Aston Villa (29 October 2022)

Aston Villa was important for a number of reasons, not least of which was to celebrate those who helped to start this journey and first started to show faith in the project that the owners had in mind. As an aside, there were some naysayers in those early days who felt that nobody would want o come to Newcastle. We decided to focus this display initially on those who came at the start, so Eddie and Kieran, but also show support for Miggy, Joelinton, and Bruno amongst others. We also wanted to resolve the thorny issue of the ‘Eddie Howe’s Black and White Army’ flag on the front of Milburn / Leazes corner Level 7.

Trying to not rush things, we decided quite early on what the theme would be, and order some images to be printed. We also considered printing a message, but for some time, we couldn’t settle on what that message might be, not on what material we would print on. We have had a banner printer for some time, but it is a little fallible, but we have managed to acquire a newer one which is far better, and far easier to use.

After much debate in the run up to the match, we settled that we would do a banner, and that the words we would use would be those from Trippier. We did consider using words from the likes of Agbonlahor, but felt that we wanted to talk about us, by us and from us, looking to positively support the team.

The message on the banner will be:

“This city is believing again”

Alongside that, we had a lot of work to do, cleaning up older flags, repairing some of the bigger banners, and redistributing flags across the stadium, including the Leazes end which was emptied for the large surfer last match.

Over the week, some of the team were in clearing and setting up. Others were in after delivery of the new printer, learning how to use it.

Friday night was the big push, lots of volunteers in from lunchtime to late into the evening, creating the banner, preparing the large images, clearing and repairing larger banners and sharing out all of these around the appropriate parts of the stadium.

All that done, the plan was thus:

10 people on the banner and 3 on each of the player flags. They were being put up on a cue from Rob, the stadium announcer. All went perfectly to plan, as did the end of the match, where the Gallowgate banners  went up too.

Happy days, great result, on to the next match.