As a Newcastle United fan living in the US, the chances to see them live are few and far between. So this pre season game in Orlando was a change I couldn't miss.
First the good stuff. The match itself went about as I expected with Newcastle looking a little rusty and disorganized against an Orlando side that was in giant killing mood. There where occasional glimpses of an EPL side but it looks like the manager has a long way to go to reorganize the side after the loss of some key players this year. Orlando created numerous chances and finally scored a deserved goal in the 76th minute to win the match.
Now the bad stuff. While the Orlando Citrus bowl is a large stadium, it feels like it was put together by a badly run committee and then run by that same group. Parking is poor around the stadium and was not helped by the organizer's pushing car's into only one area at a time until that area was full, then getting everyone to move along to the next area. To be fair the stadium does not look like it's in the best part of town but for a stadium that size the parking was really poor. And then came the queues outside the ticket office and entrance of several thousand people, some of whom where still getting into the game 30 minutes into the first half. Again to be fair this was by far the largest crowd they have ever had before by around 3000-4000 fans but they could have been better prepared knowing the following behind Newcastle United.
One final point, I was not impressed by the so called Orlando City fans, who demonstrated their lack of intelligence by throwing streamers onto the pitch around the goal throughout the entire matching causing halts to the game and no doubt annoying the grounds staff who had to continuously clean up. Not to mention to mention their idea of a chant against another team which consisted of the F word followed Newcastle repeated endlessly. Only interspersed with chants of USA, for which I didn't realize this was an international match between countries, I figured it was between to clubs. Oh well, these so called fans crude chants where inappropriate given the number of young children there to watch a local team play an EPL team.