North East giants Newcastle United and Sunderland will play their next fixtures in brown as a mark of respect for the thousands of supporters of both clubs who **** themselves this weekend.

The colour, a composite of red, yellow and black, was popularised in the 1980s by a Coventry City away kit and has since gained further notoriety as being the colour of burgers, the fifth album by American rock band Primus and the bits of trees that aren’t green or red or whatever.

In what are already being described as “shocking scenes”, the Magpies and Black Cats fans underwent the involuntary en masse bowel movement when news came in around Saturday teatime of wins apiece for relegation rivals Wigan Athletic and Aston Villa.

Speaking exclusively to Football Burp, a spokesman for Northumbria police confirmed that a number of people had **** themselves to death, while many more ruined perfectly good pairs of trousers.

He said: “Obviously it’s going to be quite a clean-up job – whoever’s responsible for that should be under no illusions as to what a stinking great **** heap awaits them.

“Today, the rivers Tyne and Wear run brown with the excrement of our children. I haven’t seen anything like it for, ooh, at least three seasons.”

The spokesperson went on to say that there had also been an unknown number of fatalities caused by heavy gulping while wearing tight-fitting club merchandise.

He confirmed: “The wave of gulps that spread the region when Wigan scored their third unfortunately ended in tragedy in many instances.

“Replica shirts can be quite ‘hugging’ these days, which is why we do encourage larger supporters to go shirtless.

“Newcastle supporters have been particularly compliant in this regard, and we can only point to them as role models for the community.”

He added: “As a Middlesbrough fan I was lucky to escape that particular **** fest, albeit I do have to endure another one most weeks.”