Kingston Park

Newcastle Falcons 10-42 Leicester Tigers

5th October 2024

A hundred years or so ago when, as a kid, our family used to drive down from Scotland to Teesside to visit my mum's relatives, my dad used to have to drive through Newcastle city centre.  The A1 back then still following the route of the old Great North Road.  Crossing over the iconic arch of the Tyne Bridge even today still evokes feelings of pre-adulthood nostalgia.  

Anyway, another sight on the journey through Newcastle which I can still vividly recall, was the Gosforth Ruby club ground which stood on the current North Road in the town.  I believe the venue was called The New Ground; the club having moved there from The Northumberland County Ground (now an ASDA supermarket) in 1955.

Gosforth stayed at The New Ground until 1990 when they decided to sell up and move to the newly completed Kingston Park in the west of the city - taking up the name of Newcastle Gosforth at the same time.  The New Ground was redeveloped for housing, with the Greystoke Park housing estate now occupying the site, should you be familiar with that part of the world.

The site of the Gosforth Rugby club's former home; The New Ground.
(Image stolen from www.northeastheritagelibrary.co.uk)

The arrival of professionalism into rugby union saw a splintering of the club into the Newcastle Falcons and Gosforth RFC; the former taking their place in the inaugural English Premiership, the latter remaining in the local amateur grades.

The professional arm, aided and abetted by the deep pockets of local businessman Sir John Hall initially thrived in the professional era.  They were Premiership champions in season 1997/98 pipping Saracens by a point, and also won the Rugby Football Union Knockout Cup on a couple of subsequent occasions.  

But as the new Millennium arrived, Falcons found themselves finishing in the bottom half of the Premiership table more often than not; culminating in a bottom place finish in season 2011/12 leading to relegation to the Championship.  The club bounced back at the first time of asking, as they did after suffering relegation again in 2019.  But since then is hasn't half been hard going for the Newcastle side.

Season 2023/24 saw the club lose all eighteen of their regular season Premiership match, being only reprieved from relegation due to that season's Championship winners Ealing Trailfinders' ground not meeting the required standards for Premiership membership.  

Kingston Park - Newcastle Falcons

Panorama of Kingston Park

Going into this match, Newcastle had lost both of their 2024/25 season league matches so far which, if one included losses at the tail of the 2022/23 season, meant the Falcons had strung together a losing streak stretching to 23 matches.

And that tally was extended to 24 this evening, as Leicester comprehensively out-muscled and out-gunned their hosts, scoring seven tries to Newcastle's one.  It was significant that the homesters' solitary try - scored by club captain Callum CHICK - was managed only when Leicester had a couple of players temporarily sin-binned.

We saw three Scots on the pitch at various points for Newcastle: Murray McCallum, Kiran McDonald and Thomas Gordon - all former Glasgow Warriors.  But none of them made any lasting impression upon either myself nor, indeed, the match itself.  There was, regretfully, no sign of the other Scot (or Englishman with a Perth grannie) in the Falcons squad, the wonderfully named Ollie Leatherbarrow.

  

The West Stand

The camera guys (or, at least this one) had a sheet with pics of all the
players taped to their camera.  

I think the intention here was to hit the crossbar, rather than one of the posts.

Also during the break we saw a minor drama, as a chap on his stag do
(dressed as a Disney Princess) was tackled by his best-man on the pitch,
knocking him out cold.  He was tended on the pitch, before
being taken to hospital where all, we learnt, was well.  

  

Freddie Steward scoring Tigers' fourth try

It takes real skill with a camera to take a pic like this.

Leicester's Hanro Liebenberg scrambled over the line on his hands
and knees for his side's seventh try of the match.