First-day-of-the-season gloom – most of us have experienced it at some stage.

This year, several of the bigger sides were beaten and looked well below their best. Others won and there was a draw at St James’ Park. Verdicts were delivered immediately, with blame assigned in some places and praise handed out in others. Predictions, both upbeat and gloomy, came thick and fast. That is what this stage of the campaign does: early optimism gets dented, worries appear justified, or success suddenly looks close. The outcome can feel more meaningful than it would at almost any other moment in the season. It can seem like the start of a pattern, but clearly it is far too soon to make firm calls.

Watching Newcastle on Sunday took me back 47 years to my first visit to St James’ Park in 1979 for the opening match of that season. Not that the place bore much resemblance to what it is today.

I was in the city getting ready to start at the Polytechnic the next month. I bought Be Bop Deluxe’s Live In The Air Age! album from the Virgin Megastore, which at the time felt wonderfully glamorous. The ground, and in fact the whole surrounding area, was utterly different from the modern version. Shady-looking blokes sold supporters Westlers hot dogs from grimy, unhygienic white carts kept under the arches near the central station. Fans ate them with the hunger that goes with a pint. Quite rightly, they would not be legal now.

Newcastle University had some flats beside the stadium called Castle Leazes. It was a place associated with a fair bit of excess and generations of DNA being exchanged. I think it has all been knocked down now.

The attendance was fairly thin, but the passion was every bit as strong as it is now. The stadium did not tower over the city in the way it does today, but you could still hear the roar around town, then just as now.

You simply turned up and walked in. Tickets cost £1.50, which is roughly £8 in today’s money. Newcastle beat Oldham 3-2 in front of 19,000 in the Second Division, with Alan Shoulder scoring a penalty in the sixth minute of injury time. Afterwards we went into the Strawberry for a 33p pint of Exhibition. Back then it was a small, untouched old-man’s pub, though on matchdays it was filled with football supporters. It was always thick with smoke. The cream anaglypta walls were stained a nicotine brown – oddly, exactly the colour of Nigel Farage’s unhealthy-looking tan.

The Gallowgate End was an uncovered terrace, closer to something from the 1950s. The entire ground was completely unrecognisable compared with the huge stadium that stands there now, and much scruffier than the Ayresome Park I was used to. If there was a black player on the pitch, as at most grounds in those days, they were subjected to loud racism of the sort that now routinely appears on social media. Entirely respectable people thought it was amusing to throw bananas at players. So things can improve. Or at least they can if people stay constantly vigilant.

I do not remember anyone wearing Newcastle shirts. Then again, official merchandise was still in its early days. The club had a small outlet in the Green Market, but it sold only pennants, programmes and similar items, which I assume nobody particularly wanted.

The mood among the Geordies was excellent after that opening game. But in reality Newcastle finished ninth that season, despite also being top at Christmas; they won only one of their final 16 matches. Sunderland went up along with Birmingham and Leicester. So that dramatic late win on the first day did not point to anything that arrived in May, despite the hope it created. In other words, whether the result is good or bad, the first match tells you nothing about the nine months ahead. Liverpool won their first five last year and we all know how that ended.

Back in 1979, the present-day future of St James’ Park would have been impossible to imagine. Newcastle selling players to Barcelona? A defender from Blyth playing at the World Cup? A Brazilian in midfield? No chance, bonnie lad.

Post-mortems after the opening day are nearly always delivered with certainty, but they are often overreactions and often miss the mark because pre-season hope and expectation collide with harsher reality. The season is long and there is still plenty to come. Even so, I understand why the first result in August is always felt so strongly and why the temptation is to think it says everything about what lies ahead. The transfer window has not even shut yet.