I apologise in advance for the tone of my missive but I’m still seething as I write a day or so after the Newcastle game.

The day started well - great weather and a real buzz about the ground. Many were just back from holidays and were catching up on the events of the summer.

All of this bonhomie was blown away, at least around blocks 8-10, within minutes, after the stewards decided to flex their muscles and get people to sit down. These are not people standing at the front but in the back few rows. No one was being prevented from seeing the game. No one was being in any way threatened. Apart from the guys at the back standing.

This action on the part of the stewards succeeded in very quickly changing the atmosphere into a very fractious one. People were becoming, if not angry, then certainly indignant. Who exactly was having their match day experience impaired by a few people standing up?

This carried on for most of the first half until, after half time, Plod appeared in numbers. So the stewards answer to a situation in which no one is being hurt, threatened or in any way offended, is to threaten people with criminalisation. Someone please explain these people’s mentality.

Oh yeah. They were only following orders...

Now, we watch the away supporters stand all game with no word at all. Later on TV, we watch the Barcodes’ Geordie-Wannabe owner (never thought I’d see those two words in juxtaposition) necking pints while watching the game. Neither of these are we allowed to do. But somehow we’re public enemy number 1. That’s right, the people who bring money into the club week in, week out. We have to suffer these sub-traffic warden little Hitlers threatening the “customers” with exclusion and taking their season tickets away.

Well, given that one could not possibly countenance nor advise a judicious lamping of some of these clowns, might I suggest we take stock and see what power we do have. That power is largely financial. As with all these things, our power is in standing together.

A considerable part of the matchday income of the club comes from spend in and around the ground. I’m sure we could make the board see sense by a programme of simply boycotting spending on any club merchandise, including the bars in the ground and club shops, on matchday.

Let’s not forget, the bars and catering outlets are franchised. If the American company to whom the rights have been sold gets a sniff of this, they will very quickly be on the backs of the club. Now it may come as some surprise to the board members, but they cannot actually force us to spend money beyond the ticket price. We don’t need to buy programmes or magazines; we don’t need awful “bockwurst” things (can anyone tell me the difference between these monstrosities and the kind of crap you get served up at funfairs, beyond the price of course...?); we certainly don’t need flat lager at £3.50 a pint.

The issue is, we are happy to spend on these things as long as they are a marginal part of a good day out. The far larger part of the football experience however is the togetherness, camaraderie and high spiritedness that comes about through being with your mates at the match. To my mind, the club needs to understand that the price of taking away the latter is reduced spending on the former.

We are often told how football is now part of the entertainment business. It is fine for the club to insist we are “customers”. Well, there are two sides to that bargain. Customers will spend as long as they feel valued. What I witnessed at the Newcastle match doesn’t make me feel valued. The club is trying to progress to becoming a modern "entertainment business". Its customers are quite able to use the tools of the modern consumer to send signals back to it.