The Olympics come to Tyneside today as St James’ Park plays host to two games of Olympic football when Mexico take on South Korea and Gabon face Switzerland. It’s quite a coup for the premier football stadium in the region, and quite understandable considering there are no other grounds of this standard anywhere in the North East of England.
Newcastle United staff have been involved in planning this event for the last two years, working with Newcastle City Council, the London Olympic Organisers LOCOG and many other organisations to ensure that the region’s capital city will be firmly on the Olympic map.
Hosting an event of this size has meant that an additional 440 staff, stewards and security officials have been recruited and trained. Cabling for live TV broadcasts and online communications stretch over 15 miles! – that’s a canny few stations on the Metro!
To comply with Olympic advertising rules up to 30,000 posters, team photos, hoardings and signage have been temporarily covered for the period of the games, including the red, white and blue signs of a certain T-shirt Company. A move which I’m sure will prove popular with United fans, who can show younger supporters what St James Park actually looks like when it isn’t covered with inappropriate signage.
Newcastle United’s stadium manager, Eddie Rutherford, is quoted on the club’s website as saying: “The process of preparing for the Olympics has been a big team effort, not just amongst our staff at the club, but with hundreds of newly-recruited Olympics staff, our colleagues at the City Council, emergency services and local contractors amongst others.
“By having such a diverse group of people working together it provides a wealth of expertise and knowledge to make the Olympics a once in a life time experience.”
To ensure that the Olympics provides an enjoyable, family-friendly, safe and secure environment, additional security measures have been put in place at the ground.
Steve Storey, head of security at Newcastle United, said:
“It’s our priority to ensure that people have a safe and enjoyable Olympics experience in Newcastle. The preparations we’ve made from a security point-of-view are very different from those in place for Premier League games. Fans coming to the games will go through an airport-style security experience for everyone’s safety and peace-of-mind. It’s definitely worth them turning up far earlier for the games than they would for a normal Premier League match, to allow time to get supporters through the search area.”
As part of the increased security, it has also been decided that anyone wearing a shell suit, carrying a pastie and talking with a strange accent will not be allowed into the stadium – especially if they approach Customer Services and enquire “Wheys Keys Are Theys?” – Sorry Mackems, couldn’t resist that bit!
Unlike a Premiership match, there will be no segregation between the opposing fans in the stands, with the focus on promoting the ‘Olympic spirit’ as opposed to rivalry.
The Newcastle United website report that the hardest work of all, however, starts when the Olympics ends. Staff at Newcastle United have just two weeks from the end of the Games to put everything back to normal in time for the new football season. Steve Storey added: “The main challenge will be getting everything changed back to normal within such a tight time scale. But nothing is impossible, and with the great team we have here I know that we will be up and running back to normal in no time.”
