Newcastle Falcons vs Sale Sharks Match-Day Programme

Tom May
ALL OUR YESTERDAYS
progress in the talks in the Newcastle Journal. He wrote:
“New plans for Gosforth’s clubhouse and ground at Kenton Bank
Foot were on display in the North Road clubhouse on Saturday,
but both Gosforth and Northern members will have to wait until
their respective annual meetings to find out just what is going to
happen…..the first part of Gosforth’s annual meeting is a week
today and the agenda does say that members will have the
opportunity to hear reports ‘on the progress of negotiations and
have the opportunity to question and fully discuss the matter.”
Northern have the first part of their annual meeting on Thursday
night and although there is no mention on the agenda of
anything to do with merger negotiations, I would be astonished
if some discussion does not take place. Kingsley Hyland, writing
in the Gosforth programme on Saturday, lamented the fact that
it was likely that members would be given very little time to
make up their minds on whatever course is recommended.”
Your correspondent, anxious to see progress, was rather more
forthright than that. He wrote:
“It would be wrong to let the season’s last column pass
without mention of merger, since it is clear that the continuing
uncertainty over our future has had an effect on first team
performances. In this column on the final Saturdays of each of
the last two seasons I have written of the difficult decisions to
be made in the months ahead. Amazingly, those decisions are
still to be made. We have sold this ground. Our new site will not
be ready for next season, even if we wish to occupy it. We do
not yet know the tax implications of a merger with Northern.
We do not even know if the members of Northern will have
us or if it is the wish of our members to move in with them.
There is a feeling amongst members as deadlines come and go
that they were being kept in the dark. This in turn has fuelled
press speculation both locally and nationally. It is particularly
galling as a member of this club’s ruling body to read in the Daily
Telegraph as far back as November that Gosforth and Northern
have already merged! That decision will have to be taken this
summer. It appears however that after years of speculation,
members will be given little time in which to make up their
minds.”
In the event, Northern made up our minds for us. Buoyed by their
success in winning the County Cup they believed that they could
climb their way back to the higher echelons of English rugby on
their own, and dramatically pulled the plug on the talks.
That decision was to have major implications for the
immediate futures of both clubs. Gosforth went ahead with
the development of Kingston Park and played the majority of
the following season’s home matches as temporary tenants of
Percy Park’s Preston Avenue ground. It was a disastrous season
playing-wise, and the club’s freefall was only halted by the
momentum gained by the move to Kingston Park for the start
of the 1990-91 season. They achieved their target of promotion
to the top division within three seasons, and whilst their stay in
Division One was short-lived, the club had a solid enough base
to attract the interest of Sir John Hall when the game went
professional in 1995 and the Falcons were born.
As for Northern, their playing fortunes did not improve, and as
they continued to lose money they sold off one of their four
pitches for housing and used the proceeds to build their current
clubhouse. Merger talks were back on the agenda three years
later when Northern approached Gosforth, but they came to
nothing and precipitated the pitch sale. When the game went
professional and Newcastle were releasing players, Northern
snapped them up and flirted briefly with the national leagues
but never achieved that step up, and the financial implications
of trying forced them to sell off more land. They currently ply
their trade at level 6 in the clubs pyramid, although they have
just concluded a highly successful season which included a club
record 17-match winning run, and they wait to hear whether
they will be promoted.
Had the merger talks succeeded in 1989 it is doubtful that
the Falcons would ever have come into being, as the site at
McCracken Park off the Great North Road would not have been
able to support a major stadium development. Indeed, its only
grandstand was eventually destroyed in a fire.
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