While the future home of Newcastle United remains up in the air, talk of a temporary home after St James' Park has taken focus. Could Newcastle find solace in Scotland as they seek a temporary home?
Last week, news broke that Sunderland's Stadium of Light was being considered as a temporary home for Newcastle United. This was quickly shut down by both clubs, however, which has seen the focus shift North to Scotland.
Now, a new option has come to the surface in the form of the home of Scottish Rugby, Murrayfield. With a capacity of over 67,000, the famous rugby stadium would undoubtedly provide a fitting home for Newcastle United. However, the long journey for home fixtures would present a different problem, not only for fans but also for travelling sides.
Murrayfield did once host Scottish side Hearts for a short period, so the ground does have a history of playing host to football sides.
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Newcastle United Murrayfield option
With hopes of playing at the Stadium of Light firmly shut down and the Riverside seemingly not being considered, there are not many options for Newcastle United to explore. While heading North of the border seems like an interesting option, it opens up even more issues. Edinburgh is roughly 120 miles away from Newcastle, a cool 2 hours by car or train. This also means that sides travelling to Newcastle would have to eat this extra journey. For Southampton, for example, that would see them travel over eight hours to play the fixture.
The positive is that the stadium has no issues of rivalry, and, given the lower volume of Rugby games played, it would allow Newcastle to make the stadium feel like home. The high capacity would also help, allowing Newcastle to, at the very least, maintain matchday income revenue, depending on how much Murrayfield would want as a fee for hosting the games.
For now, we suspect we'll see even more stories like this in the coming year, though we think alternative sites may not be required for the most part.
FGG says: A good neutral option with major flaws
On paper, Murrayfield does make some sense. It's a neutral venue, with a large capacity and with the schedule to allow for a Premier League football side to play a lot of matches here. That said, Newcastle will also be aiming to be a regular in Europe by then, which would put even more pressure on any temporary home.
It's certainly a better option than the Stadium of Light. However, we wonder if the Premier League could have issues with Newcastle playing so many games even further North than they already play. Though, that in itself could spark an interesting debate about the Southern bias in the Premier League.