The stewards were good, to be honest didn't see to many of them, it was mainly police, but again they were fine, only stood up when we scored, rest of the time they were very laid back. The Bar area was nice, all the plastic glasses had the Newcastle badge on them. Didn't take to long to get served and the pies were hot!!! All the facilities were really good, can't fault them.

6. Comment on getting away from the ground after the game

Because of how close we parked we got out really quickly. Was at bit slow to start with because of the volume of people but when we got moving we didn't stop. Straight out no problems were really impressed.

7. Summary of overall thoughts of the day out

Had a really good day out, shame about the weather (it was raining a bit) and shame about the score but don't regret going all the way up to Newcastle. Had a great Day!!