A first trip to the North East for a while, taking in a few of my favourite pubs, a brewery taproom, and a trip over the Tyne to catch some football. Here's how the day panned out.... Saturday began early as I was off to catch the 8.17 Transpennine Express from Huddersfield north to Newcastle. I was going to watch FC Halifax Town at Gateshead, and it was a sunny and quite pleasant mid-December morning, quite mild for the time of year. Despite the fact that there were a diminishing number of days left for Christmas shopping and Newcastle United were home in the afternoon, the train was pretty empty when I and a gaggle of Halifax Town fans stepped on board, and whilst it got busier as the journey progressed, it was still relatively quiet when we arrived at Newcastle's Central Station just after 10 am. And just like Michael Caine's character in the classic 1971 gangster film Get Carter , our first action was to head straight across the road to the Victoria Comet , although in