Saturday 27th August 2016, 6.05pm (day 1,829)
St. James’ Park, Newcastle, is the greatest, and certainly the largest, true city-centre football stadium in England. Capacity over 50,000, and all ten minutes’ walk from the train station — well, 10 minutes to the bottom of the main stand anyway. If you are an away fan you then have about another 10 minutes’ climbing of stairs to negotiate: I don’t think I’ve ever been so high up in the air watching a football match before. Good views therefore; better than anything we endured on the pitch today, a poor performance (Newcastle United 2, Brighton and Hove Albion 0).
Being 42 