- 888Sport have conducted a survey looking into the locality of fanbases in relation to their home ground across the Premier League
- Fans of The Magpies live an average of 44.9 miles away from their home ground, St James’ Park.
Football’s a global game so not every Premier League fan has the opportunity to ‘support their local’, but the roots of supporter’s fandom have now been revealed in 888 Sport’s new UK-wide research.
As expected, the absence of fans from football matches led to a crazy season in the Premier League. Amongst the wildness of the season from the Super League to VAR controversy there has been some normality, as Man City topped the table and Newcastle comfortably survived, for now anyway.
It was an up and down season for The Magpies as injuries have plagued key players and the silence from the Gallowgate End has made it hard to pick up momentum. However, Steve Bruce’s side finished the season off in-style with a record breaking goalscoring run from Arsenal loanee Joe Willock, and a Manager of the Month award in April for the gaffer. If the club can build on their brilliant end to last season and transpire it into the new campaign, Magpie fans will be desperate to make the trip back to St James Park.
In fact, when fans start piling back into the club’s historic ground, Newcastle fans will have on-average the shortest trip in the Premier as per 888 Sport’s recent research. The Magpies can boast being the most locally supported club in the division, with fans living an average of 44.9 miles away from St James Park, the shortest distance in the Premier League.
This research by 888 Sport also investigated the reasoning behind why each Premier League club chose to support their preferred team. Newcastle fans repeated this ‘local club’ mentality, as 72% of fans revealed that they solely support the club due to either growing up in Newcastle or their family originally living in the city.
888Sport representative said: “With the absence of fans for the duration of the 2020/2021 season, we looked to explore which fans would have the shortest journey back to their beloved home ground.”
We all know Newcastle is a city renowned for its love for football and loyal fanbase so the results from this research don’t come as a surprise. When stadiums re-open, we are sure the fans of Newcastle will make the 44.9-mile trip to cheer on the players in black and white.”