Keegan: £25.1 million claim.Kevin Keegan’s Statement:
1. I am delighted that the Premier League Manager’s Arbitration Tribunal has today formally announced that it has upheld my claim for wrongful dismissal against Newcastle United. The full details of the decision are on the Premier League website and will also be added to the League Managers Association website in due course.
2. I took the decision to resign in September 2008 only after very careful and anxious consideration. The decision to resign was one of the most difficult decisions that I have ever had to take in my life. I believe that anybody who knows me and my attachment to Newcastle United and the North East in general will understand how difficult this must have been. I very much hope that the decision of the Tribunal now confirms why I felt that I had no option but to resign from the position as Manager of the Club that I love.
3. The Tribunal has found the conduct of the Club in forcing a player on me against my wishes represented a fundamental breach of my contract of employment. I do not believe that there is any Manager in football who could have remained at the Club in the light of their conduct.
4. Since my departure there have been many untrue stories written about my resignation, my time at the Club and these proceedings. I do not blame the press for this: I know that the journalists concerned are only doing their job but I hope that the Tribunal’s decision will now conclusively put to rest a number of allegations made against me. (more…)
Both good and bad?When Mike Ashley rode into toon he took the Freddy Shepherd Gang by surprise. Shepherd claims he was ambushed while he lay incapacitated on a hospital bed and before we knew it rumour quickly became fact and Ashley had bought Newcastle United, not exactly with a suitcase full of money but without any of the this due diligence nonsense that troubles most businessmen.
Thus began a new era in the club’s history and it’s one that has managed to divide fans almost throughout. The partisan divisions – often drawn along the lines of Ashley v Keegan – are, in my opinion, unnecessary. I believe it’s perfectly possible for a person to do some good things and some bad things and I don’t believe Mike Ashley is any different in that respect. With rumours once more circulating about the sale saga nearing a close I wanted to try and take a balanced view of Ashley’s time at Newcastle.
One of the main things I thank Mike Ashley for is prising the club away from Freddy Shepherd. I’ve heard arguments suggesting that we wouldn’t have been relegated if Shepherd had remained in charge and maybe that’s true, but I believe the club would have been in dire straits financially. (more…)
Is it really a year?It was about a year ago today, just after the 2008 summer transfer window closed, when Newcastle United went into the free-fall it has yet to recover from.
To be fair, the club wasn’t exactly setting the world alight before that and, arguably, the last period of stability ended when Sir Bobby Robson was given the sack. Freddie Shepherd had been spending the club into debt and had installed the revolving door for managers with both Roeder and Souness serving for less than a season before Shepherd settled on Sam Allardyce.
Then along came Ashley. Initially he was partnered by Chris Mort, who had helped Ashley with the takeover, and in January 2008 the pair sacked Allardyce, sensationally appointing Kevin Keegan as manager. A lot of people felt Mort was a good communicator who built important relationships with the fans, keeping them informed of the goings-on at St James’s Park and setting up things like the Newcastle United Foundation to bring the club into the community. Mort left in June 2008 and was replaced by Derek Llambias and thus began the regime of ‘Dastardly and Muttley’ at Newcastle United and it has been like Wacky Races ever since. (more…)
Sick as ****Once upon a time, comparisons were made between the clubs based on positive notes such as the club history, the passion of the fans and their desire for success diluted with a realistic and humorous outlook on the game. Instead, the familiarity these days is apparent for a different reason. It doesn’t take a genius to draw a parallel between our decline and that of our old friends down the road, Leeds United. That’s why people have been doing it for the last couple of years or more.
Mismanagement and poor finances off the field together with mismanagement and poor performances on the field led to the downfall of the once great Leeds. A club who, less than 20 years ago (just less mind), were the English Champions. Holding off the challenge of their bitter rivals across the Pennines to take the 1991/1992 title, while the destiny of Newcastle United was being re-charted dramatically by a certain messiah (ahem….). (more…)
Bobby's 'Legends' game this evening at SJP.Well somewhat predictably, one of the top stories today has been United’s 6 -1 hammering by lowly Leyton Orient, a game which I attended and wrote a match report about. Our caretaker manager, Chris Hughton was right to describe the game in the post match interview as “disappointing and embarrassing” , with Coloccini, Enrique and Nolan being the worst of a throughly bad bunch. Only perhaps Beye and Martins came out of the game with any kind of credit, with Gutierrez, Duff and Taylor, and perhaps Carroll, after he came on, being the ‘best’ (a highly relative phrase in this case) of the rest in a truly awful display.
Further quotes from Hughton on the game included:
“We didn’t win and we didn’t perform.”
and
“There are ups and downs in football and this was very much a down.”
