Llambias speak with forked tongue?Former Newcastle United captain Kevin Nolan believes the club forced him to leave and that Derek Llambias reneged on a verbal agreement.
Kevin Nolan was of course dumped from Newcastle amidst something of a furore. The player has now come out and spoken about his departure:
“I envisaged spending the rest of my career at the club. I was settled, happy and I adored the supporters. I was captain of a huge club and played with a smashing group of lads I had untold respect for.
“But ultimately I was forced out because I lost trust in key people at the club and when you lose trust in people it’s almost impossible to regain it.
“From January and shortly following the sale of Andy Carroll to Liverpool, I was involved in ongoing discussions about signing a new contract between four and five years.
“I discussed the deal at length with managing director Derek Llambias and even shook hands on it. In my book when you do that man-to-man you expect them to see it through.(more…)
A scathing attack on Ashley.Like Joey Barton before him, it seems that Jose Enrique is using the social networking site Twitter to express his disdain at the club and appears to be finally acknowledging to the fans, and the club, that he wants a move – or at least a huge improvement in policy at NUFC.
Speaking on Twitter today, Jose Enrique indirectly lambasted the club’s owner Mike Ashley and the clubs transfer policy. Some of you may recall Pardew being unhappy with the Spaniard’s conduct on Twitter after announcing to fans he would not be taking part in the upcoming game against Spurs and his deletion of his Twitter account but it seems Jose has decided to reopen and this account has been confirmed by both Wayne Routledge and our fake account killer Danny Simpson.
Mike Ashley has been well known to be an admirer of the Arsenal model, bringing young players in cheap via extensive scouting networks and love of the French market which for a club that is recently promoted is a high risk, high payout gamble but if we get something wrong, we may very well be up the Tyne without a paddle. (more…)
...and this is the clubs justification.Today we have a rather startling and a little bit of a confusing decision made by the club. In order to go to away games, you must be a club member or a season ticket holder.
The justification for all of this is the events that took place at the Darlington friendly which we can all agree made a mockery of our club and it’s fans. It was quite simply disgraceful to see the events unfold and even worse to see fans saying “they hope it happens again” – if that’s what you go to a football game for, do something else with your time instead of ruining it for the rest of us.
That, of course, is exactly what has happened today. The minority has ruined it for the majority and if you want to go to an away game, you had better fork out £20-£25 a year for membership or upwards of £300 for a season ticket.
A club statement today had this to say:
In order to combat any possible trouble at future away fixtures, a new policy will be implemented by the club which will see ticket sales restricted to Season Ticket Holders and Members only. (more…)
C'mon Mike - what's the deal?What is Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley up to and is it time for him to let us in on his plans?
Mike Ashley still divides opinion at Newcastle. Some people like him and think he’s good for the club and others hate him and would have him hogtied, marched to the Bigg Market and placed in the stocks to be pelted with projectiles of choice. Then there are plenty of shades of grey in the middle of that – people who either think some of his ideas are bad and some are okay, or folk that are deferring opinion for now.
One thing Ashley rarely is, though, is predictable. Who, at the beginning of Ashley’s term of office, would have predicted he’d usher in the return of Keegan, precipitate Keegan’s unfair dismissal, put the club up for sale twice, receive accusations of being both cockney and Mafioso, appoint Chris Hughton as manager, sack Chris Hughton for no obvious reason, appoint Alan Shearer as manager, dig up Alan Pardew and make him manager, replace Chris Mort with a man of the owlish persuasion, oversee the team’s relegation, oversee the team’s subsequent promotion, rename St James’ Park to an email address and the plethora of other things he does that keep us guessing?
He’s certainly caused a fair bit of unrest in his time and I understand the sales of bedsheets in Tyneside shops have never been better. (more…)
Barton acted as peace-makerTrouble at the Darlington v Newcastle United pre-season friendly receives condemnation from the press and the clubs themselves.
It seems the Darlington nonsense has (rightly) received a fair bit of condemnation. Pitch invasions are never welcomed these days and it does nothing good for the reputations of either Newcastle United or Darlington.
From what I can gather it started as a ‘light-hearted’ invasion with smiles all round and then turned nasty. The rozzers reported it as follows:
“There has been a crowd of more than 9,700, which is significantly more than expected based on ticket sales.
“Everything was peaceful until Newcastle scored their second goal and a pitch incursion occurred which was high spirited but not violent.
“A further pitch incursion of around 20 to 30 people followed – a Newcastle supporter being escorted from the ground and three Newcastle supporters were arrested for pitch incursion.
“The game ended without incident and crowds have subsequently dispersed.” (more…)
