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Opinion

Should you be allowed to support Newcastle United if you are not from Newcastle?

5 years ago
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If you are a Newcastle United fan, the answer to the above will be pretty straightforward.

For most of us anyway.

However, there has been a bit of a storm on social media after somebody claimed that only certain people should be allowed to support NUFC.

The reasoning being that unless you were born in these parts (Newcastle/Tyneside), or have a strong family connection, you aren’t worthy.

For the rest, it didn’t matter how many bottles of Newcastle brown ale (now brewed in Yorkshire..) you drink, or stotties you eat, or tattoos of the Tyne Bridge you get on your backside, you don’t apparently qualify.

Fair to say there was a little bit of a backlash to the muddled idea of keeping Newcastle United ‘pure’ Geordie.

There is a big difference in despising people for being simply glory hunters, as compared to those who end up supporting a seemingly random team via fate, or pure bad luck in the case of the unfortunates who end up following Newcastle United!

If anybody thinks there are glory hunters currently supporting Newcastle United, they must have a very different interpretation to the one I have.

The words ‘Glory’ and ‘Newcastle United’ don’t really look right in the same sentence.

It is 50 years since the last trophy and 64 years now since we won English silverware.

As for those gloryhunters who only follow Newcastle because of league titles, as well as having latched onto NUFC because they won the league, you (UK based gloryhunters) will also be the proud owner of a telegram/letter from the Queen.

I suppose some people might say that the Sir Bobby Robson and Kevin Keegan eras inspired some gloryhunting

Those enjoyable NUFC eras ended 15 and 20 years ago respectively.

If you were inspired to start supporting Newcastle United by KK or Sir Bobby and are still on the ‘bandwagon’ now, you deserve a medal and not derision.

If you are a Geordie born and bred and still live around these parts, supporting Newcastle United is easy. Yes the football is rubbish a lot of the time but you still have the matchdays, you have the pub before and after games, you have your family, friends, workmates also following the club, it is still a shared experience seven days a week.

If you happen to live in Torquay or Tehran, rather than Tyneside, what have you got to keep you going?

As somebody once said to me, it isn’t about when you started supporting Newcastle United, it is when you end it.

If you decided to support the Toon around December 1995 and then decided in May 1996 that it wasn’t for you, then yes, you are very likely a gloryhunter.

If you are still supporting Newcastle United today, wherever you are from, then you are a Newcastle fan.

Two relegations, Championship football, transfer spending lower than when you started supporting in the 90s, Joe Kinnear, Dennis Wise, no trophies, no hope…if you are still clinging on after all of that (and much much more) then good on you.

Newcastle United need all of the support they can get.

If we win the Premier League and Champions League and people want to flock to the church of St James (Park), then I’ll reassess how I feel then.

However, for anybody in 2019 who isn’t cursed due to birth/family and yet is still wanting to support NUFC, climb/stay onboard.

You might be quite all there but then that’s fine because you will fit in with the rest of us who were ‘lucky’ enough to be born into this madness with no other choice.

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