Posted from 1.00pm bells' onwards Munday 3rd Novembaa 2025
(Will be updated with match pix pub crawl pix later and details of wor exhaustin’ jorney to east London and back!)
“THE CURSE OF THE GREEN STRIP!”
One things for certain! It won’t take lang to write this match report!—Will take much langer to write how we got to London and back, however!
Az soon az aa saw the startin line up for NUFC and strip we would wear, aa woz in dispair!
The startin line up before the match showed Dan Burn wearin' wor green away strip!—Honestly I 'Fink' we are cursed when we wear it, az we have done for 4 of wor 5 away Premyaa Leegue games this season!
We wore green at Bournemoooth and drew 0-0
We wore green at Villa and drew 0-0
We wore green at Brightin and lost 2-1
We wore green at West Ham and lost 3-1
The anly away Premyaa Leegue away game this season that we didn’t wear green iz when we wore wor blue 3rd strip at Leeedz and drew 0-0
Indeed, the anly time this season when we wore wor famous black n white stripes in an away game and won, woz at USG in The Champions Leegue, where we triumphed 4-0!
In wor recent history we have worn black n white stripes against aall the above teams in away games apart from Brightin who play in blue stripes!— So why can’t we wear WOR stripes when thee isn’t a colour clash?
The answer of course iz ‘strip sales’, meenin that nearly aall wor away games will be in change strips! (100% so far, domestically!)
Anyway!---enough of that!---to the match!
The alarm ⏰ bells started ringin orly on when 'The Jellied Eels Mob' hit the post in from of the 3,000 Toon fans in the away section behind that goal in the 4th minute! (Jellied Eels used to be a favorite delicasy in the east end of London)
Almost imediatleee we responded when we raced up to the other end of the pitch where Jacob Murphy hit a great shot across the box to put us 1-0 up!
But thats az good az it got az soon after West Ham were awarded a penalty when Thiaw woz adjudged to have fouled Bowen in the box near the touchline!---Luckily for us, the ref oweturned hiz decision after a lenghty VAR check and chalked the goal off!
This woz just a reprieve az the home side pounded wor goal with every Toon player on the pitch havin a nightmare game!
The equaliser woz comin and when 'The Pope' in The Toon goal punched the baall oot, instead of catchin it, Paqueta woz at hand to hammer the baall straight back and into the corner of the net! 1-1
5 minutes of stoppage time woz added because of the VAR check and just when it looked az though NUFC would gan in level at the break, disaster struck when West Ham's Bissaka crossed the baall and somehow Sven Botman managed to put the baall into hiz own goal at the near post 🫣 to put us 2-1 behind at the break!
The 2nd half woz even worse az Eddie Howe made 3 changes at the break, substitutin Waltermade, Gordon and Krafth for Osalu, Schar and Ramsey! (Aall 11 could have been substituted, we were THAT bad!)
Despite dominatin this half, we could hardly muster a shot on goal az we attacked 'wor end' of the groond!---It woz aaful and wor misery woz completed deep into 2nd half stoppage time when Soucak scrambled the baall ower the line after The Pope fumbled the baall🫣, to put the final nail in wor coffin!
In Eddie Howe's time az wor manager, this woz the worst performance aa can remember---and for the forst time aa thought that hiz job could be on the line if results divvint improve! It woz like gannin back to the days when Broken Nose Bruce woz wor manager!—Horrendous!
Az we are progressin in The Champions Leegue and Leegue Cup hiz job iz safe for now, but the PIF will NOT be happy with us langushing in 13th place in the table, with the gap between Champions Leegue qualification next season widening az the games pass!---Even qualifyin for the lesser European competitions looks a long shot now!
FT 3-1 to them!
Thiz woz the forst time that West Ham had won at home this season after sufferin 4 previous defeats and 1st home win in 9 months and WE made it '8 in a row' failures to win an away Premyaa Leegue game since beatin' Leicester last April, some 7 months ago! (We played in aall white with green trim that day!)
The curse of the green strip continues!
Attendance given az 62,441 but this must have been on ticket sales az there were loads of empty seats!
3,000 shell shocked Toon fans, who thought we would win easily!
The complicated return jorney to Tyneside woz another reason for wor misery! (See below for details later!) ⬇️
“TRAIN 🚂 TERROR!” 🔪
To get to this game, we had to get the train to Darlo from’The Central’ ( station)the afternoon before the game (1.03pm bells 🔔 train 20 minutes late—30 minutes jorney)
Get a bus from Darlo (Darlington) to Donny (Doncaster) (2 hours)
Get back on the train at Donny (bus parked a canny walk from the station)
Miss wor connection by 2 minutes (because of the above!)
Wait for another train, got to King’s Cross in London (2 & a half hours)
Tube to Highbury and Islington (10 minutes)
Overgroond train to Hackney Central (20 minutes)
Arrive at hotel and dump bags at 8 bells 🔔—7 hours to get there!
Heed for local boozers to find oot that 2 hours after wor train from Donny to London, that 10 passengers had been stabbed on the train near Huntington! (Lucky we were on an earlier train I thought)
Gan to match on Sunday 2 stops in overgroond from Hackney Central, then after game, same carry on back on Sunday neet!) Got to Central at midneet and just missed last bus yem £12 in taxi)
Including match ticket, train tickets, hotel, tubes rides and taxis —-£230 altogether —-plus food and booze on top! Ny on £300 spent to watch 💩!
(Most expensive London trip in 57 years, since mee 1st visit—-to Arsenal in 1968!)
PUB CRAWL REPORT PIX TO FOLLOW! ⬇️
