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Haway / Ha'Way / Howay / Ho'way The Lads - Origin?


Thought it was a mining term, when miners going down into the pit would shout half-way so they could get ready to start work. Hence, ha'way would make sense, ho for half makes no sense, not to me anyway. Also, miners coming up would shout ha'way as they would be excited to be finishing work, very similar to our fans, when the team on the attack.
 
DrewC said:
Can someone with history between Sunderland & Newcastle about who said Ha’Way versus Newcastle’s Howay first and when did this happen? Is there a story behind it?
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Pretty sure it was almost always Haway in the whole of the north east, then thinking about it howay seemed to appear a few years after I noticed the club started using Mackem. I remember having an official T shirt with SuperMackems written on it in the late eighties/early nineties, and I think howay appeared somewhere after that.

Made up bollocks to just be a bit different.
 
Seems that Hadaway comes from 'have a way', used across the country in the 19th century to mean come away or 'on you come', and shortened in local dialect to Ha'way, as the 'da' is lost, though it could have been H'away just as easily, but isn't a good reflection of what is being said if you try both. The mining story about halfway is lovely, but evidence exists that the term predates the industrial revolution so most likely they were shouting 'haway' (come on) which is consistent with the more regulated calls that later followed, some may well have thought that's why it was being called at the time though of course even if it wasn't.

How the Howay/Ho'way came out of it isn't clear, though journalists around the turn of the 20th century seemed to favour it sounding as 'howay' so it is no mystery that it could easily get introduced into the mix. Interesting that there are banners at the 73 final with howay and 74 with haway which really just serves to prove the written versions were a little muddy as late as that.

Ultimately it matters little, with the Hall (largely successful) attempt at dividing the north-east, everything in the region polarised and we have Ha'Way with strong historical evolution behind it and they have howay which is IMHO, simply a mis-spelled variation based on the lower IQ sounding voices of the 'Spender' type of accent.

RokeyDokey said:
Is his username suggesting Newcastle were founded before us?
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Is 1881 the formation of one of the pre-United Newcastles, West or East end. Surprised they go for that given it highlights that it was only repeated charity from SAFC that kept them in existence, if they want two dates it should be 1892 and 1992 shirley. Still younger than us either way.
 
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