FA Cup game to be televised....

Courtesy of www.nufc.com....

Sunday saw the draw for the FA Cup Third Round staged, with Newcastle handed an away tie against Championship side Brighton and Hove Albion - who knocked us out at the Fourth Round stage last season on their own ground.

And sensing another "upset", ITV1 have now confirmed that they will show the tie live with an amended kickoff time of 12.30pm on Saturday January 5th - another hoof in the plums for away fans handed a teatime game at Arsenal the previous Saturday at the whim of ESPN.

Brighton - Magpies cup history:

A 3-0 Fifth Round home win over Albion in 1930 came courtesy of a Hughie Gallacher hat trick, while two Third Round meetings during the 1980s were both settled at St. James' Park - neither to our advantage.

A 1-1 draw at the Goldstone Ground in January 1983 meant that the sides met again on Tyneside, on a night when referee Trelford Mills became infamous after disallowing two home goals. Peter Ward netted what proved to be the winner for Jimmy Melia's side, as the Gallowgate End chanted "its a fix".

Three years later though and there was little to moan about as the Second Division Seagulls went ahead inside the first minute through Eric Young. Future Magpie coach Dean Saunders scored a late second to seal our fate.

And after beating Blackburn at home in the Third Round last season, Newcastle's first visit to the Amex Stadium ended in a single goal loss, with the goal credited as an OG against Mike Williamson. Yohan Cabaye was then handed a retrospective three match ban for violent conduct after extensive lobbying by ESPN's Ray Stubbs.

Seagulls v Magpies - all time:

1961/62 won 4-0 Allchurch, Thomas, Kerray, Suddick
1978/79 lost 0-2
1982/83 drew 1-1 McDermott (FAC)
1983/84 won 1-0 Waddle
1989/90 won 3-0 Quinn 3
1990/91 lost 2-4 Quinn, Brock
1991/92 drew 2-2 G.Peacock, Kelly
2011/12 lost 0-1 (FAC)

 

a good opportunity for a daytime drinky session for those not able to make the long trip down to the south coast.

 

Well that's us out then

 

Have we got ourselves into enough of a pickle to treat this game seriously? Pardew always says he takes cup games seriously, but his selections say different. Now we are struggling in the league and looking extremely unlikely to get Europa that way, maybe we genuinely need to win a cup to get back in that comp and keep our better players?

 

12.30 pm for another long haul game, the FA need to step in and protect the fans a little. The kick off's shouldn't be allowed to be changed willy nilly for TV. There's plenty of games for them to cover, they should at least try to make the early or late ko's for games that don't mean the fans suffer all the time. Setting off at ridiculously early times and getting home as the cows come home.

I see the Premier League fixture for our game against Spurs on February 9th. has been changed too, it's now a 12:45 ko. At least a 5:00 am departure. I'll be having to start taking Nanna naps soon.

 

They don't need fans or there money now they have such good TV deals... Think they'd rather we all stayed at home and watched it on sky! F-ing ridiculous.

 

The FA cup is a comp we should give a go this time.

Lack of quality or depth cannot excuse our latest FA cup exits, we've just lacked bottle and real interest.

 

The fans would be missed if the games were played at empty grounds and there was no atmosphere. The players wouldn't get any encouragement and the passion would go out of the game and eventually, people wouldn't want to watch it on the box.

 

Vicious cycle isn't it... But it's already happening to an extent. Man Utd apparently have to play the sound of cheers in their stadium...?

If clubs are making so much money they can cope with not having full stadiums, then surely they might as well reverse the situation (or arising situation) where the majority of those who can afford to go to games are the ones who don't make noise (either being too middle-class, not really caring because it's just corporate etc)? I can't see how putting up prices and going further and further towards having to implement Fifa fan graphics and artificial sound is the sensible option...

 

Never thought canned heat would make it this side of the pond...

On a similar note, any ideas why our attendances are down this season: is it purely performance related or are there other factors involved?

 

Got to be a mixture of performance and recession... It's obviously getting harder to find people willing to pay hundreds of pounds to watch ****!

 

Financial hardship?

 

Yeah, I thought this was probably the reason, but as JPF stated "It's obviously getting harder to find people willing to pay hundreds of pounds to watch ****!"

 

Southampton and Stoke were definitely ****, but last night was well worth the money. More of the same please.