About Us

Alreet!

Welcome to the wonderful website of The Back Page - featuring official fully licensed football merchandise as well as our exclusive range of bespoke designs!

Founded in 2003, we opened the first of our five shops on St Andrews Street in the shadows of St James’ Park, Newcastle Upon Tyne, which has been open seven days a week, welcoming football supporters from every corner of the world. And at long last, we now feel that we have a website which really complements our well-received retail outlets.

Whether you’re shopping for yourself or maybe a present for a family member, partner or friend, we have a huge choice of official Newcastle United products as well Tyneside & Northumberland local gifts and books.

Although we have a very large selection of top-quality products on our website, please note that we have much more, including official products of all major European football clubs in our actual shops. More information is given below.

History

The Back Page Shop opened its doors for the first time in Newcastle on November 28, 2003. The shop is unique and we have been regularly informed by visitors over the past three decades that they think it is the best football shop they’ve seen anywhere on planet Earth!

The St Andrews Street shop, which was a lifetime dream and ambition of Newcastle lad Mick Edmondson, sees supporters from all over the world descend on this ‘Football Perverts Paradise’ seven days a week, 52 weeks of the year to browse through our football souvenirs and memorabilia representing many of the British & European clubs. You must make sure to visit when you're next in this football-mad city!

A second shop was opened in 2016 in Gateshead's Metrocentre. In June 2024, we opened our third store, another one in Newcastle inside the Eldon Square shopping centre, which is located between John Lewis and Marks & Spencer.

Then, in October 2024, we opened a new shop in Manor Walks Shopping Centre, in Cramlington, which is situated nine miles north of Newcastle.

To complete our shop portfolio, our fifth outlet opened inside Newcastle's historic Central Railway Station in 2025.

Wor Shops

Newcastle (St Andrews Street)

The Back Page Shop is the largest stockist of new football books in the world, with a huge array of titles in stock.

The shop, which has two floors, is open seven days a week and stocks anything and everything from the wonderful world of football, including a huge selection of books, match programmes, T-Shirts, retro & classic football shirts, prints, flags, signed memorabilia (both framed/unframed), Soccer Starz, Subbuteo, badges and many other examples of football souvenirs and memorabilia.

We are also an official retail outlet for officially licensed football blub products on behalf of AC Milan, Atletico Madrid, Aston Villa, Arsenal, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Benfica, Celtic, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Everton, Fulham, Juventus, Leeds United, Leicester City, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Newcastle United, Nottingham Forest, Paris Saint Germain, Porto, QPR, Rangers, Real Madrid, Tottenham Hotspur, Watford, West Bromwich Albion, West Ham United and Wolves. We also have gifts for many other clubs.

The shop employs passionate and knowledgeable local staff as we aim to give our customers a typical friendly Geordie welcome with a personal and first-class professional service, in the original traditional retail way.

Coming soon is the reopening of our basement, which will be selling second-hand and collectable football books, more match programmes from many clubs, Corinthian figures, magazines, trade cards & postcards, match tickets, old fanzines, DVDs, videos and many other football-related items.

Famous visitors to The Back Page have included: Alex Higgins, Paul 'Gazza' Gascoigne, Peter Beardsley, Malcolm 'Supermac' MacDonald, Alan Kennedy, Ant McPartlin, Greg Rutherford, Hatem Ben Arfa, Ron McGarry, Alan Shoulder, Steve Black, Check Tiote, Tommy Cassidy, David Craig, John McNamee, Bob Moncur, Ben Elton, Preben Arentoft, John Tudor, Chris Donald & Simon Donald (VIZ), Pavel Srnicek, Sid Waddell, Stan Anderson, John Beresford, Rob Lee, John Anderson, Vic Keeble, David Kelly, Phillipe Albert, Martin Tyler, Tino Asprilla, Dennis Tueart, Statto, Lee Clark, Peter Jackson, Frank Spraggon, Jim Scott, Len Ashurst, Brian Honour, Captain Sensible, Paul Cannell, Mirindina, Jimmy 'Jinky' Smith, Tim Krul, Tommy Craig, Moussa Sissoko, Ron McGarry, Bernie Slaven, Michael Chopra, Glenn McCrory, Jack Charlton, Steve Harmison, Terry McDermott, Shay Given, Glen Roeder, Peter Reid, Martin Dubravka, Laurent Robert, Peter Withe, Michael Carrick, Dan Burn, Jim Pearson, Temur Ketsbaia, Alan Thompson, Paul Dummett, Chris Mort, Jimmy Five Bellies, Adrian Durham, Martin Thomas, John Carver, Micky Quinn, Ian ‘Moose’ Abrahams, Peter Cartwright, Ian Branfoot, Lee Payne, Adam Sadler, Lady Elsie Robson, Steve Cram, Scarlett Moffatt, Eric Gates and a Geordie lad from Love Island (who was deed canny!)

MetroCentre

Our second retail outlet opened in Europe's largest shopping centre on October 1, 2016. Already it has welcomed football legend Paul 'Gazza' Gascoigne, England's 1966 World Cup winning legend Jack Charlton, Newcastle United hero Lee Clark, Liverpool, Newcastle and England legend Terry McDermott, former boxing world champion Glenn McCrory, Durham and England cricket legend and Ashes hero Steve Harmison, to name but a few who have all had book signing sessions with us. Manchester United legend Michael Carrick launched his autobiography in only three shops worldwide, which included our MetroCentre Shop. The shop is situated upstairs in the Blue Mall near the Bus & Railway Stations and Coach Park entrance.

It is without doubt the largest shop of its kind anywhere on planet Earth, with over 2,250 sq ft of football books, souvenirs & memorabilia as well as the largest selection of North East books & gifts. As well as all the licensed products, we specialise in exclusive and exciting designs in our vast bespoke range.

Newcastle (Eldon Square)

We opened our third shop in June 2024 in Eldon Square shopping centre between Marks & Spencer and John Lewis on Earls Way.

This store concentrates on official Newcastle United products, our own exclusive Newcastle United-related designs and Geordie souvenirs and local gifts.

Cramlington

Our fourth shop opened in Manor Walks Shopping Centre, Cramlington on October 4, 2024.

The shop has been very well received by the locals as well as the many who travel from surrounding towns such as Ashington, Morpeth, Blyth, Bedlington and many other villages in Northumberland.

It is also popular with Newcastle United fans and football fans from Whitley Bay, Tynemouth and other parts of North Tyneside.

Newcastle (Central Station)

Our fifth shop opened in the fabulous and historic Newcastle Central Railway Station in May 2025.

The kiosk-style retail unit is packed with local Newcastle and Tyneside gifts as well as official & bespoke Newcastle United souvenirs and gifts.

It is already proving very popular with the many thousands of visitors to our great city and surrounding areas.

Wor line-up

The ‘Back Page Superstars’ starting line-up includes:

Chairman: Mick Edmondson. Area Manager: Martin Henderson.
Managers: Gary Oliver, Jean Phail, Julie Lillico.
Supervisor: Micky Crombie.
Squad Players: Chris Tait, Julie Webster, Daniel Rooke, Lucy Edmondson, Steve Boyle, Marc Fail, Joe Edmondson, Jamie Rowantree, Craig Sanister, James Laybourn, Len Jones, Joseph Elliot, Mason Routledge, Paul Bland, David Thomson, Jack Bowie, Phil Shuttleworth & Gordon Muckle.

Please call in to our shops soon to see many new designs (including some exclusive to our stores and not available online) in our vast stock.

Or simply order online and remember we are here to help, so any questions, please call us on 0191 261 5005 and we will be only too happy to help.

Have a Canny day Hinny!!