In the piece I ask if they are now in danger of losing their momentum after their first march almost a month ago, which made more of an impact than they might have imagined due to Mike Ashley’s childish and ludicrous overreaction to their little stroll through Newcastle before the game with Liverpool on 19th October.
Venue: St James’ Park, Newcastle. Date: Sat 2nd Nov, 2013. Kick off: 12.45pm. Referee: Lee Mason. UK TV: BT Sport.
Of course, the Chelsea Pensioners will be huge favourites for this one, just as the Manchester Citizens were in Wednesday evening’s League Cup clash. However the Magpies weren’t too shabby at all in that one for the first hour or so and held the Citizens to a 0-0 draw at the final whistle, finally succumbing in extra time. There’s no extra time today so will the Magpies be able to keep a clean sheet against moneybags Chelsea this time?
Meanwhile off the pitch, there has been talk of another protest, this time at Mike Ashley’s banning of the biggest local media house from the St James’ Park media facilities. After that, they also banned fans organisation the Newcastle United Supporters Trust from the club’s “Fan Forum.” This was allegedly for having the cheek to take their own minutes of the meeting, though we all know, it that it was really for their involvement the recent march before the Liverpool gane back on the 19th October. Fans have been urged to take one of NCJ media’s local titles, The Chronic, the Journal or the Sunday Stun to the game and wave it at Ashley and his acolytes in the director’s box just before the kick off. (more…)
As many of you will be aware, a motley collection of fan groups angered by Mike Ashley’s mismanagement, repeated dishonesty, a perceived lack of ambition and Newcastle United’s general underperformance on the pitch will be on the march before Saturday’s early kick-off against Liverpool.
On the other side, Alan Pardew in his recent interview with Sky Sports’ “Goals on Sunday” painted a picture of Newcastle United fans as small town, simple minded football obsessives who actually damage the club with overreactions like this, as well as being too financially unsophisticated to understand that Mike Ashley has put over £200 million into the club.
But who is right?
Pardew has suggested that we’re “not in a bad position” but that the fans have unrealistic expectations that the club should be competing with the likes of Manchester City and Manchester United: (more…)
I suppose it depends on whether you asked one mind…
Peter Williams, a Blog Liaison for the trust, kindly offered to answer some questions that many Newcastle United fans were asking and some of you lot on the blog wanted answers to. Having gathered a number of questions via the blog, I passed these on to Peter.
However, I must confess that Peter provided the answers in 2009. The tardiness of the response is entirely my doing, and owes probably to some intoxication on the day I read it and filed it away, then promptly forgot about it. As a result, some of the information is now outdated, but I’d like to point out that shouldn’t be taken as any indication of my views of NUST or the people who asked the question. So I say again, sorry for being p*ssed at Christmas.
Anyway, rather than me prattling on, here’s the response in it’s entirety – (more…)
The Newcastle United Supporter’s Trust have today named the financial advisors who will guide them in their battle to oust current owner, Mike Ashley from the club.
First cab off the rank is the Delphi Partnership. They are a corporate finance business based in London, but they have strong North East connections through partner, John Sands, a former North East “Executive of the Year”, and neighbour of former Toon owner, Sir John Hall.
The second company to be unveiled is Whickham firm, the HRC Group, a financial management company. They will work with the NUST on compliance issues, which have been a major stumbling block for the NUST so far.
It was also announced that Leeds accountants, Hentons, have been working with the trust in an advisory role. NUST also announced that the Trust have also been working with a “leading Newcastle legal firm”, however their idendity is been kept a closely guarded secret at this stage.
On the grand unveiling, NUST spokesman, Mark Jensen said:
“Our partners have a proven track record in providing the very best advice and we will be announcing further partners in the next weeks.
“We’re entering an exciting phase and since the current owners have set out their exit strategy we are keen to speed up our campaign and ensure the legal position is portrayed correctly. (more…)