I’ve been to every single magic weekend. Both days for each.
I can honestly say this year has been totally pants. There is no magic anymore. My
Mum fell asleep, the kids were bored stupid.
Sorry Newcastle but you’ve served up some right sh*** this year. And I’m not talking just about the rugby.
No crowd interaction with the games/ cams/ compère etc. No interviews with players past or present. In fact very little entertainment at all. We got a few girls dancing about, some little kids playing, some crap with spacehoppers, And a live band you couldn’t see so Might as well put on a CD. Only One Screen - too tiny to see anything on. Sod all atmosphere -and with the cracking weather we’ve had the place should have been bouncing.
Please let’s go back to etihad- at least they know how to entertain a crowd - and we get entertainment for our money!

good to see the geordies have turned out in their droves again and packed out the stadium....

yeh right.

all about money and how much they paid for the event.

dont see newcastle in sl anytime soon.

bring it back to manchester or even liverpool

It's not the fault of Newcastle but the totally inept strategic vision and leadership of the game.
I do not have sky so apart from the fact I support a SL team so know it's in the calendar if I wasn't I would be clueless about it. The aim was to expand the game and raise its profile. There is a team in Newcastle that could have been promoted locally but it's been overlooked every year! This year the opening game is Toronto v Toulouse what's all that about surely game 1 should have been a game to pull the crowds in at the start. Rant over and no I will not be there this year!

Or first game should have been Gateshead Bradford!

Yes and it at least it would have brought more interest to potential support in Newcastle.

To me its just a few days out for those running the game to enjoy hospitality and the good life for a few days.

Except they didn’t - some were attending a royal wedding!!!!

Yep you mean Kevin Sinfield since Prince Harry is the Royal Patron of our game.

It's nothing to do with Newcastle or St James Park. It would be just as bad if it were played elsewhere.

It's up to the RFL to organise the event. They are just borrowing the venue.

The RFL are clueless, They have had 130 years or so to take the game forward and still what comes to mind is a bunch of Whippet breading Pigeon fanciers.

This 100%.

On Friday night Newcastle Thunder had their home game against us. It was a record crowd in a great stadium. There were lots of kids from local amateur clubs there. The Thunder team is on the up with some classy young local players. It was a really positive mood all round.

SL seems in the doldrums and is crying out for some decent marketing. Newcastle is just the place for the game to have Magic Weekend. They've got an up an coming team and a thriving amateur set up. It's a nice city. Why go to Manchester twice in a season?

chris thorman, born and bred geordie taking charge of a sl team on home turf....

where was the marketing to the geordies of this???

dont think they are interested anyway, would be a sell out if they were.

thats the last we will see of newcastle now i think

be somewhere else now and matchroom will take over promoting it

I will agree with you about the entertainment, but that is down to the RFL not Newcastle. Manchester for me is rubbish, people will only go for 1 of the days (not the weekend) it`s too close to home. The weekend just gone had a lot of competition from the wedding, the FA cup, the scottish cup final, plus the fact that the RFL did not promote the game as they should have. None of the locals I spoke to knew anything was on until the actual weekend. Apart from that we had a cracking weekend and so did a lot of others. Wish they would make it a permanent base.

Magic should stay in Newcastle but be held same BH weekend each year to encourage fans to make a weekend break of it and allow all to plan ahead. Keeps a good geographical spread of the prestige events at Wembley, Old Trafford and St James - it works so why risk changing?

why should the rfl promote it in newcastle?

they have already got what they wanted from them... money to stage the event!

then just rely on the faithfull sl fans to turn up

Moneys on New York for next year