Kicking off the latest chapter in our one year retrospective of all things Newcastle United and NUFC Blog, we move on where we left off, with an Ashley rant from Hugh de Payen. This one is from November 4th of last year and is called “Random gripe about the random Toon“. The “random” in the second instance referring to Ashley’s seemingly random approach to planning and investment in building up the squad. It also contains a great line about Kevin Keegan (well I thought so anyway) “although it’s quite ironic that Keegan was constructively dismissed for not wanting to spend money on a player”.
Coming next, I am including a trio of stories about the NUST’s “Yes We Can” campaign for fans to buy the club from Mike Ashley, though in the end it a resoundingly a case of “No We Can’t”. The first story, written by Hugh de Payen once again and called “Are you the next Mike Ashley?“, covers the launch of the ill fated campaign and was published on November 11th. It also includes a paragraph I particularly liked about ‘fan owned’ Barcelona’s outgoing President, Joan Laporta: (more…)
Moving on from the last chapter in out one year retrospective, we come to the end of October. With the club still in a state of flux, now departed midfielder, Nicky Butt, was calling for the permanent appointment of the then caretaker mananger, Chris Hughton. Of course though, back in those days there was still one giant figure in Newcastle’s history looming over the position, despite having it already at the time of our relegation and things not working out. I am of course referring to Alan Shearer, who many still presumed would be the choice of a new owner, an owner who never came. So we come to another story by Hugh de Payen which tackled the issue of our next permanent manager. It was titled “Next Toon manager: Shearer v Hughton.“. Despite the title though, he also looks at other options for the position. It’s an interesting read for many reasons, not least to see how much things have changed since those days. (more…)
Before I begin with the second instalment of our little retrospective, I would like to thank all those who left such wonderful comments about the blog in the first instalment yesterday, and indeed, everyone who has stuck by the blog in general.
I left the first part of this retrospective with one of our stories (by Geordie Deb) written in the aftermath of the sad death of Sir Bobby Robson, as it seemed an appropriate point to finish on. It is now time to move on, mostly through speculative tosh and non stories regarding Ashley’s second attempt to sell the club, as the publicity hounds seeked to captilise once again on one of Newcastle United’s sorrier periods. Of course, there was also the great exodus of supposedly top players at the club which relegation and lesser income streams brought. We saw the departure of Duff, Beye, Bassong, and of course, Michael Owen.
As I hinted at in the previous chapter, this period also saw the emergence of Chris Hughton as a leader under the most testing of conditions as Newcastle got their season in the Championship underway. Both of these facets were kind of hinted at in the first story I have included by someone who was undoubtedly one of our best writers, but who is sadly no longer with us, Hugh de Payen. His small news article on the 29th August last year, “Fire sale over, says Hughton“, seems to hint, albeit faintly, at some kind of ‘turning of the corner’ for the club, with Hughton succesfully calling for an end to the fire sale, and though much depleted in terms of ‘big names’ a greater collective spirit seemed to be emerging, a spirit which barely existed in the previous season of emnity and flux. (more…)
NUFC is one year old, and what a year it has been for Newcastle United! June of last year may have seemed like a strange time to start a ‘blog about Newcastle United, a time when the club had just been relegated, but at least no-one could blame us for being ‘glory hunters’!
It all started on June 1st with a simple welcome blog from myself, but this particular story won’t be a exercise in navel gazing about our own little website, it will be about a turbulent year in the history of our great club, as viewed through the lens of some of contributors, past and present.
Though relegation would hardly seem like the perfect time to ‘kick off’ with the site, there was of course much to write about in the crazy world which is Newcastle United. Mike Ashley caved in to fan pressure once again, and attempted to sell the club for a second time while it was being ripped apart by turmoil.
The first story I have chosen in this trip by memory lane was by ex-contributor, ‘Stardust’ on June 2nd, which covered a statement on Ashley’s second attempt to escape from his Geordie hell with little embellishment. Sir John’s statement cover quite a few of the issues of the time nicely. (more…)
