The scales of justice A few minutes from the Seymour Pierce offices at Old Bailey in London is the highest court in the land. Until a few hundred years ago, those found guilty of high treason were sentenced to be ‘hanged, drawn and quartered’, and the subsequent executions took place close by either in Smithfield market or the Tower of London. This most violent and terrible of all executions saw the poor souls hung by the neck, taken down before they lost consciousness, sliced open, disemboweled, then beheaded and the body quartered and left in various locations throughout the city, on display as a deterent to anyone else who felt like committing treason.
It’s therefore quite ironic that the last vestiges of what many people believe to be a treacherous reign by Mike Ashley is likely to be carried out in this location. For many Mike Ashley should be facing the same punishment for bringing our club into disrepute. But before he is finally cast as a complete and unadulterated villain hell bent on destroying the club and the embodiement of all things evil, lets take a quick look back at some of the Newcastle times of Mike Ashley. (more…)
Howay Superman, we need you!Superman, Batman, Spiderman all superheroes to a man. But will we find ours? Out of the alleged 4 groups currently undergoing due diligence, will there be a Clark Kent to come and save us? Or will he just fly right on out of toon after seeing the state we’re in?
But what if the worst case scenario happens and after seeing the books no-one is prepared to buy at the current valuation and Mike Ashley refuses to accept the price they are willing to pay? Now that’s not a scenario any of us want to envisage but what if that’s the outcome? What happens next? With the club due to dish out £10m in loyalty payments to the players before the 30th June, and staged transfer payments of £29.2m allegedly due for 10 players we have purchased over the last several years, Mike Ashley must rue the day he ever thought of buying a football club for a bit of fun!
Freddy attempts to make one last trophy signing. £400,000, that will do nicely for players such as Michael Owen and Mark Viduka, as they walk away from Newcastle after playing little part in helping the club avoid relegation last season, or being available for a fraction of the games for which they could have been eligible. So as we say “adios”, we will all rest easy knowing they have a nice ‘loyalty’ payment due to cushion the blow while they find some other mug to keep them in the style to which they have become accustomed. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not their fault that the fat scrap man wanted to shower them with money. In their shoes would you turn down mega wages and very nice ‘loyalty’ payments? Would you not fill your boots if some idiot was waving large wads of used tenners in front of your nose and begging you to take it? So if it’s not their fault who’s is it? (more…)
It's that man again. Well a lot of the whisperings in the press suggest we could find out as early as today if Alan Shearer will be our new manager, as the battle hots up between the 4 parties who are still in with a chance of being first past the post and claiming ownership of our treasured institution.
Should he or should he not be manager? Well it all seems pretty immaterial now as he seems to be the favoured candidate and for the sake of the short term stability of the club if he is selected as manager we need to put our full support behind him. No whingeing and griping about his lack of experience, his suspect tactics, the massive ego etc. We need to stand behind and support the manager despite some bad decisions he will undoubtedly make or poor results he may achieve. We’ve been on the merry go round of swapping and changing managers at least a few times a season for years and look at where it has led us. We need to embrace the change to new ownership (please god let it not be FFS as that may be too hard to stomach) and to a new management structure who we hope will help take NUFC back where it should be in the top flight. (more…)
The glamour of it all.With the fixtures for next season due to be published tomorrow, it’s a nasty reminder that we need to be ready for battle to commence in just seven weeks time.
How scary is that? With a club up for sale, no manager, no assistant manager, possibly no first team coaches, all the first team squad currently up for sale, no preseason friendlies organised, no communication from the club, NUFC a national laughing stock, we really are up the proverbial creek without a paddle. (more…)
