Newcastle United Supporters Clubs Introducing NUFC Perth

Welcome to the latest addition to our new feature on Newcastle United Supporters Clubs.

This is now a regular feature and after NUSC Singapore, Toon Army Chicago, Toon Army Minnesota, Toon Army Baltimore (Mobtoon Mags) and Hong Kong Newcastle United Supporters Club, we now welcome NUFC Perth.

Our thanks to Andrew McWilliams and everybody else from NUFC Perth.

We want to feature Newcastle United Supporters Clubs from all over the globe, whether in the UK or overseas.

If you help to run one of the Newcastle United Supporters Clubs and would like to see your club featured on The Mag in the future, please drop a quick email to contribute@themag.co.uk and we will send you the questions and other info, then once we get your replies we will schedule your NUFC Supporters Club to go up.

Name of your supporters club?

NUFC Perth

(Photo above– This was taken at our recent meet up for the Sunderland FA cup game. It shows the four admins (Left to Right) Dean Gibbs, Anthony Margaretic, Andrew McWilliams and Gavin Flannery)

How big an area do you cover, drawing fans from?

We represent all of Western Australia but as it’s such a huge area most of our members are based in Perth and the surrounding suburbs.

Year it was formed?

2015

How/why did it get started and who were the main people responsible (tell us a bit about your / their background)?

The group was originally started by three of us, Gavin, Andrew and Shane (2 born and raised in Newcastle, 1 in Perth).

After a conversation in a bar in Jurien Bay we arranged a venue and a meet up. It started out well with us getting good numbers and a few games at good times to watch in the pub (these are rare in Perth).

However, this was the season under McClaren when we got relegated, so we lost the ability to watch the games the following season. During this time, we all relocated which meant we couldn’t host anymore, so the group went stagnant for a few years until 2021 when Dean and Anthony (both born and raised in Perth) made contact and said they wanted to take the reins.

They started looking into hosting some meets and within weeks the takeover happened and interest spiked. From there, interest has grown with the club and meets have gotten bigger and more popular. Gavin and Andrew have since moved back to Perth and the group is now ran by the four of us.

‘This photo is from our first meet up back in 2015. It was a home game against Southampton where we drew 2-2.’

How many people are part of your supporters club? Is it an official membership that people join?

At this stage our group has around 500 members. There is no official membership and no fees, though we have started trying collections for wor flags at our meet ups.

What is your presence online, do you have Twitter account, FaceBook, website, whatever?

Most of our interaction is through our Facebook group. We also have a twitter page to try to reach those who don’t have a Facebook account.

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/groups/279637400674922/

Twitter – https://twitter.com/NUFCPerth

If somebody lives in your area and wants to join up with you, how do they get in touch (or somebody who might be visiting your area)?

We are most active on our Facebook group so that would be the best way to reach us. If they don’t have social media we can be reached via email at perthnufc@gmail.com.

Tell us a bit about your people / membership, what kind of split is it of Geordies / ex-pats and locals, also any other way you would describe your people and the mix?

We have a healthy mix of Newcastle born and Perth born Geordies (Probably a 50/50 split), with a few people from elsewhere in the world sometimes joining us.

When it comes to people who had no previous connection to Newcastle United / Newcastle Upon Tyne, what are the typical things that have led to them start and follow NUFC?

A lot of the Aussie members have parents or grandparents that came from Newcastle originally.

But several started supporting for random reasons. For example, Shane was given a Newcastle bag by his uncle when he was a kid and it all grew from there. He spent his teens listening to the metro live radio streams at midnight in Perth.

Anthony just came across a game on tv as a kid that his dad (a West Ham fan) was watching and something about the black and white stripes stood out to him.

But for most members with no previous connection it was the entertaining football on display during the Keegan and Robson eras that drew them to the club.

Do you have a regular meeting place to watch matches? If so, what’s it called, where is it and what kind of numbers turn up?

We have had a few meeting places so far but recently we have held very successful meets at Varsity, Northbridge. This is a great sports bar right in the heart of Perth so it is perfect for our meet ups. We had a good presence for the Nottingham Forest game in there on Boxing Day and for the recent Mackem game we got around double what we were expecting and pushed the bar to its 160 people capacity. Unfortunately, some fans got turned away. The bar staff were more than happy to deal with the large crowds though and they’ve enthusiastically agreed to host us again for the next meet up.

Address:

94 Aberdeen St, Northbridge WA 6003

What are the very best and very worst UK kick-off times and what time are they in your area?

The games we really look for are the 12:30pm UK kick off times as these are generally shown at 7:30/8:30 on a Saturday night in Perth. The most difficult are probably the 5:30pm UK kick off times as they tend to start in the middle of the night over here. And we seem to have had a lot of them this season.

‘At Everton away last season’

Tell us about some of the big characters who are part of your supporters club?

The group was started by Gavin Flannery, Shane Knapp and Andrew McWilliams in 2015 and was brought back to life by Dean Gibbs and Anthony Margaretic in 2021. Since then Joe Bamborough, Gee Bennet and John Shenton have been in regular attendance at our meet ups. These might be familiar to people back in the toon as they were regulars on the away scene back in the day.

There are countless other characters among the group. Some people travel as long as two hours to get to our meets so there is real dedication over here. A special mention goes to Anthony Gartner, who’s the only one so far to make the long journey to the national supporters meet up on the east coast.

Have there been group visits from your supporters club to Newcastle / England for matches?

There hasn’t been any group visits but members regularly post about their trips, with mixed results. In the past year, some were lucky enough to be there for the 6-1 hammering of Tottenham and the PSG Champions League win, while some went all the way there to see the disappointing losses to Liverpool and Nottingham forest.

Back in 2022 Dean and Andrew happened to be on holiday in Singapore at the same time and went along to watch a game with the supporters’ club over there. They were happy to host us and it was great to see them featured on The Mag recently.

‘Singapore – Group admins Andrew and Dean with the Singapore supporters club for the Southampton away game in Singapore, 2022’

We are also affiliated with the “Aussie Mags” group which links together the various supporters’ groups across the country. They have hosted a national meet up for the last two years. As mentioned earlier, one of our members travelled over to Sydney to the event in 2022 and a couple of us had booked to go to the Melbourne meet in 2023 but had to drop out due to other commitments.

It’s difficult for our members to attend these as although they’re in the same country, it’s still a 3.5-5 hour flight to get to them. Perth is one of the most isolated major cities in the world. Australia is massive.

‘Sydney – NUFC Perth member Anthony Gartner (Front right) at the Aussie mags national meet up in Sydney in 2022’

Any planned for the future?

At this stage nothing but hopefully we can arrange something in the future. Particularly for members who’ve never been.

What would be involved in travelling from where you are based to Newcastle Upon Tyne? How would you make the journey, how easy / difficult would it be, what kind of rough costs involved?

It’s obviously a long journey. Though it isn’t as difficult as it used to be.

The easiest route is to fly Perth-Dubai then Dubai-Newcastle which works out at about 24 hours travelling and £1500 return depending on the time of year. Most of the Newcastle born members try to squeeze in games when they’re home for holidays, weddings, etc but it’s getting harder and harder to get tickets. It’s good to see that the club are trying to find ways to help international fans get tickets as, although I’m sure it’s frustrating for Newcastle locals, we have members who have never been and would hate for them to travel all that way and not be able to get to a game.

‘This is Andrew at St James for the 6-1 win over Tottenham last year’

When it comes to people in your NUFC supporters club, which local football club(s) do they also support, if any. Or maybe supporting teams of other sports in your area?

As far as football goes, most are only interested in Newcastle, but some do follow Perth Glory. A lot of members also have a keen interest in the “Aussie rules football” and support either the Fremantle Dockers or the West Coast Eagles (Both clubs based in Perth).

Talk us through the Mike Ashley years, how it affected your supporters club?

For us the Ashley years were more or less the same as they were for all Newcastle fans. There was a lack of ambition and hope which made it difficult to drum up interest in the group. We formed during the Ashley years but it was more out of loyalty than a genuine love of the football we were playing.

Tell us about when the takeover happened in October 2021, how did your club / members react, did you have a special celebration?

The takeover came at a perfect time for us as we had just started trying to reignite the group and spark interest. Our first meet up after the takeover was for the Crystal Palace away game which we hosted in the Casino. The mood had noticeably lifted and, despite the late kick off time, a lot of people came along. Suddenly the excitement was back and we used this to build to where we are now.

What kind of impact (if any) has the takeover and these past couple of years had on the numbers of people and interest in your club?

Since the takeover things have improved dramatically. Before the takeover people would stay up until 3am to watch out of obligation and loyalty but now people stay up because they’re genuinely excited. The passion is back and it’s great to see and experience.

Any amusing tales to tell of your meet ups, your members, your club’s trips to Newcastle for matches, or whatever?

One of the most surprising events was when we hosted a meet for last year’s Carabao cup final. Because the game didn’t kick off until 1:30 on a Monday morning the only place that we could host was at the casino. This is a great venue but our concern was the place would be crawling with Man U fans and we would be confined to a small corner of the bar. In the end the opposite happened. The place was crawling with Geordies with an occasional red shirt dotted around.

Apart from possibly meeting up on match days, does your club get up to any other activities, how do you interact / keep in touch, whatever else you’d like to tell us about what your club / people get up to?

At this stage we don’t do much outside of online interactions. We have a fantasy football group and we try to post regularly to keep up interest. It would be great at some stage to host some events with former players like other groups but at this stage the main aim is to build our group to bring together fans across the state.

In your area, what is the level of interest in Newcastle United compared to other Premier League clubs, their local supporters clubs in your area etc?

Ultimately, the biggest fan bases here are Liverpool and Man United and it’s always going to be tough to compete with them for numbers. But we have seen with some of our meets that maybe we’re not as far off from them as we first thought. If we can pick up a couple of trophies who knows what will happen.

(Last time out it was Newcastle United Supporters Club Singapore who appeared on The Mag – Go HERE to see that one, previously we had Hong Kong NUSC – Go HERE to read about them, previous to that it was Toon Army Chicago who were featured, go HERE to read their write up. They followed on from Toon Army Baltimore who were featured a week earlier – Go HERE to read their article. Whilst Toon Army Minnesota were the very first club featured – Go HERE to see their piece)