Aston Villa vs Newcastle United Post Match Scorchio!

[LeeB]

And I loved how we left 2 out when defending their first corner ... we should do that more.

On reflection, it was amusing to see MacPhee doing his nut to get Ramsey and Buendia out of our area and up the field before the corner!

I also noticed how MacPhee 'manmarked' the odious Tindall when the latter was trying to get into the 4th official's ear. It occurred to me that perhaps he has been designated as the on-the-bench shithouser on behalf of Villa's coaching team ...

Brilliant i didn’t notice this! The great survivor, you wouldn’t mess with him!

The Keith Richards of backroom staff

[eamonn]

No one fucks with the top roadie. He'll gnarl your cables and spit in your rider.

[Drummond]

Newcastle's catchment area is geographically large, but very lowly populated.  Their attendances have for years been excellent.

The one club thing and their location can't be underestimated. How many people in our area travel up to Newton Heath or Liverpool every week? I bet there are very few glory hunters from Newcastle heading to the NW on a regular basis. There are Cockney Reds, Brummie Reds, Bristol, Cardiff, you name it.

Newcastle is an outlier and a ball-ache to get to and from. The surrounding areas will go there because they can't get anywhere else that easily, other than Sunderland (obvious rivalry) and then Middlesbrough, Leeds is the next closest and that's a trek with a shit team, so there's no attraction.

If you live in or near most other big cities you can get to lots of others quite easily.

Demographia lists the UK’s most populous urban areas as:

London – 11,262,000
Manchester – 2,767,000
Birmingham – 2,643,000
Leeds-Bradford – 1,916,000
Glasgow – 1,270,000
Southampton-Portsmouth – 932,000
Liverpool – 940,000
Newcastle – 726,000
Nottingham – 694,000
Sheffield – 640,000

From that you can see that Leeds and Newcastle are by far the biggest with only one club. Leeds' argument would be the split with Bradford etc and Rugby League but they should be really well supported clubs.

[Drummond]

Just to quote a few more stats from here

Centre for Cities uses PUAs (Primary Urban Areas) in its research and lists the top ten areas – according to the latest statistics from 2021 – as:

London – 10,257,7000
Birmingham – 2,560,500
Manchester – 2,517,500
Glasgow – 1,019,900
Newcastle – 868,800
Sheffield – 854,200
Leeds – 798,800
Bristol – 753,700
Nottingham – 685,200
Liverpool – 653,000
Manchester is rather shrunken by this metric, while Birmingham is back in second place. Leeds, deprived of Bradford, has fallen a long way down the league tables. And Southampton and Portsmouth, two cities once again, are nowhere to be seen.

Let’s look at the populations of England’s largest metropolitan counties, per the Office of National Statistics:

Greater London – 9,078000
West Midlands (Birmingham) – 2,936,000
Greater Manchester – 2,819,000
West Yorkshire (Leeds-Bradford) – 2,314,000
Merseyside (Liverpool) – 1,412,000
South Yorkshire (Sheffield) – 1,396,000
Tyne & Wear (Newcastle) – 1,125,000
…and of some of the bigger official “cities” they contain (2021 figures):

Birmingham – 1,153,000
Leeds – 792,000
Sheffield – 582,000
Manchester– 558,000
Bradford– 532,000
Liverpool – 494,000
Bristol – 470,000
Newcastle – 296,000
Sunderland – 275,000
Wolverhampton – 261,000

[Risso]

I've said it before but there can't be many urban areas (excluding old Soviet places I've never heard) in Europe that have never had a team in the Champions League.

[amfy]

The other dynamic at play in a one club town is simply a mentality of not having a choice about who you support. Once you have a choice about who you support within your own city or town, the choice to support a team from somewhere else becomes more of a possibility. In a one club town, even people with no interest in football support that club.

[Monty]

The other dynamic at play in a one club town is simply a mentality of not having a choice about who you support. Once you have a choice about who you support within your own city or town, the choice to support a team from somewhere else becomes more of a possibility. In a one club town, even people with no interest in football support that club.

A friend of mine told me recently that Catania and Palermo are around the top-ten for most supported clubs in Italy for similar reasons. Catania are in Serie *D* but they still show up.

[pauliewalnuts]

You really need to go to Newcastle to understand how the club is the club 'of the city'.

The ground is right in the centre of town, high up, and unavoidable. It 'imposes' itself on the city in a way that I think far exceeds, say, Leeds United, which is another club in a one club city.

[pauliewalnuts]

The other dynamic at play in a one club town is simply a mentality of not having a choice about who you support. Once you have a choice about who you support within your own city or town, the choice to support a team from somewhere else becomes more of a possibility. In a one club town, even people with no interest in football support that club.

A friend of mine told me recently that Catania and Palermo are around the top-ten for most supported clubs in Italy for similar reasons. Catania are in Serie *D* but they still show up.

Although worth noting that the south of Italy and even Sicily are absolutely awash with Juventus supporters.

Juventus, who rebuilt their own ground 25k seats smaller and don't always fill it, would attract much bigger crowds if they played half their matches somewhere like Bari.

I'd even suggest that, within Italy, Juventus have proportionally more plastic supporters than Man United do in this country.

[LeeB]

You really need to go to Newcastle to understand how the club is the club 'of the city'.

The ground is right in the centre of town, high up, and unavoidable. It 'imposes' itself on the city in a way that I think far exceeds, say, Leeds United, which is another club in a one club city.

Leeds is built on the siege mentality of Revie, they think everyone hates them and they're right.

[Monty]

The mainland south much more than Sicily though. Back in the 50s supporting Juve (and to an extent Inter and Milan) showed that you weren't some hick provincial and were instead a real Italian (all connected with not speaking the dialects and so on). Kind of depressing really, but the young at least are less like this.

Sicily, yeah they're there, gloryhunting is endemic everywhere, but Sicilians have always been genuinely different. Their language is officially recognised and stuff - they've just never particularly *wanted* to be Italians (not in a separatist way, they just don't care).

[Drummond]

One of my favourite parts of the game on Saturday was McGinn ploughing through Burn on the touchline in front of the Trinity with a tackle that was so ferocious I thought he'd get booked.

[not3bad]

Just to quote a few more stats from here

Centre for Cities uses PUAs (Primary Urban Areas) in its research and lists the top ten areas – according to the latest statistics from 2021 – as:

London – 10,257,7000
Birmingham – 2,560,500
Manchester – 2,517,500
Glasgow – 1,019,900
Newcastle – 868,800
Sheffield – 854,200
Leeds – 798,800
Bristol – 753,700
Nottingham – 685,200
Liverpool – 653,000
Manchester is rather shrunken by this metric, while Birmingham is back in second place. Leeds, deprived of Bradford, has fallen a long way down the league tables. And Southampton and Portsmouth, two cities once again, are nowhere to be seen.

Let’s look at the populations of England’s largest metropolitan counties, per the Office of National Statistics:

Greater London – 9,078000
West Midlands (Birmingham) – 2,936,000
Greater Manchester – 2,819,000
West Yorkshire (Leeds-Bradford) – 2,314,000
Merseyside (Liverpool) – 1,412,000
South Yorkshire (Sheffield) – 1,396,000
Tyne & Wear (Newcastle) – 1,125,000
…and of some of the bigger official “cities” they contain (2021 figures):

Birmingham – 1,153,000
Leeds – 792,000
Sheffield – 582,000
Manchester– 558,000
Bradford– 532,000
Liverpool – 494,000
Bristol – 470,000
Newcastle – 296,000
Sunderland – 275,000
Wolverhampton – 261,000

That's weird, how come Primary Urban Area London has a bigger population than Greater London?

[paul_e]

Just to quote a few more stats from here

Centre for Cities uses PUAs (Primary Urban Areas) in its research and lists the top ten areas – according to the latest statistics from 2021 – as:

London – 10,257,7000
Birmingham – 2,560,500
Manchester – 2,517,500
Glasgow – 1,019,900
Newcastle – 868,800
Sheffield – 854,200
Leeds – 798,800
Bristol – 753,700
Nottingham – 685,200
Liverpool – 653,000
Manchester is rather shrunken by this metric, while Birmingham is back in second place. Leeds, deprived of Bradford, has fallen a long way down the league tables. And Southampton and Portsmouth, two cities once again, are nowhere to be seen.

Let’s look at the populations of England’s largest metropolitan counties, per the Office of National Statistics:

Greater London – 9,078000
West Midlands (Birmingham) – 2,936,000
Greater Manchester – 2,819,000
West Yorkshire (Leeds-Bradford) – 2,314,000
Merseyside (Liverpool) – 1,412,000
South Yorkshire (Sheffield) – 1,396,000
Tyne & Wear (Newcastle) – 1,125,000
…and of some of the bigger official “cities” they contain (2021 figures):

Birmingham – 1,153,000
Leeds – 792,000
Sheffield – 582,000
Manchester– 558,000
Bradford– 532,000
Liverpool – 494,000
Bristol – 470,000
Newcastle – 296,000
Sunderland – 275,000
Wolverhampton – 261,000

That's weird, how come Primary Urban Area London has a bigger population than Greater London?

because there are towns that are basically indistinguishable for the London sprawl that are outside Greater London.

Edit - think about places like Watford, Esher and Epsom.

[LeeB]

I'd rather not have to think about Watford in all honesty, I've been there