Newcastle will be hoping to climb the Fan Engagement table following shocking results last season

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One thing that is evidently extremely important to the new Newcastle United’s owners is the relationship between the club and the fans.

The relationship and open dialogue that’s now in effect at Newcastle will go a long way to righting a huge wrong from last season.

The Fan Engagement Index is a table ranking all 92 football league clubs on how well the club interacts with their supporter base and of that 92, Newcastle United finished 90th for the 2021/22 season.

The latest table was made up mostly of the Mike Ashley era

It’s hardly a surprise given that the majority of that season was under the control of Mike Ashley who’s contempt for the fans was glaringly apparent. Then even post-takeover, there was a lot of work to do before our new owners could engage properly with the fans.

The Fan Engagement Index awards up to 240 points to clubs overall based on the quality of their Fan Engagement. It comprises three categories (dialogue, governance and transparency), each offering up to 80 points. Newcastle’s total for 2021/22 was a, frankly disgusting, 25. tied with Rotherham United. Only Hartlepool United had a worse score with zero.

Given how much Amanda Staveley and Darren Eales have spoken about how the fans will be at the heart of everything the club does going forward, we should expect to see Newcastle surge up the table. Whether they’ve done enough to dethrone last season’s top side, Exeter City, remains to be seen.

Newcastle should be table toppers soon if the owners are to be believed

Newcastle have just released their Fan Engagement Strategy which outlines how the club and fans can work together as the club grows, as well as today’s announcement of the ‘safe standing‘ trial next season which came about following a fan consultation.

We’ve already seen a huge improvement with the club inviting Newcastle’s most popular YouTubers into the club behind the scenes with Amanda Staveley happy to talk to them on their respective channels. Newcastle’s social media game has been upped dramatically with behind the scenes videos, the post-win team photos and match cams.

If the owners follow through on their promise of engaging with fans on all major club decisions it shouldn’t be too long before we find ourselves at the opposite end of the Fan Engagement table.

At least we’re not Hartlepool fans, eh? Poor Jeff Stelling.