United complete pre-season schedule
Get to work! With the World Cup not really affording us much of a break from football, the news that our pre-season campaign has been finalised feels a bit like overkill at the moment.
However we have at least gone about arranging fixtures early this year giving us a structure to pre-season and allowing fans around the world to be able to plan early if they wish to see Newcastle, especially fans in Germany or further afield in New Zealand.
For fans on Tyneside there is just one home pre-season friendly to consider with the most recently announced visit of Real Sociedad taking place on Sunday 10th August. If you fancy an away day before the season then you can always take a trip to Oldham (Tuesday 15th July), Sheffield Wednesday (Wednesday 30th July) or Huddersfield (Tuesday 5th August) but for any of the others you're going to need a passport at the very least.
That's because we play two games in New Zealand against Sydney FC and Wellington Phoenix (Tuesday 22nd July and Sunday 26th July respectively) before taking part in a four team tournament in Gelsenkirchen where we'll play two teams from West ham, Shalke and Malaga on Saturday 2nd and Sunday 3rd August. The full fixture list is as follows.
| Date | Opposition | Kick-off (local time) | Venue |
| Tuesday 15th July | Oldham | 7:30pm | Boundary Park |
| Tuesday 22nd July | Sydney FC | 7:30pm | Forsyth Barr Stadium, Dunedin |
| Sunday 26th July | Wellington Phoenix | 4:30pm | Westpac Stadium, Wellington |
| Wednesday 30th July | Sheffield Wednesday | 7:45pm | Hillsborough |
| Sat 2nd/Sun 3rd August | Schalke/Malaga/West Ham | TBC | VELTINS-Arena, Gelsenkirchen |
| Tuesday 5th August | Huddersfield | 7:45pm | John Smith's Stadium |
| Sunday 10th August | Real Sociedad | 1:30pm | St James' Park |
Please note that all kick-off times are local time so whatever times are decided for our two games in Germany just take an hour off and you'll have the UK kick-off time which is easy enough but for the two games in New Zealand please bear in mind that they are 11 hours ahead of us so kick-off times here in the UK will be 8:30am and 5:30am respectively.
However there is a long way to go until pre-season and there are still many issues to sort out. In terms of United we have a huge strengthening task on our hands which will keep people occupied but on the grander scale there is the World Cup which is now just 19 days away. You can have a World Cup free bet if you fancy it and feel like getting in the mood by clicking on the link.
Keep this safe. Thanks for reading!
