Newcastle announce further U.S fixture.

Newcastle have announced a second pre-season fixture as what started out as a training camp with a match at the end of it rapidly turns into a mini-tour of the USA.

Columbus Crew will once again welcome the Toon Army to Crew Stadium on July 26th, just six days after the first fixture against Sporting Kansas City and 11 years after we were last at Crew Stadium when we played out a 2-2 draw. For the archivists, Carl Cort scored both goals for us that day.

This mini-tour gives fans over the pond a rare chance to see their black and white idols up close and personal as well as giving the club a more prominent role on the global football map.

As I said in the article about the Kansas City match, the USA is virtually an untouched market for Newcastle. A lot of teams have conducted U.S tours over the last few years and have reaped the benefits of it.

It's all part of growing the NUFC brand. I hate the word 'brand' but to be fair it's what football has become has become and to compete you must try and bring in the largest amount of money. I wonder how much Newcastle will make through advertising? Probably not much, but I'd hazard a guess that it would be more than what we would make if we went to Rotherham or some such place.

So that's two fixtures announced:

20-07-2011 - Sporting Kansas City.
26-07-2011 - Columbus Crew.

I expect we'll see one more fixture added to that.

USA, USA, USA!