Mr Blue Star: Newcastle Blue Star 1-1 North Ferriby

For most people, the summer is drawing to a close, and while that is also the case for me, it's also onlyjust beginning. Having spent the last seven weeks teaching in Newcastle, as well as in Brno for the previous four months, I was finally getting something resembling a break. Okay, so there is a move involved in that break, but even so, I'll take it.

With all that in mind, however, I wanted to make the last groundhop in the North East (at least for the foreseeable future) a memorable one. Enter; Newcastle Blue Star, who would host North Ferriby in the FA Cup Second Preliminary Round - the final round before the First Qualifying Round, which is actually more of a Third Qualifying Round when you think about it.

In any case, it was a battle between two sides who went under and reformed quite recently (more on that later), and it promised to be an interesting affair, with the two sides having never met under their current guises.

At this stage of the competition, the remaining sides in the eighth tier entered, which included North Ferriby. Newcastle Blue Star of the ninth tier had to see off local rivals North Shields 2-1 in order to get to this stage of the competition. 

For this more regionalised stage of the competition, the two hour journey was actually quite a lengthy one for the away side. That said, they'd be able to return the favour on Tuesday night, as you can probably already tell from the title of this blog.

I had planned a trip to Kendal to continue following Newcastle Benfield's journey, but time and money said otherwise. Staying local and ticking off a local institution in Newcastle Blue Star seemed just as good a substitute.

The ground, the game, and any other business

So was Blue Star a good swansong to end my time in the North East? I would certainly say so. I left just before 12 after a fruitless Football Manager session as my newly beloved Romanian side, Petrolul Ploesti, meeting Workington fan and all 'round good egg Eugene for a pre-match pint at Mojo's in the city centre. 

After begrudgingly paying £6.70 for a pint of Neck Oil, we headed toward the city centre to catch the number 1 bus to Scotswood. We bumped into a North Ferriby and Man City fan called Chris at the bus stop, who was great company throughout the afternoon.

On getting to the ground, you can see and feel the excellent set up from the get go. We bought our tickets from the ticket office before heading in and doing the standard lap of the ground. We decided to stand with the North Ferriby supporters, of whom there were at least a dozen who'd made the journey north, with plenty of excellent North Ferriby flags.

The food was a little on the expensive side, even if the chips and curry sauce I'd paid £4.50 for was excellent. The ground itself also carries a certain charm, with Blue Star flags draping a balcony in the corner on entering. Otherwise it is your standard non-league ground, although one can imagine it is much more enjoyable than watching at 10,000 capacity rugby stadium Kingswood Park, as fans will have done before the club went under.

As was the case last week at East Fife, the game's first half was incredibly uneventful, with neither goalkeeper really being thrust into action. Things came to life in the second half, as North Ferriby won and converted a penalty through Josh Whiteley.

After this, however, it was all Blue Star, as they themselves won a penalty with ten minutes remaining. Ben Bottomley was able to make the save from Luke Carr's effort. Ferriby's Lewis Dennison was then sent off for a second bookable offence with two minutes of normal time remaining - North Ferriby were hanging on even more.

Then, in stoppage time, they could hang on no more. Blue Star were given another penalty, wich they duly converted this time through Sean Reid. Both sides will now have to do it all again in North Ferriby on Tuesday night. The draw for the First Qualifying Round should be at some point on Monday, with ties to be played at the end of the month,

 5 things you didn't know about...Newcastle Blue Star:

1. The iconic Blue Star is almost everywhere in Newcastle, and it's come to symbolise the city itself. Its origins of course date back to the foundation of Newcastle's famous Brown Ale, on which the star has five points representing the five founding breweries of Newcastle. 

2. Interestingly, this particular FA Cup tie happened to be between two relatively new sides, though both have previous iterations. The away side went under in 2019, whereas Blue Star did so after winning promotion in 2009. They reformed in 2018 and currently play in the ninth tier of English football.

3. The club were formed in response to the increasing distance between Premier League football and its fans, and with Newcastle's recent takeover, this resentment has probably only increased. In many ways, they share common ground with the likes of FC United of Manchester and AFC Liverpool, both of whom were formed for similar reasons. The AFC in fact stands for Affordable Football Club!

4. Former Huddersfield boss Lee Clark is local to the Scottswood area, so he took over as Director of Football for a brief time in July 2020, before a managerial spell in Oman at Al-Ittihad sandwiched between two spells at the same club in Sudan, Al-Merrikh. How's your Arabic, Lee?

5. Back in the 19th century, the Scotswood area in which Newcastle Blue Star are located wasn't part of the Newcastle city area at all, but it became a part of the city as it grew during the 20th century. It was essentially transformed during that time from an 'isolated hamlet' into a distinct suburb of Newcastle.