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Way I bonnie lad....I used to live there and me and me marra used to gan doon thu Toon for the odd stotty cyakye tha nars.

(I did my PhD there).

One local chap said if you go into a pub and listen to the general hubbub, Geordie is quite 'sing-song' but if you go into a pub in Yorkshire it's Morse code 'dahdahdaditditditditdahdahdah'. Hubbubs are quite interesting.

Sorry, stotti key ache, is what I meant to say.

Watching one of those Norwegian dramas on BBC4 I was surprised when they said yem for home. (It's actually hjem but they said yem.) That's because it reminded me of school holidays I spent in County Durham when I knew that to gan yem meant to go home. It cannot be coincidence and there are similar words in Swedish and Danish.

As for tooth, I remember one boy at school who pronounced it tuth and that annoyed me. He was from Birmingham. I cannot find a dictionary that gives that pronunciation so it must be a minority dialect. A little research tells me that the Anglo-Saxons pronounced it so as to rhyme with "both", so that doesn't help.

Granama1@1921

Hubbubs: I was amused to be told that the noise emanating from an upmarket pub or a posh cocktail party is 'Ears! Ears!' Not a bad approximation.

My hubby says tuth and he's Gloucester born and bred.
I'm from further south and have always said 'two th'.
He also says stu and I say 'st you'.
I've learnt to live with it!

PaulH. I like that one 'Ears! Ears!'

I suppose, if I have a point to make regarding accents, that they are many and varied. Therefore if a crossword setter does the 'floors/flaws' thing, it may not work for me but I know it does for others, so that's fine. I wouldn't expect them to compile a crossword with just an East Midlands (or any other regional) accent.
I may just break out the pitchforks and flaming brands if they use 'different to' though!

Orson@1923. When we were moving from Yorkshire to Newcastle we stopped at a pub to eat. My (South Londoner) wife thought the people at the next table were Swedish. I had to tell her they were Geordies!
I thought she might need a translator when she started work at a Newcastle hospital. (:o)

I have been otherwise engaged and have not looked at this forum for a while so apologies for a late reply.
In my youth (over 50 years ago), football matches that required tickets for entry were fairly uncommon. I do recall, however, that, at that time, tickets for Rangers matches in Glasgow had the home team described as The Rangers (long since changed). The company that owned them was The Rangers Football Club Limited. Results in the papers and on the radio never used the definite article but people would say (and still do, I think) "Are you going to see the Rangers on Saturday?".
I suspect that there may be a similarity with Arsenal.

Parallelogram

Nice to have you back. I think going to see "the Town, the Rovers" etc is quite common.

There is a dreadful homophone in the Times today.

Thank you for the greeting jigjag. Some time ago, as an economy, we decided to limit ourselves to The Times on Saturdays only and since I refuse to pay the Murdoch tax, I no longer see the weekday crosswords online either.
I was pondering further about the question of whether a definite article is used for a football team name in conversation or in writing. I thought that it might be used when the team is referred to by a nickname or a shortened version of the full name (as in your examples). I don't think people would say that thay are off to see the Plymouth Argyle or the Sheffield Wednesday but would go to see the Pilgrims or the Blades. Having said that, I used to go to Maine Road to watch City play but probably because there was no ambiguity about which City; also, friends in London go to see Spurs.
I now realise how much time I have wasted on trivia - almost as bad as doing crosswords.