THE TOON 1. THE FROGS FROM STRASBOURG 1. (STRASBOURG WIN 3-2 ON NEEDLESS PENALTIES!)

 Posted ‘5:38pm bells 🔔 Munday 17th August 2026

VIEW FROM ROW ‘Y’ IN THE GALLOWGATE END

“THE AMERICANISATION OF WOR GREAT GAME CONTINUES UNABAITED!”

If anybody can put the finger on just why we struggle to score goals, then you’ve only got to witness wor farcical penalties yesterday, which were a farcical conclusion to the game in its own right!

Again—and with a completely different team from the day before, we struggled to create any chances—and az for shooting at the goal, —“pass the baall sideways to somebody else!” az I am terrified to have a shot!” seems to be the order of the day!

Indeed it woz Strasbourg who had the orly chances to take the lead at The Gallowgate End and anly luck and poor finishing denied them 2 goals at least! ie: Wor defence iz still full of holes!🕳️ 🕳️ 🕳️ 

And then in the 25th minute a dreaded hydration break woz signaled by the ref, to loud booing from the crowd!  I checked the temperature on my telling bone 📱 and it woz just 19 degrees centigrade! Absolutely nee need at aall to stop play!— World Cup Americanisation at its finest!

The breakthrough DID come in wor favour however in the 38th minute when Jacob Murphy sent a cross to Will Osula and he wellied the baall into the net at The Leazes End, to the delight of the 34,000 plus inside SJP (Couldn’t spot any Froggies 🐸 anywhere?)

A shot and goal at last to put us 1-0 up!

There were nee more goals in this QUARTER!  — The hydration break woz far more than the added on time—In other words, we-saw less ball time in this half because of this!

Incidently, NUFC played in wor aall dark blue 2nd strip, followin the forst qwaataa of the Leverkusen game in wor new home shirt and then wor light pink 3rd strip after that, coz the colours clashed!

In other words we played in aall 3 of wor strips in 2 games in 2 days!---Must be some kind of record!--like?

The 2nd half woz played mostly in wor half az we defended the Leazes goal and sure enough wor leaky defence conceded in the 69th minute, just after the 2nd hydration break, when Jacob Murphy lost possesion just ootside the penalty area and Yassine fired past Ewan Jaouen in The Toon goal! (He'd just come on!)

There woz nee more scorin and just az aa woz aboot to 'up sticks' and leave at the final whistle, an annooncement came ower the tannoy to tell us that there would be a penalty shootout, should the score remain 1-1----And of course it did!---Why oh why we must have a shootout in a meaningless friendy iz something else we seem to have inhereted from  the USA---They hate draws and games to decide the winners gan to penalties!

ANYWAY! Another 15 minutes of valuable drinkin time were used up to watch this farce!

Strasbourg were 1st to take a penalty at The Gallowgate End:

Reyna's shot saved by Jaouen 0-0

Osula skyed the baall high into the stand 0-0

OSULA RUNS UP TO HIT THE BAALL HIGH INTO THE STAND!

Yassine scored 0-1 to them

Ramsey hits a similar shot to Osula and skyd the baall towards the moon! 0-1 to them

Amoungou scored 0-2 to them

Neave scored (Horray!) 1-2 to them

Del Blanco's shot saved by Jaouen 1-2 to them

Toure scored (Horray!, Horray!) 2-2

Demba Diop scored 2-3 to them

Bamba hits post and Strasbourg win the shootout, withoot their goalie makin one save, to win The Visit Malta Cup!

The question IZ—-If Leverkusen won The Visit Malta Cup on Saturday and Strasbourg won The Visit Malta Cup on Sunday, WHO actually won it? —-Certainly NOT NUFC!

One very young Toon fan couldn’t bear to watch the penalty shootout!⬇️

Footnote: NUFC Lasses lost 2-0 to Inter Milan Lasses before the main game, meaning that we had a hat-trick of defeats ower the 2 days!

Before the match I heeded for The Bodega on Westgate Road and the bar woz virtually empty 2 hours before the 4 bells kick off!

Aaltogether there were 3 customers includin ‘me’ , another Toon fan in wor new aall blue strip and a local who iz not a futbaall fan!

To serve us we had 3 bar staff—1 for each customer!

I then moved to Rosie’s Bar which iz within hocklin distance of SJP, which iz normally rammed on match days-  Not yesterday however and this photo woz taken an hour before the main match!⬇️

Considerin the boozers we’re SO empty before the game And there wernt many to watch the lasses— so I woz told—the attendance woz much higher than I expected!⬇️

OWER THE 2 DAYS A TOTAL OF 73,137 WERE IN ATTENDANCE!

THE TOON 1. BAYER LEVERKUSEN 2. MALTA CUP

 PPosted ‘high noon bells’ 🔔 Sunday 16th August 2026

VIEW FROM ROW ‘Y’ IN THE GALLOWGATE END!

The forst of wor doubleheader ower the weekend ended in defeat v Leverkusen at SJP!

It took wor Jawman visitors just 44 seconds to open the scorin, when Maza sent a curling effort past Hornicek in the Toon goal, az wor defence looked half asleep!

A great start eh!

The strips looked similar and hard to tell apart from distance az we started in wor liquorice allsorts new black n white kit and durin a hydration break in the 24th minute (to loud booos!) we restarted in wor light pink third strip, much to my confusion!

(Leverkusen had a similar white back to their shirts)

TOON PLAYERS CHANGE SHIRTS DURIN THE HYDRATION BREAK (UNBEKNOWN TO ME AT THE TIME!—DIDNT NOTICE TIL THE RESTART!)

At first i didn’t realise that we had changed and it only registered after aboot 30 seconds, when we attacked the Leazes goal!

We didn’t look the part az we struggled to create anything, with Wissa, Waltermade and Elanga ineffective!

A bit of hope came in the 44th minute when Malik Thaiw heeded into the far corner of the net from a Elanga corner kick! HT 1-1

 In the second period we attacked the Gallowgate goal, with most of the play at the far end, az Leverkusen went for a second goal!

THE NEW STRAWBERRY CORNER SCREEN

Waltemade made a reet hash of a shot, when he should have scored!

 But that’s az good az it got and the killer blow came in the 86th minute when Boniface (who had just come on!) fired past Hornicek to win the Malta Cup for the Jawmans (At least we reached the final!)

Another defeat in pre season and just one week til the proper season starts!

The top deck of the Milburn and Leazes stands were completely empty with Leverkusens smaall band of aboot 25 followers situated in the Leazes/ Gallowgate corner, dressed in red⬇️

THE NEW GALLOWGATE END SCREEN

Footnote: Toon fan Michael Oliver woz the referee, but it made nee difference!

Today we will play a completely different startin eleven against Strasbourg of France in wor last friendly fixture before we face The Liverbirds at SJP next Sunday in the Premyaa Leegue opener!— Play like we have played so far in pre season and there’s only one outcome I’m afraid!—and it izzint 3 points for ‘us’!

We need more signings for sure—but will they come before next week????

TOON TRIPLE HEEDER

 Posted ‘high noon bells 🔔’ Saturday 15th August 2026

“WE LIVE IN HOPE!” 🙏🏻 

NUFC play the first of 2 games at SJP v Bayer Leverkusen of Jawmany today at ‘3:00 🔔 and then tomorrow it’s Strausburg of France  at ‘4:00 🔔 bells’ (2 completely different teams will line up on both days)

Before tomorrow’s game the NUFC Lasses play Inter Milan Lasses of Italy in a ‘1:00 bells 🔔 kick off!

With just one week to gan before the Premyaa Leegue starts, we still havvint signed any marquee players, while 4 have gone! (Gordon, Tonali, Bruno and Tripps)

We can anly hope that some will come before transfor deadline day on Septembaa 1st—or else we are in for a lang hard season, if the friendly games we have played are anything to go by! 

Lucky 1-1 draw v non leegue Gatesheed   

4-1 defeat at Championship Bristol City 

 3-1 defeat v mediocre Evaatin at Murrayfield  

Lucky 2-1 win at Valencia! 

It’s exactly wot happened last season, in terms of incoming transfers, with panic buys in the last few days of the summer window expected! (Watch this space!)

Only at NUFC!

A full match report on today’s game sometime ower the weekend and the ‘4 bells 🔔 game tomorrow, on Munday!

381 murrayfield, edinburgh, scotland

 Ground number 381 (382 including Motspur Park, Fulham from ootside)

Date of First Visit: 12th August 2026

Murrayfield, Edinburgh, Scotland

Everton 3

Newcastle United 1 (Harvey Barnes)

Attendance: 22,982 (At least 10,000 NUFC fans and less than 5,000 Everton fans)

Friendly fixture

“AN ECLIPSING NON EVENT!”

It's 7:01pm bells and the near total eclipse of the sun iz ower Edinburgh!⬆️ 🌚

And 10 minutes before the above picture

⬇️ 🌞 

Another new groond to add to the list and the 3rd one in Edinburgh, alang with Easter Road (Hibs) and Tynecastle Park (Hearts)!

We caught the 11:12 bells train from 'The Central' (station) and arrived in the Scottish capital one and a qwaataa hours later!

We then had to wait for a number 1 bus on Princes Street for half an hour to take us to the west end of Edinburgh for the pre match 'gargels', which took another half an hour! (Nearly az lang az the 120 mile train jorney!)

The forst 'port o call' woz ⬆️ The Corstorphine Inn where we partook in a couple of pints of 'Twisted Thistle' booze, 

before heedin to 'The Terrace', ⬇️ not far from the tram stop to take us to Murrayfield!

The tram jorney took less than 10 minutes and there were large queues to get in the Toon end---and we soon foond oot why!

When we got to the tornstiles 'Blokey', had wor 4 tickets on hiz telling bone and when he tried to scan them the phone wouldnt connect and there woz a circle on the screen that just went roond and roond---In other words it wouldnt doonload wor tickets to get in!---Panic stations!!!!---Eventually the gadgy on the turnstile saw wor problem and eventually let us through, 🙏🏻 az we'd tried for 10 minutes with nee success, az the queue grew longer behind us! (Modern technology?---Bring back paper tickets and you wouldnt have this problem!--Thats wot I say!)

Anyway, we just made it for the '5:15 bells' start and foond wor seats behind the goal!  It had cost us a mind bogglin £65.40 includin £10 bookin fee and admin fee from Ticketmaster, az we bought the tickets when they forst went on sale, with nee consessions for oldies, like us!----Dynamic pricing then came in coz the tickets wornt sellin and they eventually dropped to £25 for the same section of seats!---In other words, if we'd waited, we could have saved £40 each! (For Ticketmaster read RIPOFFmaster!)

The top decks of aall of the stands were completly empty (suprize!--suprize!) so the crowd woz well under half of the 67,000 capacity for Scottish rugby internationals!  At least 10,000 plus were NUFC fans and 5,000 or so were Evaatin fans behind the far goal! (The crowd woz later given az 22,000, meanin that it woz in fact anly one third full!)

The game kicked off az The Toon attacked the 'Evaatin end' wearin wor horrible new lilic thord kit (Nearly az bad az wor 'liquorice allsorts' home strip)

Yoane Wissa had a couple of chances orly on when he tried to lob ower Evaatin keeper Travers and then had a shot that skied the bar!

Anthony Elanga then had a shot on target, but Travers saved it---The anly time in this half that we actually did so!

Barry put Evaatin in front in the 28th minute when he ran straight through wor defence and fired into the net in front of The Toon faithful!—-and then a very dubious penalty decision against Joelinton a few minutes later woz converted by Ndiaye to put the Toffee Noses 2-0 up!

WE never looked like gettin a goal back and it woz still 2-0 to ‘them’ at the break!

New manager Matt Jaissle then took aall 10 outfield players off and replaced them with 10 new ones for start of the 2nd half!---With anly goalie Hornicek retaining  hiz place for the restart! (see below)

It made nee difference at aall, az we struggled to get oot of wor own half az Evaatin went for a 3rd goal!---It came in the 74th minute when George sent a shot which went just inside the post, to give wor goalie nee chance!

A consulation 'tap in' goal by Harvey Barnes came in the 85th minute from a Jacob Murphy cross, but nearly half of the 10,000 plus Toon fans had departed after Evaatin's 3rd goal and never saw it!

Near the end on a very hot summers day with the sun shinin brightly in the evenin sky, it got dark aall of a sudden (see pictures) when there woz a 90% eclipse of the Sun, by the Moon!

And on the pitch 'The Toffee Noses' had completly 'eclipsed us' az the game came to a dark ending, in more ways than one! (sic!)---Play like this against The Liverbirds and Spursy in wor forst 2 Premyaa Leegue games and there will be anly one outcome!--And it won't be 6 points!

NUFC need at least 4 new players before the proper season starts, or else we will be in BIG trouble!

We heeded back to Waverley station to catch the train yem, but not before the final ‘port o call’ just ootside the station to drown wor sorrows!

It woz then homeward bound with a vodka and coke in forst class 🧐 to while the time away, az we crossed the border back into England!  

WOR SECOND NEW GROOND IN FOWER DAYS!

 Posted ‘high noon 🕛 🛎️ bells’ Wedinzday 12th August 2026

MURRAYFIELD STADIUM, EDINBURGH—

“NEW GROOND!—-NEW GROOND!” 🤪👍🏁

“ECLIPSED!” 🌚

‘THE NUFC mad-sad groundhoppers’ have another new groond to visit in a few hours time, when we face Evaatin at Murrayfield in Edinburgh in a ‘5:15 bells 🔔’ kick off!

Having visited the iconic Mestalla Stadium in Valencia last Saturday, we now heed north of the border for another iconic stadium, aall be it an International rugby stadium, to boot!

An eclipse of the Sun iz due to happen come kick off time, so let’s hope the floodlights are working!? 

EDINBURGH AT 5:15PM BELLS 🔔 

A Geordie Times match and boozer report will appear here sometime on Thorzday!

Az per usual—“Watch this space!”

FOOTNOTE: King Kev woz last rest yesterday, in a private funeral!

Wor openin date title will now revert back to gold from black, which we did in respect of Special K

RIP KING KEV (Lost but not forgotten!)

380 camp de mestalla, valencia, spain

Ground number 380 (381 includin Motspur Park, Fulham from ootside!)

Date of First (& last!) Visit: 8th August 2026

Camp De Mestalla, Valencia, Spain

Valencia CF 1 (Ugrinic)

Newcastle United 2 (Yoane Wissa, 2)

Attendance: 41,383 (2,000 Toon fans, 'up in the gods'!)

Orange Bat Trophy Final

"LIKE A BAT OUT OF HELL!" 🦇 

THE ORANGE BAT TROPHY WINNERS *** NUFC

We travelled on the Friday for this Saturday neet time friendly for the 'prestigious' Orange 'Bat' Trophy----A game Valencia play every year at The Mestalla! (Their badge features a large bat, az that iz the crest of the city!)

It woz roastin hot when we got there via Toon airport, Amsterdam and Valencia!

We dumped wor bags in the Ibis hotel near Valencia airport and went straight on 'the hoy' in the hotel bar—and then to the centre of the city, 15 minutes away on the Metro! (Seee bar crawl pictures below this article)

After drinkin in several locations with the temperature in the high 30s it woz time to heed nearer to the hotel for the final 'liquid lubrications' before retirin for a good neets 'shut eye'! "ZZZzzzz!"

Most of the bars didn't open til high noon bells the next day, but it woz just az well az the game didnt kick off til 9 bells'  Still plenty of time to dee a proper pub crawl!----We decided to visit the site of their new 70,000 seater stadium 3 miles from their old one--and got the Metro to a station near the groond to take some photos, before gannin on 'the hoy' again, startin at a cafe bar nearby!---

By the time we went to the match we'd done six or seven more on the way ---and the bit we dreaded woz the walk up the nineteen levels of stairs, to the top tiers! (Nee lifts!)

242 stairs later (Blokey coonted them!) we reached wor level, with breaks to get wor breath back every 20 or so stairs (It woz still in the mid 30s and breathin in hot air iz NOT good for your health!)

The stadium iz unreal, with very steep stands gannin up and up to reach the sky, which are suroonded by residential tower blocks on every side!---The sad thing iz that they are gannin to move 3 miles across the city to the new stadium, which they started buildin  nearly 20 years ago! (They ran oot of money, but now the stadium iz nearly complete!)

The game kicked off with plenty of spare seats in the home stands, with the 2,000 Toon fans on the 2 levels highest to the sky,  behind one of the goals! We were in the slightly lower away section!

Disaster struck aalmost immediatley az the 'new boys' entered they fray!  A bad mix up between wor new goalie Lukas Hornicek and wor defence, let in Valencia's Ugrinic who fired home in front of the Toon faithful! 1-0 to them!

Elanga then had a perfectly good goal ruled oot for offside and then the main talkin point of the game came sometime later in the 39th minute, when Gaya went in on Elanga with studs showin to leave wor number 19 in agony on the pitch!---A full scale battle then ensued az angry Toon player confronted Gaya, who woz 'red carded' by the ref! 

The home side held on til half time az we huffed and puffed in the heat, even though the old 'current bun' (sun!) had went to bed! (It woz still 31 degrees accordin to mee 'telling bone'!

NUFC brought 4 subs at the start of the 2nd half, includin Lewis Miley's younger brother Mason, Steur, Toure and Wissa!

And it woz Yoane Wissa who scored the equaliser, 7  minutes into the half, when Valencia's Rodreguez played a horendous back pass to their goalie and Wissa woz on hand to intercept the baall, to score an easy goal to level the scores 1-1

And then in the 77th minute it woz Wissa again, who played a one-two with Toure and fired into the net with their keeper stranded, to send the 2,000 Toon fans into raptures! 2-1 to us!

 Henry Johnson (who we'd never heard of?) and Dylan Charlton then came on and in total 20 players were used!

We hung on to win the Orange winged Bat Trophy (or whatever its caalled!)which woz displayed to the Toon fans after the final whistle! 

(We didnt see the 'Bat' Trophy presentation, az we didnt naa that there would be one and left az the final whistle blew!)

New manager Matthias Jaissle woz pleased with the result, but not exstatic, az we were anly playin against 10 men for most of the match!-----Impovements need to be made and with a rumoured 4 new player in the pipeline, things arnt az bad az we thought it would be, with 3 key players movin on this transfer window!

Anyway!---we heeded back to wor hotel on the other side of Valencia on the ram packed Metro for some celebratory alcholic beverages, anly to be told that the bar closed at 11:00pm bells!--(It woz after midneet) THE BAAAASTARDS!--And aall they could serve us woz bottled waataa!

Next day (Sunday) it woz off to the city centre again where the temperature approched 40 degees!---The hottest day a'v ever known!

So! *Az yih dee!" more hydration breaks were needed to keep cool in various locations!

It woz soon time to heed for the airport to catch the flight back to Amsterdam, which woz uneventful---apart from the fact that we were charged 11 Euros a pint!---And then had the nerve to ask us to drink up after 15 minutes, az they were puttin the chairs on the tables and dimmin' the lights!

But much worse woz to follow!

KLMAMITY!

Wor flight from Amsterdam to Toon airport with KLM woz on time and we boarded quickly!---We took off on time for the one hour flight ---BUT!!! 20 minutes into the jorney an annoocrment from the captain told us that:  "They had a technical problem and would have to retorn to Amsterdam immediatly!"

We landed back in Amsterdam and 'az luck would have it' (If you can caall it 'luck') we were told that there woz another plane to take us back to The Toon!

Of course it would take time to unload the passengers and baggage and prepare the new plane!

It took a canny while, but we were soon back in the air and arrived safe and well some 2 hours late in the orly hours of Munday mornin' 

*That's SIX times we had landed and taken off from Amsterdam from Friday to Sunday! (A world record, perhaps!?)

 We heeded to the car, where 'Jimmy the Riddler' had parked hiz 'jam jar' in a lang stay car park, which he had pre paid, but when we tried to get oot the barrier wouldnt open because the time parkin limit had now run oot! (Of course!) 

He went to the kiosk to explain to the gadgy what had happened with wor flight and thankfully he gave Jimmy a pass card to let us oot of the car park to take us aall yem! 

OH! the joys of followin NUFC home and far away!

PUB CRAWL PHOTOS: We visited 16 different drinkin dens in total in airports and Valencia

FRIDAY: TOON AIRPORT

FRIDAY: AMSTERDAM AIRPORT

FRIDAY: VALENCIA

SATURDAY: VALENCIA

2nd VISIT TO BEAR CLUB

SUNDAY: VALENCIA

3rd VISIT TO BEAR CLUB

SUNDAY: AMSTERDAM AIRPORT

11 EUROS A PINT!

VARIOUS PHOTOS FROM VALENCIA

THE MESTALLA

EL TEMPLE DEL CAFE

MERCAT COLOM

THE LOCAL DOG CATCHER SHOWS OFF HIS SKILLS!

A BAT PAVING STONE

THE NEW MESTALLA

VALENCIA METRO STATION

THE BULL RING

LA SEU

BEERS AND TRAVELS BAR

VALENCIA METRO STATION (CITY CENTRE)

THE LOUNGE

MASIA DEL VINO

'HE'S ON A SEA FOOD DIET---WHEN HE SEES FOOD HE STARTS EATING!

FATALIST CRAFT BEER

“WE WOZ THERE!”⬇️(The proof)