As a football supporter (love the game, not the business) I can only look on in envy at other parts of the country that have produced some great teams over the years.

The West Country has never been able to produce a decent football club, and that’s probably down to the fact that it’s never had football in its blood the same way as other regions have.

As far as trophy winners are concerned Manchester United and Liverpool have the most, with Newcastle United 9^th on the list, with 4 League Titles, 6 FA Cups, and 1 UEFA Cup to its name.

The Magpies (Newcastle Utd’s nickname) haven’t had any silverware to stash away in their cupboard for a while, but it doesn’t seem to dampen their enthusiasm. Their fans passion for the game is well known and the ground’s attendance figures are consistently amongst the highest in the land with nigh on full capacity at most home games.

The team plays at St. James’ Park near the city centre which has a current capacity of 52,354, and although I haven’t been to see a game here I took advantage of one of the stadium tours that are on offer.

I love going on football stadium tours because it gives me the opportunity to see behind the scenes including the dressing rooms, corporate boxes and dugouts.

The tour around St. James’ Park includes all of these and more, and takes around an hour and a half. It starts from the Milburn Stand and it’s best to book in advance, although not essential as I found out.

On my first visit to Newcastle I was surprised to see old timber-framed buildings. For some reason I just wasn’t expecting to see any, but at Sandhill there is a group of impressive 17^th century merchant’s houses including Bessie Surtees House.

Built in the 17^th century, it was originally two houses, named after the merchants who lived in them – Millbank and Surtees. These five storey buildings are fine examples of Jacobean architecture, and even though they have gone through periods of neglect, today they are admirably cared for by Historic England.

To keep everything commercially viable most of the combined building is leased out for office space, but the impressive first floor is freely available for visitors to take a look at.

So, who was Bessie Surtees? Well, she was the daughter of a wealthy banker, Aubone Surtees, who was less than impressed with his daughter’s association with a local coal merchant’s son by the name of John Scott. He was, no doubt, even less impressed when Bessie used one of the windows on the first floor to elope with her lover to Scotland where they got married in 1772.

The image of Newcastle as a shipbuilding city with a party town atmosphere tends to hide the fact that it has some wonderful classical buildings, especially in the area known as Grainger Town.

Richard Grainger was the man behind the area’s development in the first half of the 19^th century, and one of his most notable achievements was the construction of Grey St, which runs over the top of the Lort Burn.

The Lort Burn used to flow openly downhill to the Tyne, but eventually became just an open sewer until the lower section was transferred underground with the construction of Dean St over the top of it in 1749.

When Grainger’s elegant extension to Dean St was completed in the 1830s it was called Upper Dean St, but with the completion of Grey’s Monument in 1838, it was renamed in honour of the former Prime Minister.

Charles Grey, 2^nd Earl Grey, KG, PC, was born in 1764 to a well-established family, based at Howick Hall in Northumberland. He became a Whig politician and was Prime Minister between 1830 and 1834. During his term in office he oversaw the (Parliamentary) Reform Act of 1832 and the Abolition of Slavery in 1833, but for all his achievements in politics he’s probably best remembered for his blend of tea that he personally made for himself when he was living at Howick Hall.

As for the monument itself, the 130ft column was designed by local architects John and Benjamin Green, and the statue of the Earl was created by Edward Hodges Bailey, the very same sculptor who was responsible for creating the statue of Lord Nelson on top of Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square.

In July 1941 Earl Grey had his head knocked off by a bolt of lightning, but after some patching up the man is still able to keep a watchful eye on what goes on below, which is probably quite a bit because this is not only the focal point of Grey Street, but of Newcastle City Centre where people meet up for all sorts of reasons.

If you’re anything like me, one of the first things you’ll want to see in Newcastle is the building that gives the city its name – so what can you expect?

Well firstly, don’t expect a Bamburgh or Alnwick Castle because all that’s left is The Keep and Black Gate.

Northumberland has any number of castles due to its proximity with the Scottish border, and although that border is someway north of Newcastle it has to be remembered that Hadrian’s Wall came right through where the city stands today in order to “separate the Romans from the barbarians”.

In fact, the very spot where the castle is located was the site of Pons Aelius, the original fort on Hadrian’s Wall that overlooked the Roman bridge below.

The ‘New Castle’ was built over the top of Pons Aelius by William the Conqueror’s eldest son Robert Curthose in 1080, but it was most likely a Motte and Bailey construction.

Between 1168 and 1178 it was re-built in stone including the Keep. The Barbican, now called the Black Gate, was the last addition to be built (1247-1250) and is where you purchase your tickets to visit the castle.

When the Roman Emperor Hadrian came to Britain in 122 AD he set about building his famous northern frontier wall between the Cumbrian coast and the North Sea, and at the eastern end he constructed a bridge and fort on the River Tyne known as Pons Aelius, or Hadrian’s Bridge.

The wall was later extended to Segedunum (now called Wallsend), and the fort at Hadrian’s Bridge has become the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

After the Romans left, little is known about Anglo-Saxon Newcastle, which is surprising when you think that the great chronicler of the time, the Venerable Bede, was living only a short distance away on the other side of the river at Jarrow.

What we do know though is that the original Roman bridge was replaced, and that bridge too was replaced after a fire in 1248. Today, the site of all these bridges is occupied by another one – William Armstrong’s practical and wonderfully designed Swing Bridge of 1876. There are now seven bridges that span the river from this part of the city and this is definitely one of my favourites.

The quayside next to the Swing Bridge was the hub of Newcastle life for centuries. The area around The Close and Sandhill was home to merchants and ‘Hostmen’ who were basically middlemen controlling the transport of coal between the producers and those who shipped it down to London. This part of the quayside still retains some fine 17^th century buildings that would no doubt have belonged to some of these wealthy sea merchants.

Most of the working quayside ran between Sandhill and Sandgate, a poor, overcrowded area that was home to the ‘Keelmen’. These were a tough breed of people, many of whom were Reivers from the Border Country, and it was their job to transport the coal in their keel boats from the riverside to larger ships further down-river.

The hard working, hard drinking Keelmen had their own style of dress, and even their own songs, and during the 18^th century there were over 1600 of them employed along the quayside, but the introduction of staithes which allowed coal to be delivered by train directly to the ships eventually made both the keels and the men that handled them surplus to requirements.

It’s not just the Keelmen that have disappeared but also most of the ‘Chares’. Imagine if you can, what it would have originally looked like along here when the riverside was occupied by jetties. The space between these jetties was gradually reclaimed and built upon, creating narrow alleyways that led down to the river. There are only a few left including Broad Chare, which as its name suggests, was wider than most, and at number 25 is a great pub/restaurant called the Broad Chare which I can highly recommend.

One thing that hasn’t disappeared is the iconic Tyne Bridge. I used to think that the Sydney Harbour Bridge was probably based on Newcastle’s, but in actual fact it was the other way around, and to add to the confusion the Tyne Bridge was built before Sydney’s.

The reason for this confusion stems from the fact that Dorman Long of Middlesbrough, who were the builders of both bridges, started building the Sydney Harbour Bridge seven months before it was decided to build a smaller version in Newcastle. The Tyne Bridge was completed in 1928 and the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932.

A walk along the Quayside today is very different from how it used to be. There is still a market here on Sundays, but most other things have changed. Redevelopment has created a riverside walkway with bars, restaurants and night clubs as well as art installations, sculptures, and yet another bridge.

Shipbuilding, coal and bridges are all words that conjure up images of Newcastle, but so does nightlife, football and a sometimes hard to understand dialect.

This is a city that has always liked to work hard and play hard, but the native Geordies also jealously guard their city’s strong identity with a fierce pride that few other English cities can match. Newcastle is as much about the people as it is the city itself.

The city centre has an eclectic mix of medieval, Georgian, Victorian, and modern architecture, with Grey’s Monument standing pride of place at the top of Grey St which sweeps downhill towards Dean St and the Quayside.

The ‘New’ Castle is Norman in origin and built on the site where the Romans built a fort to guard Pons Aelius (Aelian Bridge). It was part of Hadrian’s Wall that passed through present day Newcastle and ended just outside the city boundary at the appropriately named Wallsend.

Above all else though, it’s the River Tyne that has had – and still has – the most impact on Newcastle. Synonymous with exporting coal and building ships, the river attracted a new legion of workers that provided the world with ships, and the Tyneside communities with employment – and the biggest and most important of these communities was Newcastle.

The Tyne may have provided work (even if it was hard work) during the profitable years, but when that work was taken away it left an impoverished legacy that was difficult to replace. The good news though is that the riverside is now springing back into life in a way that’s making it an attractive place for people to come and visit.