AS Newcastle United wrestle with the thorny dilemma of what to do with St James’ Park, their opponents tomorrow evening, West Ham United, provide a perfect illustration of both the pros and cons of moving stadium.

West Ham played the final game in their former Upton Park home in 2016, moving into the London Stadium, which had formerly held the 2012 Olympics in the summer of the same year.

The switch of home stadium has enabled more supporters to attend matches – the London Stadium has a capacity of 62,500 whereas Upton Park could house 35,016 – and in their first year as tenants in their new home, the Hammers recorded a £43m profit, paying rent of just £2.5m a year.

However, the move away from Upton Park was extremely unpopular amongst large swathes of the West Ham fanbase, who feel their club lost a huge part of its soul and identity when it vacated its former home.

In 2020, after four years of playing in the London Stadium, a survey of 11,000 match-going West Ham fans revealed that 67 per cent of those questioned felt moving away from Upton Park had been ‘the wrong move’. In the same survey, 57 per cent of fans stated that the London Stadium ‘would never feel like home’.

The situation Newcastle are facing is not like-for-like. If the Magpies were to move away from St James’ Park – at a fan engagement event at the STACK fan zone this week, Newcastle chief operating officer Brad Miller admitted that the two options currently on the table are to redevelop the existing stadium at St James’ or move to a new ground – they would be constructing a purpose-built new football stadium rather than relocating to a repurposed athletics venue.

Their new home would almost certainly be closer to the existing stadium at St James’ than the London Stadium is to Upton Park, and the logistics involved in relocating to a new venue should be much easier to negotiate as they would sole owners of their new stadium rather than tenants.

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The potential pros would largely be the same though – bigger stadium, increased capacity, more corporate facilities, an opportunity to significantly increase matchday revenue – as would some of the potential cons. Wherever Newcastle were to move to, and however impressive their new stadium might be, they would inevitably lose something by abandoning St James’. That, in a nutshell, is the equation at the forefront of everyone’s minds as they consider their next move.

“There’s always two sides to every story or decision you have to make,” admitted Newcastle head coach Eddie Howe. “The club will no doubt be going through an extensive process of knowledge, debate, figures, facts, to try to reach the right decision.

“I played at Upton Park, I was lucky enough to play there, and it was a brilliant stadium. I loved playing there as an opposition player. There was a lot of history, and you could feel the history every time you went there.

“The London Stadium is unique in itself, there’s no other ground like that in the Premier League. It, in itself, is a brilliant place to play, it’s just a very different experience. No doubt we’ve got all of those decisions to make as a football club, and hopefully whoever does make the decision makes the right one.”

Miller will be heavily involved in the decision-making process, along with current chief executive Darren Eales and whoever is eventually appointed as his long-term successor given that he plans to step down at some stage in the future because of medical issues.

Ultimately, though, the final decision will rest with Newcastle’s Saudi Arabian backers, led by chairman Yasir al-Rumayyan, who heads the Saudi Public Investment Fund that is the Magpies’ majority owner.

The PIF would no doubt love to be able to unveil a shiny new state-of-the-art stadium, particularly in conjunction with some wider redevelopment and community improvement work within Newcastle, ahead of their potential hosting of the World Cup in 2034. Newcastle’s owners are also extremely mindful of the transformative effect a bigger stadium could have when it comes to the PSR constraints currently restricting the club’s ability to spend and invest.

They will be mindful of the need to keep public opinion onside, though, hence the desire to be as open and transparent as possible throughout the consultation and decision-making process.

“Revenue is key,” said Howe. “It is with the current rules as they stand – everything you do is defined by how much money you can bring in. I think that’s taken on extra importance with the PSR rules as they currently stand. Of course, that’s why the club is looking at extra avenue to try to increase the money that we can bring in.”