From Lambeau Field to St James’ Park, Packers Fans Head To Newcastle! | Discovering Football

0:00 In Green Bay, you're born with green and gold in your blood.

0:04 OH MY GOODNESS, that is mightly impressive.

0:07 The farm base and everything is so similar to Newcastle.

0:09 John Nixon and the Packers will win it.

0:13 So, we made it to Newcastle.

0:15 Flowning all the way over from Green Bay, Wisconsin.

0:18 Welcome.

0:18 Welcome to the

0:19 Good to see you guys.

0:20 This is amazing.

0:22 Incredible.

0:23 I got goosebumps.

0:24 It's our heritage, our culture.

0:26 It's crazy.

0:27 When this goes [music] up, it'll just be absolutely breathtaking.

0:30 This is so unique to European football, right?

0:33 I'm understanding more and more what your club means [music] to you,

0:36 but even more specifically, what this match means.

0:41 Biggest game [music] for 10 years.

0:42 Pressure is huge.

0:44 Nothing like this would ever happen in the NFL.

0:46 Best club in the world.

0:48 Supported them since I was little.

0:49 I'm never going to stop.

0:51 Black and white.

0:51 No matter where you go in the world, run through your veins.

0:54 There is only one side.

0:55 There is only one team.

0:56 You never change your [music] stripes.

0:58 Our stripes are black and white.

1:00 And this is our home.

1:07 So, we made it to Newcastle.

1:09 Flowing all the way over from Green Bay, Wisconsin.

1:12 Yeah, it's been a couple months.

1:13 I'm excited to see them.

1:15 Going to be fun to experience their traditions

1:17 and see what their match day is like, right?

1:20 Great to finally be here.

1:25 I don't know why everybody always says that the weather here is so bad.

1:28 It's been sunny and beautiful.

1:30 [laughter] Hey,

1:35 good to see you guys.

1:36 [laughter]

1:38 Hi.

1:37 How are you?

1:39 Welcome.

1:39 Welcome to the tune.

1:40 We call this the Cathedral on the Hill.

1:43 Now, this is your end, right?

1:44 This is my end.

1:45 This is the Galagate.

1:47 Yeah.

1:47 Do you know why it's called the Galagate?

1:48 Because they used to have the gallows here.

1:51 Really?

1:51 So, the last person hung was a long time ago.

1:54 Time to live our life for a few days.

1:57 Yeah.

2:01 Welcome to St.

2:02 James's Park.

2:05 There we go, boys.

2:08 Incredible.

2:08 There we go.

2:10 This is amazing.

2:12 I got goosebumps.

2:13 [laughter] Believe it or not, we played football here for over 140 years.

2:19 My father brought me here in 1968.

2:22 This fantastic even then green grass.

2:26 Distinctive smells.

2:26 [music] The breweries.

2:28 You could smell the hops.

2:30 Yeah.

2:30 Oh, sure.

2:31 And my dad's bill cream that he used to put on his hair.

2:33 [laughter] I've got to say, sadly, my dad passed away in 1971.

2:39 I was just a young boy.

2:40 I was just nine.

2:42 But he said [music] to me, "Son, this is the greatest team in the world." Wow.

2:47 Those words have stuck.

2:48 Yeah.

2:49 So my family Yeah.

2:50 Of course.

2:51 There is only one side.

2:52 There is only one team.

2:54 You never change your stripes.

2:55 Our stripes are black and white.

2:57 And this is our home.

2:59 So welcome.

3:00 Welcome to our home.

3:11 Wow.

3:11 Wow.

3:12 Look at the back.

3:13 I like that.

3:14 Awesome.

3:14 [laughter]

3:16 Wow.

3:17 That is so cool.

3:19 It's so different because in the NFL you have 53 active players.

3:24 Yeah.

3:24 Plus you have what 12 or 15 guys on a practice squad.

3:27 Like the Packers new locker room.

3:31 Yeah.

3:30 It's probably 10 10 times the size of this.

3:34 No.

3:34 One day you don't have many songs.

3:36 [laughter]

3:38 Yeah.

3:41 Wow.

3:40 It's awesome.

3:41 Holy cow.

3:43 This is incredible.

3:52 So, this pub's been here for generations and hundreds of years,

3:56 but no doubt beforehand people would have frequented this for a pre-match drink.

4:01 So, I guess people arrived by horse in them days.

4:04 I love the history.

4:06 I mean like by by us at at Lambeau

4:08 Field like the longest 10ard bar is 30 years old, you know, 34 years old.

4:15 You probably meet people in here who've been there for 30 years.

4:18 [laughter] So we're going to go to the utility arena

4:23 and then [snorts] there's an organization called War Flags and they

4:26 make all the flags to for all of our games.

4:29 Hopefully we're going to get a little glimpse of it.

4:31 So they're putting it all together right now.

4:33 Gavasu, it's under close wraps.

4:35 Okay.

4:36 So, nobody knows what it is.

4:37 Nobody knows.

4:38 Massive surprise for the day.

4:44 Wow.

4:48 Huge.

4:48 Most games there'll be some sort of war flags display.

4:52 This looks like it's going to be huge.

4:55 Usually we'll have a surfer comes down in the galagate,

4:57 so we'll be underneath it.

4:58 So, I can never figure out what it is cuz I'm always under it.

5:02 Again, this is the the biggest one that's ever been in the UK.

5:05 So Oh, really?

5:07 I started this one 10 to 12 weeks ago.

5:12 That is a mammoth task.

5:14 That's crazy.

5:16 We're all volunteers.

5:17 Yeah, they're all volunteers.

5:18 Go and grab some cable [music] ties and put some on.

5:20 [laughter] Yeah.

5:23 The story is effectively how our city's [music] bigger and better than Sunlands.

5:27 [laughter] About every third square.

5:30 Okay.

5:30 Yep.

5:30 Takes a lead.

5:31 [music] Yeah.

5:31 After about 200, he'll be flying.

5:34 [laughter] I mean, this is so unique to European football, right?

5:42 Like, nothing like this would ever happen in the NFL.

5:45 It's our version of a flyover.

5:46 Yeah.

5:46 Right.

5:48 Right.

5:47 Yeah.

5:47 Yeah.

5:50 I think when [music] this goes up, it'll just be absolutely breathtaking.

5:56 So, are you the artist that designed it?

5:58 Right on, man.

5:59 That's very cool.

6:01 All right.

6:01 All right.

6:01 So, you're not as bad as I initially thought you were.

6:03 Yeah.

6:03 [laughter] Right.

6:04 Just that damn bear's hat.

6:07 Yeah.

6:09 We're heading south now and we're going to take

6:12 you to a nice little piece of art.

6:15 Okay.

6:14 And it's called the Angel of the North.

6:18 Okay.

6:19 When you see the Angel and you see the time bridge, you're home.

6:22 You know that you've made it back home.

6:25 I think you might get a bit of a fright when you see how big it is.

6:28 It's huge.

6:30 Holy cow.

6:31 You weren't kidding.

6:32 It is massive.

6:34 Wow.

6:34 That's incredible.

6:35 Oh, she's big.

6:36 Wow.

6:37 I think it's a perfect like representation of of what

6:40 this city was about back in the industrial era.

6:47 It does kind of summarize, you know, a lot of our history,

6:50 a lot of the industry that was there,

6:52 a lot of the steel and the iron works that [music] were around.

6:55 Um, but being from the north isn't just one thing.

6:58 It's a collective thing

7:00 and the pride in our city and as we talked about in Wisconsin,

7:03 the pride in your city, one city, one club

7:07 in being a Newcastle fan.

7:09 Well,

7:09 that again is part of our social upbringing.

7:12 It's our heritage, our culture.

7:14 I'm understanding more and more what what your club means to you,

7:18 but even more specifically what this match means.

7:22 Do you know of any Newcastle fans that married Sunderland fans?

7:27 There's a couple.

7:28 Yeah, the marriages didn't last, of course.

7:30 [laughter] So, as you know, I've I've had cancer

7:35 and I just kind of I saw the support of like the whole football family.

7:42 Yeah.

7:41 And I think what was best for our family at that time

7:43 was to take him out of the equation and send him to football.

7:47 [laughter]

7:48 And whilst you might think it's quite bad, I remember my first surgery,

7:52 him him sitting me down going, "Right, we're playing Spurs away.

7:59 [laughter]

7:59 I felt bad.

8:01 Where do you want me?

8:02 And I was like, well, I'm going to be in hospital.

8:04 I'm not going to know anything.

8:05 I'll be asleep.

8:06 Mom's going to be with me.

8:08 It's a lot better for her.

8:10 You go to Spurs.

8:11 And he's like, I need to ask you and your mom, where do you want me?

8:15 I was like, Spurs.

8:17 Yeah.

8:16 I need you to go to Spurs.

8:18 So, that was it.

8:19 And then just the support from the whole football family.

8:23 I mean, they carried us through a lot of it.

8:26 Yeah.

8:26 Yeah.

8:26 Yeah.

8:27 And then that got me back into it and it was just that whole like,

8:29 oh, there's more to it than just the game.

8:33 Yeah.

8:32 And then like now you can go in, it's [clears throat] like, "Hi, Sarah.

8:35 You're all right." It's just

8:38 Yeah.

8:37 It is just It's the community as well.

8:39 If you put the football to one side,

8:41 everybody cares for you and everybody's there

8:44 for you and it's it's Yeah, it's beautiful.

8:47 What should we expect tomorrow?

8:49 Yeah, I mean, I can feel the tension and anxiety building in myself already.

8:54 kind of even think about it.

8:56 It's just it's that dreadful thought of not winning.

9:00 Each game is important, but there is no doubt that this has an extra tension.

9:06 Every corner you turn, there will be somebody singing.

9:08 There'll be groups of people.

9:09 There'll be herds of [music] people.

9:11 And then as we make our way up to the ground,

9:14 it's just going to be a sea of black and white

9:15 singing every song you could ever imagine on the way.

9:20 Best club in the world.

9:21 Supported them since I was little.

9:23 I'm never going to stop it.

9:25 Black and white.

9:25 No matter where you go in the world, runs through your veins.

9:30 Happy match.

9:33 It's going to be a good game.

9:35 Come on.

9:37 Biggest game for 10 years.

9:38 The pressure is huge.

9:40 So, the pressure is on the team to respond from being beaten off Barcelona,

9:44 but the pressure is also on to beat your local rivals.

9:47 And the pressure is on for three points at home.

9:49 Let's just hope our lads can bring it home.

10:01 This is incredible.

10:06 Come [screaming] on.

10:14 Look at that corner.

10:17 [screaming] Going in there and hearing the songs,

10:30 every seat having the flag, the war flag,

10:32 it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

10:35 This was incredible.

10:36 Absolutely incredible.

10:39 [screaming]

10:44 [screaming] [cheering]

10:50 That's it.

10:51 We're done.

11:04 It probably wouldn't have been in Newcastle story if

11:06 it didn't end in tears [laughter] because we go down,

11:10 we get back up, and that's fine.

11:12 [music] That's fine.

11:12 and we'll do that.

11:13 As I've said many times, Jordies are resilient.

11:17 Yeah, Jordies are happy people.

11:19 We'll get on.

11:19 We'll move on.

11:20 It's been just such a such an incredible weekend and it gives us,

11:23 I think, such a greater appreciation

11:26 for [music] not just Newcastle United and St.

11:28 James's Park and and the Time Derby, but all of the Premier League.

11:32 Hopefully, it's not our last, right?

11:33 We got to try to make back to another game here in the near future.

11:36 Let this be our only experience at St.

11:37 James Park being a loss.

11:38 Oh, don't think that there is anything like that that exists in American sport.

11:43 It has been amazing.

11:44 It's been so much fun.

11:47 Absolutely.

11:47 And remember, always a always a place in the northeast

11:49 [music] um or a Greg's pasti shop if you wanted.

11:53 [laughter]