Newcastle United’s latest St James’ Park change is genuinely awful
It’s getting worse isn’t it?
What started off as a begrudgingly understood decision to change the club crest to something more modern has now progressed into a rebrand of everything surrounding St James’ Park and, although we could accept the interesting new stadium specific logo now present on Barrack Road, the most recent change is simply awful.
The club has now removed the wall that displayed the names of every player to ever play for the club, replacing it with wallpaper that reads “Newcastle United”.
Well, actually, it doesn’t. It actually reads “NewcasIle UnIIed”…
This one makes no sense
Like I say, the changes thus far have been understandable, but I don’t think I’ll be alone in saying that this current one is truly awful.
It isn’t simply the fact that the writing doesn’t fit on the wall it has been put on (well done whoever did that), but it is because it has replaced an excellent ode to the club’s history and every player who pulled on the sacred black and white shirt.
I will say, there isn’t anything to confirm whether the list of names will not be moved elsewhere but, sitting just up from the Sir Bobby Robson and Alan Shearer statues did feel like almost the perfect place for it and it did really fit in with its surroundings.
Whereas the new wall looks more like something from a primary school art project than it does a wonderful reminder of the club’s long history like its predecessor was.
I’m all for a rebrand, but dear me
So we’ve now gone from a simple badge change, which the club was quick to attribute to a fan consultation by the way, to three or four very poorly executed extra badges that no-one asked for, a new stadium logo which isn’t exactly the most elegant thing in the world, and the replacement of a wonderful tribute wall in favour of some tacky branding that you can’t even read.
Not sure that’s exactly what we were expecting when the club sent out that survey last year, is it?
The club may be right to try and upgrade the commercial branding and marketing around Newcastle United, but there are ways to do that without trying to pull the wool over the fanbase’s eyes or changing parts of the deep-rooted culture around St James’ Park. Because that does feel a little disingenuous to me.
