At the start of our new era as Newcastle Red Bulls, Kingsley Hyland delivers a timely trawl through the club’s history books, looking at how we have coped with change throughout our 148-year existence.

WHAT’S IN A NAME – COPING WITH CHANGE

Rugby followers are a fairly conservative bunch. They are not comfortable with change. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that amongst the outpourings of delight and relief at the news that the immediate future of the club had been secured by Red Bull, the small number of discordant notes related to the club’s change of name. Having spent 30 years becoming comfortable with the concept of the Falcons, they must now adapt to becoming the Red Bulls.

The reality is that the club that now calls itself Newcastle Red Bulls has been around a long time – it will celebrate its 150^th birthday in less than two years – and a quick skip through the club’s history in that time will demonstrate that it has managed successfully to overcome similar seismic changes in its past.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

When the club was formed as Gosforth Football Club by a group of former Durham School pupils in a private house off Gosforth High Street in September 1877 it had no ground on which to play, no clubhouse and no playing kit. It overcame the latter by adopting the green and white hooped shirts of their former school.

It played its early matches on land adjacent to Ashburton Road or on the South Northumberland Cricket Club ground. The teams changed in a back room of the County Hotel and returned there for their post-match hospitality. The club’s only asset apart from its players was a set of rugby posts. Nevertheless, the club survived these challenges to become one of the founder members of the nascent Northumberland Rugby Union in 1880 along with the Northumberland Rugby Club, the Borough of Tynemouth Football Club, Northern Football Club, Tynedale Football Club and Percy Park Football Club.

The first major change came three years later when Gosforth amalgamated with the Northumberland Football Club and played under the banner of the Northumberland Rugby Football Club. Contemporary documents reveal that there were fierce arguments before this name was adopted. This change of name lasted just four years as the club changed its name to Gosforth Rugby Football Club to avoid confusion with the Northumberland Rugby Union. By this time the club was playing its home matches on land at Regent Road.

GOSFORTH NOMADS

By 1894 the club was beset by financial difficulties and changed its name to Gosforth Nomads – a name that would be adopted by the club’s veterans’ team in the 1950s – to reflect its lack of a ground and a clubhouse of its own. The club survived until the First World War, when virtually all team sport was suspended.

Twenty-six of the players did not return from the war, but the club reformed as Gosforth Football Club in 1919 and even managed to win the Northumberland County Cup in 1928, a feat it would not repeat for another 28 years.

That same year the club declined an opportunity to rent a ground on Henry Street. The rent quoted was £100 for a year, but the deal would also have required the outright purchase of the pavilion for £250. Most first team matches were played on the Northumberland County Ground – the old Greyhound Racing Stadium on Hollywood Avenue, which is now the site of the ASDA supermarket. They shared the ground, playing alternate weeks at home with Northern, who by this time were the pre-eminent club side in the county. There was another field adjacent to the stadium which was used by the lower XVs of the two clubs.

Although there was a clubhouse at the County Ground, Gosforth could generate little income from its use as it had no alcohol licence, whilst the club was still expected to provide hospitality for the teams it hosted. A Ladies Committee provided post-match teas, but for the more serious hospitality business the players retired either to the County in Gosforth or the Eldon or Douglas Hotel in Grainger Street. The club’s steady upward progress was again severely interrupted by the global conflict that erupted in 1939, in which a further 27 players lost their lives.

A NEW GROUND

If the club was to re-establish itself and grow in the post-war years it needed to find a permanent home with its own clubhouse, which after almost three quarters of a century would represent the single most significant change in the club’s fortunes to date.

In March 1950 the club entered into negotiations to purchase an 11-acre site on the Great North Road on what once formed part of an enormous Victorian rubbish tip. The site was acquired in 1951, but its acquisition stretched the club financially. The majority of the work required to transform a rubbish tip – now the site of the exclusive Greystoke Park – into a serviceable rugby field with three pitches was undertaken in-house. It would be 1954 before a foundation stone was laid for a clubhouse, and 1955 before the ground which would be the club’s home for the next 35 years was formally opened. The minutes of the club’s General Committee meeting on 15^th July 1955 recorded that “In the 78^th year of the existence of the club we were at last under our own roof.”

NATIONAL PROMINENCE

The decision to acquire the ground with its two-storey clubhouse and dressing rooms, with three squash courts added later, was undoubtedly the greatest change the club had undertaken at that time in its history. Everything that the club has achieved nationally and internationally since can trace its foundations back to that time.

Hitherto regarded mainly as a local junior club, Gosforth was able to grow its fixture list and attract better quality opposition, which in turn encouraged new and better players to join the club. By the mid-1960s Gosforth had finally usurped Northern as the premier team in Northumberland, and by the early 1970s they were regarded as one of the country’s top sides.

The club’s rise culminated in the two National Cup Final victories at Twickenham in 1976 and 1977, and their largely unchallenged claim to be the best club team in the country, a pinnacle reached only once since in vastly different circumstances. Despite these national achievements the club was still the humble Gosforth Football Club.

FINANCIAL CHALLENGES

But all good things come to an end. The New Ground, as it was known throughout its 35-year existence, played host to the most successful period in the club’s pre-professional history, but by the early 1980s it was clear that the club’s playing fortunes were in decline.

That decline continued throughout the decade, and it became clear to the club’s Executive Committee that the cost of running even an amateur rugby club whilst remaining relevant on the national stage could not be met from the income that the club was legitimately able to generate, and eventually the decision was taken to up sticks once again and relocate.

What would soon become the old ground was on prime building land, but the decision to sell was taken at around the same time that the Northumberland Rugby Union decided to sell the Greyhound Stadium. The County succeeded where Gosforth failed in that the former were able to secure planning permission for the erection of a supermarket, whilst Gosforth were only permitted to sell for house building. Nevertheless, in excess of £1.5m was raised from the sale, of which barely £50,000 was required to acquire the site on which Kingston Park now sits. For the first time in 113 years the club would have a permanent home outside Gosforth.

TO MERGE, OR NOT TO MERGE?

The move to Kingston Park nearly didn’t happen.

Talks of a merger between the Gosforth and Northern clubs was nothing new. General Committee minutes from 11^th January 1932 recorded that “A suggested Newcastle RFC of combined clubs was discussed on the County’s recommendation. Our County Rep was asked to give the question a sympathetic hearing.”

In early 1970 secret merger discussions took place between senior representatives of Gosforth and Northern. What was proposed was the sale of the Gosforth ground with land acquired to the east of Northern’s ground for additional pitches, and the extension of the Northern clubhouse to the north to accommodate the increased player and member numbers. If this proved impossible, both grounds would be sold and either a freehold site on Brunton Lane would be acquired or a long lease of land in Gosforth Park would be taken out.

It is unclear as to why these proposals did not move forward, although it was likely that planning issues and legal complications would have arisen from the fact that whilst Gosforth’s assets were vested in trustees, Northern’s ground was owned by a separate ground company. Another consideration was the desire of the two clubs to enjoy their centenaries in 1976 (Northern) and 1977 (Gosforth). Merger talks would not be rekindled until the late 1980s when both clubs faced similar financial challenges.

Gosforth’s decline towards the end of 1980s was matched by a slight uptick in Northern’s fortunes, although the gap between the two in playing terms was still wide. The talk at this time was of Gosforth banking the sale proceeds from the old ground and forming a new ‘Newcastle’ club in partnership with Northern at McCracken Park. Another option was for both Northern and Gosforth to sell their grounds and move in together at Kingston Park. In an echo of the discussion regarding a Newcastle club in 1932 there had even been talk of setting up a new club as a ‘centre of excellence’ for the whole county at Kingston Park, into which the proceeds from the sale of the County Ground would also be invested, with the idea being that all of the best players in the county would migrate to this new club. This was given short shrift by the majority of the clubs, and never went any further.

Just as it seemed that a merger of the two clubs to play at McCracken Park was the favoured option, the talks broke down. Whilst Gosforth struggled in their season in exile playing home matches at Percy Park, Northern, bolstered by the recruitment of David Johnson from Gosforth, enjoyed their best season in years and decided that their best route to future success lay in going it alone.

This left Gosforth just 12 months to level the land, lay three sand-based pitches and construct a large clubhouse and spectator accommodation at Kingston Park. With hindsight, the collapse of merger talks was almost certainly a good thing. Had the merger gone ahead and the merged club remained in Gosforth at McCracken Park, it is unlikely given the building restrictions that would have applied, that Sir John Hall would have expressed any interest in becoming involved in rugby.

Gosforth played their last match at the Great North Road in April 1989 but the club retained possession of the Clubhouse until 31^st July 1990. By August 1989 all that remained to suggest that a rugby ground had once stood here was the old fixture board advertising the new season’s opening ‘home’ match to be played at Percy Park.

THE MOVE TO KINGSTON PARK AND A CHANGE OF NAME

If the relocation from the Great North Road to Kingston Park was not enough of a change to cause traditionalists to choke on their breakfast, the move was accompanied by a change of name and a complete re-structuring of the club.

The club had decided that when they moved to Kingston Park they would employ a full-time Director of Rugby, a Commercial Director to raise sponsorship income and a resident Facilities Manager to run the clubhouse bars and function room. The principal business of the last general meeting of members to be held at the old ground involved approving significant amendments to the club’s Constitution to reflect these changes.

The amendments were expected to be controversial as they involved getting rid of both the Executive Committee, on which all of the club’s officers sat, and the General Committee, which comprised up to 67 members, and was the effective sovereign body of the club. These two committees would be replaced by a five man Management Board to which the employed Directors and Facilities Manager would answer.

In the event, perhaps intoxicated by the mock-ups of the new stadium at Kingston Park, the members voted through the changes without offering any resistance, but the meeting then had to consider a motion to change the name from Gosforth to Newcastle. The failed talks with Northern had envisaged that any merged club would be known as Newcastle, as it would establish a brand that would be more attractive to potential sponsors. It was now proposed that the club should adopt this brand for its own purposes, but it soon became clear that the meeting was split down the middle and a long and heated discussion followed with no ending in sight.

To those of us who have always viewed compromise as the enemy of achievement, the proposal that finally broke the deadlock was anathema. Whether or not everyone was tired and just wanted to get home (or to the bar) a left-field proposal from the floor to change the name to ‘Newcastle Gosforth’ was received enthusiastically, and that is how the club became known.

Among the many things for which the club would later have cause to be grateful to Sir John Hall is the simplification of the name to ‘Newcastle’ in 1995 before the appendage of ‘Falcons’ shortly afterwards.

CHANGING THE CLUB COLOURS

Before the biggest change the club would ever face when the game went professional, the start of the 1993-94 season in the top division saw a change that generated more anger among the traditionalists than any change of name ever had – the club altered its playing colours.

For decades the Club Constitution had stipulated that the ‘uniform of the Club shall be green and white jerseys and stockings in horizontal stripes and white shorts’. By the time of the move to Kingston Park this requirement had been watered down so that the stipulated club colours were now ‘predominantly green and white’. Someone suggested that the club would be more marketable if its colours moved closer to those of the city’s professional soccer team, and so as a first step a black horizontal stripe was added to the existing green and white hoops. This was defended on the basis that for every black stripe there were twice as many green or white stripes, and so the colours remained ‘predominantly’ green and white!

The change from this

to this after 116 years proved far more controversial than any change of name.

GOING PROFESSIONAL

1995 saw the biggest change in over a century to the game as a whole, not just to Newcastle Gosforth.

Although breaches of the amateur principles were widely suspected, especially in the richer rugby playing nations, the decision to completely open the game to payments to players was largely unexpected, and it was clear that English rugby was neither ready for it nor particularly enthusiastic about embracing it.

Sir John Hall stole a march on rival clubs by enquiring and investing heavily in Newcastle Gosforth, a move eventually followed by other wealthy individuals leaving the English club game with its current ownership model. Sir John’s takeover, though widely recognised as safeguarding the future of elite club rugby in the North East, was not without opposition, and there were many dissenting voices at the Extraordinary General meeting that agreed the sale of a 76% shareholding to Sir John and so brought about  perhaps biggest change the club had ever faced.

The euphoria that greeted the arrival of some of the world’s best players meant that another change of name went by largely unnoticed.

The rest is history – three promotions, two relegations, two more national cup wins and many seasons of relative struggle that brought the club to the point that without fresh investment its very future was in doubt.

The news of Sir John Hall’s takeover of the club was quickly followed by news of Rob Andrew’s appointment as Director of rugby – The Journal devoted three pages to the story.

There is little doubt that without the intervention of Sir John Hall and the subsequent financial support from David Thompson and Semore Kurdi, the club could not have survived in the upper echelons of English club rugby.

The move to Kingston Park in 1990 had brought short term success. The team had improved, resulting in promotion to the top division in 1993, but this was followed by immediate relegation. Income streams rose sharply but many of the old mistakes were repeated and the club was soon again spending more than it was earning. A third placed finish in Division 2 in 1995 was misleading as relegation remained a possibility with just three matches remaining, and within weeks of the 1995-6 season starting the team was entrenched at the bottom of the table where,  despite the influx of the first batch of players in the professional era, they remained until the final matches of the league season.

RED BULL

And so to the future.

This piece has been all about looking back over nearly 150 years on a past, times that are still rightly celebrated, but also to other times where the future was uncertain. What happened at the club in the summer of 2025 – the 30^th anniversary of the establishment of the professional game – is all about the future.

Hopefully the future of elite professional rugby in the North East is once again secure, but it goes beyond that. The womens’ game is growing at pace and age-grade rugby remains strong, but adult male rugby in the amateur community game is struggling. The good health of Newcastle Red Bulls and the strength of the local community game are inextricably linked, and there is enormous potential waiting to be tapped.