Its the North East way to be very friendly, people who've never met you talk to you all the time, the only people that do that down here (im in derby at the mo) are either crazy or want money. We tend to get quite passionate about our teams as well. I remember a few years back we played a game at old trafford behind closed doors as you were having some stadium work done, we (M'boro) played shit and afterwards the team said that they had missed their fans support.