Tight as a......Here’s something a little controversial from someone who has had very little positive to say about Mike Ashley since last summer. What would you say if I was to suggest he may turn out to be, not the worst thing to have happened to Newcastle United in recent years? OK listen, I haven’t lost it completely, I don’t think. For the last twelve months, I’ve struggled to find an emotion beyond abject loathing to describe how I feel about the bloke but something is changing in me, even if I’m crucified for admitting it. At least hear me out anyway.
Football is arguably all about winning. The ‘getting there’ is part of the fun but is ultimately a means to an end for most. So what it comes down to is wanting to be successful. As a result, the game becomes about gaining a competitive advantage and one way to do that, is to throw a stack load of money at it, which we threw by the barrel load. And what did it get us? Naff-all except close to financial meltdown.
Instead, in rode Mike Ashley with his bright ideas, prudent business acumen and his novel notion of mixing with the working class kids in the stands. Once he tried to bring the good times back via Kevin Keegan’s third coming it all went pair-shaped but not before he’d implemented a financial strategy to put the club back onto a firmer footing. There is perhaps a fair argument to say that he did this for selfish reasons (to make a profit potentially more viable when the time came to sell?) and that we only benefitted as a by-product. (more…)
'Alf', apparentlyAccording to The Mirror, we’re going to sign Marlon Harewood on loan from Villa next week.
It was rumoured that Harewood was a target for us on transfer-window-close-day but the signing failed to materialise.
Apparently he was also a target for Hull (who isn’t?) but they failed to bag the striker too, and now it seems Hughton is keen to snap him up as an ’emergency’ loan.
Harewood started his career with Forest, scoring 55 goals in 196 appearances and then he moved to West Ham in 2003 for a fee of £500,000 where he scored 47 goals in 142 games.
In July 2007 he was transferred to Villa for a reputed £4m fee but he failed to secure regular starts and O’Neill used him mainly as a ‘super sub’. (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…)
Harris talks but says littleAccording to previous press reports, Newcastle United’s £39m overdraft facility with Barclays Bank ended on the 31st August and unless some other agreement was reached it was going to be renewed with only a £10m limit, in line with Barclays’ policy for Championship clubs.
If reports that the club owed £20m on that overdraft facility are true, then Ashley would have needed to pay off the other £10m by August 31st.
Barry Moat was apparently in the process of trying to negotiate some sort of deal with Barclays, which would allow the club to maintain a working overdraft facility higher than £10m and thus put him in a better position to take over the club.
I therefore wonder what happened with that, not that I’m expecting to hear anything from the club about it. (more…)
Hughton making the most of itWe waited with bated breath, following weeks of anticipation, even though the outcome was almost inevitable. Despite rumours of several incoming loans and transfers, today’s 5pm transfer deadline passed with only one addition to the squad and undoubtedly the biggest positive most fans took from today was that it appears that we managed to keep hold of everyone currently signed on.
Peter Lovenkrands proved to be the only body we managed to get on board before the summer transfer window slammed shut. Opinions of Lovenkrands are fairly high, ranging from those who think he’s canny squad player to others who think he will set The Championship alight. I’m at neither end of the spectrum but I suspect he will get more joy at this level than he did in The Premiership.
The problem is, that he represents what’s wrong with this football club, like they’re making it up as they go along. It seems both we and Lovenkrands flirted with the idea of a longer contract but could never agree and yet we had to go back, cap in hand because the situation was so dire that we had few other options. He’s a good option, no doubt, but it’s frightening that’s he so far the sum total of all our transfers-in activity. And how much has Hughton been kept in the loop as his public statements have cried out to the board to signal the arrival of new recruits while at least his pleas to stave off the sale of anymore of the current squad presumably were honoured. Who knows what ideas Hughton had and how many of the names mentioned in the public domain were on his wishlist? (more…)
