As if we haven’t had enough change to contend with already this summer, our first home game of the new Premiership season against Aston Villa on Saturday evening sees the brand-new “swipe card” season ticket make its competitive debut at St. James’ Park. Further proof, if it was needed, that the winds of change at Gallowgate haven’t finished blowing just yet.

While this particular issue does seem fairly insignificant when compared against, say, the spectacular arrivals of Sam Allardyce, Mike Ashley and Chris Mort back at the start of the summer it is one that we, as match-going fans, cannot underestimate.

By now, even taking into account the inadequacies of our Box Office, you should have all received your new “swipe card” through the post in that oversized brown envelope and hopefully, like me, you’ve been impressed with what was inside.

It’s a bonny piece of kit, there’s no doubt about that. Some bright-spark has even thought to put the Box Office contact details on it and a little diagram to show how the card is intended to be used, so I suppose we can’t say that we haven’t been told. It does seem fairly idiot-proof.

I warn you now, though, that we have it on good authority from the club that a Tesco Clubcard will NOT grant you access to the stadium. So don’t even try it. There will be queues, it could get nasty.

However, while the club don’t anticipate there being any problems at all come Saturday afternoon – they’ve apparently watched and learned from the likes of Chelsea, Rangers and Manchester City - you would be advised to get to the game a few minutes earlier than normal to allow for some potential hiccups. This is Newcastle United, after all, and recently it has been a bit “too good to be true” around these parts, has it not?

Something has got to give and forty-thousand Geordies stuck outside the ground doesn’t sound too far-fetched after some of the things we’ve seen up here in recent years.

The unofficial advice from the club so far is to give yourselves an extra five minutes or so to get into the ground, especially when you take the late kick-off time into consideration. Some people are usually inebriated and incapable at 3pm on a matchday, never mind 5.15pm, imagine these folk where new technology is concerned after an extra two hours in the boozer!

Personally I can’t stand missing the kick-off at the best of times, not least when it’s the first game of a new “era” where we’ll be playing our first competitive game at St. James’ in front of our new chairman, manager and backroom staff with new players and a new captain wearing the new shirt, kicking a new Premier League ball… You get the picture.

Get there sooner, just in case - and if you do get the sooner, the club are apparently putting on more “special offers” where the food and drink is concerned inside the stadium! Happy days!