Before it all went wrong.There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
Said Brutus in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, and so it was with Newcastle United when they missed football’s greatest tide, leaving themselves bound in the shallows and miseries of mediocrity ever since.
To elaborate, in 1997-8, in the early stages of the biggest ever growth in football finances, Newcastle United were the fifth biggest football club in the world according to the Deloitte and Touche ‘Football Money League’ for that season. To make it seem even more unreal when we look at Newcastle United today, they were slightly ahead of Louis van Gaal and Bobby Robson’s Barcelona, who the Magpies had beaten 3-2 in the Champions League at St James’ Park that season. They also made the FA Cup final, after finishing as runners up in the Premier League for the second year in a row and signing the world’s most expensive player in the previous season. However the signs were already there, they also finished thirteenth in the League that season, the club lost some great players, Les Ferdinand, David Ginola, Faustino Asprilla and certainly not least, a 36year old Peter Beardsley. Kenny Dalglish was then sacked early into the next season and things were to get even worse under his successor, Ruud Gullit. (more…)
Not only does it save money, but it's also French!Mike Ashley bought Newcastle United to much fanfare in 2007 via St. James Holdings. Opting against doing the sensible thing and lodging a formal bid, he just went out and bought the stocks, forcing the then hospitalised Freddy Shepherd into advising shareholders to sell, sell, sell!
Thus came an end to Shepherd’s reign of terror over our club. He inherited a wonderful thing from Sir John Hall and promptly ran it, head first, into the ground. That was to end with our new chairman. A young man, famed throughout the great maze of Eldon Square for his cheap sportswear and throughout the business world as being reckless in his deals.
It was all roses for a while as Mike Ashley enjoyed a [many] pint [pints] with the fans in the Strawberry and even snubbed the directors box in favour of the Leazes End. Had Freddy Shepherd had done that, he’d have been hog tied, placed on a spit and spun over an open flame in the centre circle with his, rather ample, meat donated to third world areas of our great Earth such as Sunderland and Liverpool. (more…)
Here to save the world!With the air thick with takeover talk, real or imaginary, now feels like a good time to throw in a spanner, or two. It is widely acknowledged that, under impossible circumstances, Chris Hughton and his staff have done an astounding job thus far managing Newcastle United. With a pre-season filled with doom-laden mutterings of “Doing a Leeds”, crashing though the divisions and into financial meltdown….while nothing of the sort has transpired. There’s still time yet, of course, but to the untrained eye all in the garden looks rosey.
Let’s make an assumption. Let’s assume that Barry Moat’s bid goes sailing through and, within minutes, we have the mighty Alan Shearer at the helm. How do the collective feel about that? Is he a white knight riding in to save us or an egomaniac sating his need for attention, and doing us more harm in the process? As Stardust (and David Frost on ‘Through the Keyhole’ ) would say….”Let’s look at the facts”.
His managerial record:
Played 8, Won 1, Drew 2, Lost 5.
….it’s not great, it’s not even mediocre. But, is he really to be judged on eight, end-of-season, scrambled bunfights with a dispirited squad, and a ton of behind-the-scenes pressure? Arsene Wenger said, at the time of Shearer’s appointment, that any manager coming in, with 8 games left, and expected to turn things around. Well that man wouldn’t be a manager, he’d be a magician. (more…)
Malcolm Dix: Honorary vice president of NUFCNewcastle United honorary vice-President, Malcolm Dix, has urged Mike Ashley to offer Alan Shearer a rolling contract as pre-season training approaches.
Dix, the founder member of the “Magpie” group which brought Sir John Hall to the helm at St James’s back in 1992 said yesterday:
“I have spoken to someone at the club and made the suggestion that Alan Shearer be offered a rolling contract, and that message is being passed on to Mike Ashley and Derek Llambias,” adding, “It would help Alan and help the club.(more…)
Shepherd meets a famous ex-footballer. Lesbians in handcuffs lover, Fat Freddy Shepherd, has today lambasted his former benefactor, Sir John Hall over his recent support for Mike Ashley. He has accused Hall failing to check the credentials of Ashley before selling his 41.6% shareholding in NUFC. This comes in the wake of Hall’s remarks about Ashley buying the club “for the right reasons” and not “as a toy”.
Shepherd maintains that it was ill health (pneumonia and a collapsed lung) which stopping him fighting the takeover and capitulating to Ashley, who was reported to be “horrified” at the financial state of the club when he took over in June, 2007. (more…)
