Newcastle United Discussion

[IgnisExcubitor]

Good news,  but you have to wait and see who you lot get. The FA are useless at screening potential buyers. 

[Rafa Beneathus]

11 minutes ago, IgnisExcubitor said:

Good news,  but you have to wait and see who you lot get. The FA are useless at screening potential buyers. 

Point taken, however we are not going anywhere with this fat cunt. Our purpose is to just survive, not even survive in the top flight judging by the lack of investment in the Summer. 

Having owners that would invest in the team would be nice. There were rumours of us having £80 Million to spend in the Summer, investing that much would do us good under Rafa. 

Also getting the fucking disgusting Sports Direct adverts ripped out of our home will be great.

I know the grass isn't always greener, but at the moment there is no grass. Until Rafa rocked up we were a fucking misery of a club. 

[True Blue]

I rushed to post this , why all the sudden change of heart with him? The club is doing well?

[Rafa Beneathus]

27 minutes ago, True Blue said:

I rushed to post this , why all the sudden change of heart with him? The club is doing well?

Probably the HMRC thing, or that he knows he can't take us any further and is sick of being a prick.

[Smiley Culture]

"Be careful what you wish for" is about the best advice I can give Newcastle fans. 

[The Artful Dodger]

45 minutes ago, Smiley Culture said:

"Be careful what you wish for" is about the best advice I can give Newcastle fans. 

Replacing a bad owner with a bad owner is the worst that can happe. Ashley is a slave driving scumbag, he tarnished Newcastle’s name. 

[LFCMadLad]

3 minutes ago, The Artful Dodger said:

Replacing a bad owner with a bad owner is the worst that can happe. 

Unless they get Hicks & Gillette and get took to the brink of extinction. 

Edited October 16, 2017 by LFCMadLad

[Honey Honey]

Things can always get worse but what a shit attitude to life that is. 

Eat your brussel sprouts because kids in Africa are starving. That won't make them taste nice.

The fans of this club have been at war with the owners for the best part of 40 years. It's part and parcel of being an erratic team.

[Honey Honey]

It's worth mentioning one of those PhD Football finance guys said the other day that Mike Ashley has overvalued Newcastle by £200m.

We will either get someone with more money than sense or we will get an utter plonker. 

[Guest]

Out of interest would Newcastle fans on here welcome a.man city, PSG oil barren type of owner?

[Honey Honey]

I am sure I would be able to do the cognitive gymnastics to allow a human rights abuser to win us a trophy, since we have basically got the British version of one now anyway 

I would prefer someone clean so I can stay on my high horse though.

A bit of investment under Rafa and we could be turned into a regular top 8 club I think. Or even just someone who is willing to speculate to accumulate, take a risk on a bigger wage bill and more expensive signings using the financial position we've already got. One of Mike Ashley's biggest mistakes (and this is touched on by the fat man himself) is that he implemented austerity at a time the games finances were about to rapidly expand. MORON. We collapsed on the pitch and completely missed the boat. It is one of the great balls ups of football club ownership in the modern era.

Did you know for example that Newcastle United are the only club whose commercial revenues have gone DOWN in comparison to 10 years ago. Everyone else has trebled, quadrupled and more.

That is the product of giving free advertising to Sports Direct and not bothering to expand the clubs relationships. 

Rafa Benitez has been working incredibly hard off the pitch to rebuild this club in the local community. Ashley stripped it of activity, the club was and still largely is ran on a barebones basis. Rafa reconnected the club with the local media, with local schools, local businesses. Ashley had stripped the clubs staff so far back that they didn't have the capabilities or thought on the role other than the basics that the club plays in the community. 

We also went through a few years of fascist behaviour against supporters who dared speak out in the ground against the regime. Stewards man handling fans to get banners and signs off them if it was negative. The singing section disbanded and split up, forced to move their season tickets. Stripped of their discounts and forced to pay extra. 

Let's not forget the lies. The oh so many lies. The court case where a judge ruled that the club were lying to Keegan and the public. The lies they continue to this day. It was the clubs mouthpiece in the press that put out across the world that Newcastle United had tens of millions to spend, they were coming back a force. It was a lie to sell season tickets. They never had that money or the intention to spend anything like that. 

You have to sleep with one eye open under this regime. They drove our King out and then a couple of years later when we fell in love with the closest gentleman to Bobby we would ever see, Chris Hughton, they sacked him because his and the players relationship with the fans was getting too strong, so they installed a puppet and sold all the players who were willing to challenge the leadership inside the club on our behalf.

We've been at war and only a tosspot would think we should forgive and forget because Rafa has got a team with a wage bill between Burnley and Watford's into the top half after 8 games. We are not stupid, we are always on our toes ready for the next power struggle between the people and this regime.

Rafa has rebuilt this club on and off the pitch. Everything we know about Ashley tells us that at any moment this period of peace could collapse. It very nearly did this summer. 

The next owners might not be any good, the results on the pitch might not be any good, but it would take something quite monstrous to be worse than a regime that deliberately went to war with its fans. 

At least the late Freddy Shepherd for all his flaws and mistakes had a desire to be liked, rather than the billionaire child who decided he would give us a fight out of spite. Plenty of billionaires really are mentally aloof people. Low in empathy and excessively driven by their ego. It seems perhaps you don't get that kind of wealth without being a cunt.

[Rafa Beneathus]

Great post Harv. Not only tells how much of a cunt Mike Ashley is but also a bit of an insight into why Rafa Benitez is such a big figure amongst our fans. After snakes like Pardew and Carver, and then the totally inept McClaren to have a man who is achieving things on the pitch and totally "gets" the club is an amazing feeling.

We are relegation candidates and have sold out at home and away every game so far. When we were 5th the other year we probably sold out at home once or twice. A bit of money spent on the team and everyone at the club singing from the same sheet and we will have waiting lists again. 

Ashley has nearly killed the club. 

Edited October 17, 2017 by Any O'Brien

[Danny]

6 hours ago, HoneyNUFC said:

I am sure I would be able to do the cognitive gymnastics to allow a human rights abuser to win us a trophy, since we have basically got the British version of one now anyway 

I would prefer someone clean so I can stay on my high horse though.

A bit of investment under Rafa and we could be turned into a regular top 8 club I think. Or even just someone who is willing to speculate to accumulate, take a risk on a bigger wage bill and more expensive signings using the financial position we've already got. One of Mike Ashley's biggest mistakes (and this is touched on by the fat man himself) is that he implemented austerity at a time the games finances were about to rapidly expand. MORON. We collapsed on the pitch and completely missed the boat. It is one of the great balls ups of football club ownership in the modern era.

Did you know for example that Newcastle United are the only club whose commercial revenues have gone DOWN in comparison to 10 years ago. Everyone else has trebled, quadrupled and more.

That is the product of giving free advertising to Sports Direct and not bothering to expand the clubs relationships. 

Rafa Benitez has been working incredibly hard off the pitch to rebuild this club in the local community. Ashley stripped it of activity, the club was and still largely is ran on a barebones basis. Rafa reconnected the club with the local media, with local schools, local businesses. Ashley had stripped the clubs staff so far back that they didn't have the capabilities or thought on the role other than the basics that the club plays in the community. 

We also went through a few years of fascist behaviour against supporters who dared speak out in the ground against the regime. Stewards man handling fans to get banners and signs off them if it was negative. The singing section disbanded and split up, forced to move their season tickets. Stripped of their discounts and forced to pay extra. 

Let's not forget the lies. The oh so many lies. The court case where a judge ruled that the club were lying to Keegan and the public. The lies they continue to this day. It was the clubs mouthpiece in the press that put out across the world that Newcastle United had tens of millions to spend, they were coming back a force. It was a lie to sell season tickets. They never had that money or the intention to spend anything like that. 

You have to sleep with one eye open under this regime. They drove our King out and then a couple of years later when we fell in love with the closest gentleman to Bobby we would ever see, Chris Hughton, they sacked him because his and the players relationship with the fans was getting too strong, so they installed a puppet and sold all the players who were willing to challenge the leadership inside the club on our behalf.

We've been at war and only a tosspot would think we should forgive and forget because Rafa has got a team with a wage bill between Burnley and Watford's into the top half after 8 games. We are not stupid, we are always on our toes ready for the next power struggle between the people and this regime.

Rafa has rebuilt this club on and off the pitch. Everything we know about Ashley tells us that at any moment this period of peace could collapse. It very nearly did this summer. 

The next owners might not be any good, the results on the pitch might not be any good, but it would take something quite monstrous to be worse than a regime that deliberately went to war with its fans. 

At least the late Freddy Shepherd for all his flaws and mistakes had a desire to be liked, rather than the billionaire child who decided he would give us a fight out of spite. Plenty of billionaires really are mentally aloof people. Low in empathy and excessively driven by their ego. It seems perhaps you don't get that kind of wealth without being a cunt.

tldr?

[Guest]

Probably a dumb question but what is it Newcastle fans hate so much about him? He has said that he doesn't actually have that much money to invest as it is tied up

[Honey Honey]

Doesn't matter if he won't put his own money in. That's not the prerequisite of running a club well.

The club's commercial revenue has collapsed under his tenure. The wage bill is now more than Burnley's but less than Watford's. He treat Keegan and Shearer like shit and then out of spite decided to pick a fight with supporters. The club drove the local media out, they stripped the club staff down to skeleton level, they deliberately broke up any section of the ground that opposed the hierarchy. They sold the land around the ground that prevents the club ever expanding on the future. They sacked Chris Hughton, sold Kevin Nolan and Joey Barton because they were making demands on behalf of the fans. They appointed Joe Kinnear making a mockery of the club. They gave John Carver the job and wrote an entire season off against the fans wishes. They refused to listen to fans over managers repeatedly and deliberately, exacerbating the tension.  He nearly took us down but we then appointed McClaren who no one wanted who took us down.  They covered the stadium in tacky sponsors and we the match goers paid so Sports Direct advertising could be put up for free. They lie all the time. They lied this summer about how much the club had to spend so they could sell early season tickets. 

Fact is Mike Ashley only puts his hand in his pocket when his lack of knowledge of football puts the club in such a threat that he might lose all of his money.

Apparently we are supposed to just accept that as being as good as we can expect. What a horrendous worldview.

[IgnisExcubitor]

On 16/10/2017 at 10:16 PM, Any O'Brien said:

Point taken, however we are not going anywhere with this fat cunt. Our purpose is to just survive, not even survive in the top flight judging by the lack of investment in the Summer. 

Having owners that would invest in the team would be nice. There were rumours of us having £80 Million to spend in the Summer, investing that much would do us good under Rafa. 

Also getting the fucking disgusting Sports Direct adverts ripped out of our home will be great.

I know the grass isn't always greener, but at the moment there is no grass. Until Rafa rocked up we were a fucking misery of a club. 

I wasn't implying that Ashley is good in any sense. I know he only wants to be in PL,  without achieving anything,  so I agree on the rest.  Just wishing that you lot don't get done by FA's incompetence.  They have allowed shitty people to own clubs, like at Blackburn,  Leeds,  etc. As someone who now follows NUFC because of Rafa,  I genuinely hope you get decent owners. 

[Honey Honey]

The club won't find a buyer

It is vastly overvalued and Mike Ashley is asking for a £75m profit on his investment. Laughable and undeserved. The whole "you can pay in installments if you want" is destined to shackle this club to the Ashley failings so he can be awarded a profit long after he is gone.

The reality is that Newcastle United is highly unlikely to become worth more than it is today. It can achieve a lot more on the football pitch by using its financial position differently, but that will add risk not value. If someone is looking to get into Premier League club ownership for business purposes then we are the last club to do that with and have no potential for financial growth. The cost of the club prices out the local businessmen who would take a positive strategy within the clubs limits, as opposed to the current negative risk aversion bare bones strategy we have under the king of cheap tat.

 

[Honey Honey]

Shay Given's new book is coming out and he's wrote about Mike Ashley driving him out, and also said he believes Mike Ashley was doing things to deliberately wind the fans up.

Very sad, Shay Given was one of the heroes of my youth, the greatest goalkeeper in our history. He occasionally showed his face at one of the Catholic Churches within my high schools diocese. Everyone loved him. An icon of the club's identity and quality.

Eventually, me and Michael Kennedy had a meeting with Mike Ashley about what the future held. It was at the manager’s office at the training ground and Llambias was there as well. I was willing to listen to what they had to say but ultimately I left it all up to Michael. This is what usually happens with contract and transfer issues, the player leaves it in the hands of someone they trust. I went out of the room soon after the meeting had begun and returned to the car. Michael was back out, sat in the passenger seat, soon after. “We’re not staying,” he said. “That was not a serious offer in any way, shape or form.” Mike Ashley had told Michael the deal being proposed but it was considerably lower than what we were offering new players at the time, who were coming in on huge long-term contracts that would secure them for life.

My deal did not do that and just confirmed what I already suspected – they weren’t going to pull out the stops to keep me at the club. I was prepared to stay for the rest of my career but, ultimately, I was in my prime, a potential Premier League winning team wanted to sign me and Newcastle did not give any impression they wanted to chase silverware. The sad thing was I’d placed serious, long-term roots down in Newcastle, my children were in school there and I would easily and happily have stayed forever.

How much did they really want to keep me though? How much did they want to be challenging? Did the boardroom care about keeping their most loyal players? In a word, no.

In the end, with me unhappy at what was going on and the lack of ambition shown by the club, a gun was put to my head. They said they would not allow me to leave unless I signed a transfer request. By making me hand in a formal written request, it meant they could waive 10 per cent of the fee I otherwise would’ve picked up after moving. With the fee being around £6-8m, it effectively meant I was waiving £600,000 to go.

It says everything that they were more keen on saving themselves £600,000 than they were keeping hold of a player who had given his absolute all for the club for over a decade. I’d literally spilt blood for Newcastle, pushed myself hard every day, even when times were so tough and quality players were leaving by the second.

The least the club could’ve done, in my opinion, is prove I was wanted. Instead, they were more interested in the transfer fee than they were me – a proven Premier League player, a dedicated team-man and a good professional. If they were letting me go, and they were more than happy to let the likes of Milner go as well, what does that tell you? It tells me that the economics of the club were a bigger priority than success on the pitch. That saddened me a lot then and it saddens me a lot now.

It all then happened very quickly. I didn’t have chance to say goodbye to the lads, say goodbye to the staff at the training ground or even clear out my stuff. Fair enough, that’s life. I just wanted to get out and get playing again and move to a club that was going places. It was a fresh start and a chance to go again. I could’ve signed the deal offered and lived on Easy Street but I knew we wouldn’t have been challenging for anything anytime soon. In the end, it came down to the January 2009 deadline day. They had to get it done quickly to hit the Europa League cut-off. What really pissed me off – and one of the reasons I’m doing this book – is the way the club treated me after I ‘demanded a move.’ The club was leaking stuff against me, left right and centre, telling the media: ‘We couldn’t keep him, unfortunately, because he forced us into the deal with his transfer request’ when, actually, it was the club that made me sign it in the first place.

They made it sound like I was holding them to ransom and that poor little Newcastle were being stitched up by just another greedy footballer when, in actual fact, I wanted to stay – but only if Newcastle gave me a competitive contract and, by doing so, proved the club had big plans for the future.

The way the club portrayed me was a disgrace and the money it cost me wasn’t – and isn’t – the issue; the issue was I’d given nearly 12 years of my life to that football club, given everything.

They’d quadrupled what they paid for me and when it came down to it, they couldn’t care less about me, the future of the club or the direction it was going in. To then read in the papers that I was effectively the one ‘desperate to go’ made me so mad.

In one press conference, Joe Kinnear said, “We bent over backwards to try and keep him at Newcastle United and offered him a longer contract to stay at the club. He has been with Newcastle United for a long time and has been a great servant but he felt the time was right to move on and so, realistically, we had no choice but to reluctantly agree to allow him to make this move.”

Hang on a minute...

Not only did the club play bullsh*t politics behind my back, claiming it was all me, after I’d gone, they were no better. All it would’ve taken was for them to say, ‘We place on record our thanks to Shay Given for his service to this football club.’

[Rafa Beneathus]

https://www.readytogo.net/smb/threads/pros-for-buying-safc-vs-nufc.1397341/

 

Check out the post from "Bagpuss" if you fancy a laugh.

[Stan]

Shay Given is a legend and was one of my favourite goalkeepers to watch when growing up. Always impressed me with his style and ability. Shame to hear how he was treated. 

[Honey Honey]

Staveley interested but not at Mike Ashley's price. Lower your valuation cunt.

 

[Rafa Beneathus]

What I love about this club, gutted that I wasn't there that night as 7000 Mags travelling there on a Tuesday is unreal.

[Honey Honey]

Daily Mail click bait. Staveley bids £300m and will give Rafa £300m transfer kitty 

 

 

[Rafa Beneathus]

Imagine that was true. Would feel Charlie Bucket at the end of Willy Wonka. Mandy Staveley giving Rafa 300 million quid. Fuck your glass lift.

[Honey Honey]

Charlie Bucket had a Walker upbringing