Newcastle United fans face ‘extraordinary’ ticket demand as thousands ‘queue’ for Nottingham Forest tickets

Newcastle face Forest in the Premier League for the first time since March 1999 when goals from Alan Shearer and Dietmar Hamann secured the Magpies a 2-1 win at the City Ground.

Since that day, the two sides have met in the Championship and League Cup and will square-off on opening day of the new Premier League season on August 6 when Steve Cooper brings his team to St James’s Park for a 3pm kick-off.

Newcastle, after a strong end to last campaign, will entertain Forest full of optimism that they can carry the momentum garnered under Eddie Howe into this clash.

And they will be roared on by a huge crowd at St James’s Park with fans, in their thousands, queuing up for tickets to the game.

Just moments after tickets went on sale, more than 14,500 people were queuing on the ‘online portal’ to get their hands on a ticket - yet another example of how demand has sky-rocketed following the takeover of the club back in October.

This demand won’t come as a shock however with Newcastle seeing their two pre-season clashes with Atalanta (July 29) and Athletic Bilbao (July 30) heading towards a sell-out.

Newcastle have revealed that a ‘small number’ of tickets for the clash with Nottingham Forest will be available to purchase via general sale from 10am on July 26.

Howe and his first-team squad are currently out in Austria preparing for friendly matches with 1860 Munich and Mainz on Friday July 15 and Monday July 18 respectively.