St. James’ Park has always been more than a stadium.
It is a cathedral of the ordinary and the extraordinary, a steep-sided vessel in which generations of Geordie voices have poured their hope, their defiance, their unfiltered love.
When that vessel is full—when the Gallowgate rises as one and the flags ofWor Flags unfurl like black-and-white sails—the sound is not merely noise. It is belonging made audible. Yet even the most storied arenas can grow muted.
In recent seasons the famous roar has, at times, grown intermittent, the passion present but not always sustained. Atmosphere is never manufactured by technology alone, but the music that frames a matchday can either dilute or deepen the emotional current that runs through the stands.
It is true that the players on the pitch and the fans in the stands feed off each other’s energy in a symbiotic way. When both players and fans get raucous the “Cathedral on the Hill” becomes the “Fortress on the Hill”. Fans come to the stadium filled with excitement, anticipation, and fully energized, but too often the club lets them down by draining the energy in pre-match predictable, boring, and “safe” music that does not hit the soul of the city.
The club already possesses two sacred notes. Mark Knopfler’s “Going Home,” the luminous instrumental theme from Local Hero, has, since the early 1990s, accompanied the players as they step from tunnel into light. Knopfler, raised in the North East, wrote a piece that feels both intimate and cinematic—an invitation home. And then there is “Blaydon Races,” that sturdy nineteenth-century folk air by George Ridley, a song that belongs to the people as surely as the river belongs to the city. These are not arbitrary selections. They are inheritance.
But inheritance alone is not enough. The wider soundtrack has too often drifted toward the generic—the same stadium staples heard in grounds from one end of the country to the other. A club of such fierce local identity deserves a fuller expression of the music that grew from its own soil.
Consider the depth of that soil. From the raw, electric urgency of The Animals to the folk-rock poetry of Lindisfarne; from the elegant craft of Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits to the global reach of Sting and Bryan Ferry; from Brian Johnson—Dunston’s own, first of Geordie and later the gravel-voiced heart of AC/DC—whose “Thunderstruck” still detonates like pure kinetic energy in any arena. Consider Sam Fender, the North Shields voice who has already filled this stadium with songs that carry the grain of the region itself. Consider Junior Turner of Wallsend, whose “Banks of the River Tyne” is a modern hymn to shipyards and St. James’ Park, a song that has already been heard inside these walls and far beyond them. And consider Andrew Cushin’s “Wor Flags,” a contemporary tribute that names the very group whose banners have become part of the visual language of matchday.
These are not curiosities. They are the living archive of a place that has always punched above its weight in popular music, just as it has in football. To weave them deliberately into the matchday experience—before the teams emerge, at half-time, in the quieter passages when the crowd seeks its second wind—is not to reject the wider world of rock and pop. It is simply to insist that the first language spoken here should be the language of home.
There is a quiet power in recognition. When a supporter hears a melody that could only have been written on these streets, or by artists who walked them, the private becomes public. The individual voice joins a larger chorus more readily. The stadium ceases to be a neutral venue and becomes, once again, unmistakably itself. “Thunderstruck” can still raise the roof; Junior Turner’s anthem can still stir the chest; Cushin’s song can still honor the flags that move above the heads of the faithful. All of them can sit comfortably beside Local Hero and Blaydon Races, not as replacement but as enrichment. Let’s make St James’ Park a truly home-field advantage. Ditch “Hey Jude” and replace it with AC/DC. Put the energy back into the stadium that’ll boost the efforts of those on the pitch knowing they are playing for a truly wonderful area, whose local talent is known throughout the world.
And here’s a thought, why not really embrace the talent NUFC? The Stack and stadium are a perfect venue for a “Battle of the Bands” whereby we can add to the legacy of Geordie singers/bands and help to give local artists a helping hand.