Matt

We're all like the manager who delivered the club their only 2nd place finishes in 80 years?

What money?

Who we going to buy for £20 quid you cheap slut Someone to keep Xisco amused when he's back from loan, apparently.

It's not going to make us a penny.

He's using his brand to take the flak so that supporters are desensitised to the whole thing when a proper sponsor turns up.

This is bullshit. "We need to compete with other clubs by renaming our stadium for free. This helps us increase our spending on players by £0.00" Now we're doing OK in the league, the club is back up for sale. Clear as day.

Yeah, that won't happen. The club haven't received a penny in cash or in kind for any of the SD advertising so far and I don't see why that would change now. Neither would it by this. That's the point with my argument though isn't it? Free advertising for writing off the debts. But he's not writing off the 'debts'. If you cancel debt, then you are making a payment in kind, it's not free. The club haven't done this as yet.

Yeah, that won't happen. The club haven't received a penny in cash or in kind for any of the SD advertising so far and I don't see why that would change now.

Equally from the Blyth site. Anyone going as a neutral onlooker will probably be better off with a home ticket as you'll be able to get a half time pint. Big gulf between the sides these days with Gateshead furnished with a full-time squad and Blyth struggling this year with a rookie management team. Still, Blyth were pretty poor in the league when Shrewsbury and Bournemouth were dispatched a few years ago so who knows what may happen. Sned- I think the Police would be less worried about Blyth or Gateshead fans and more worried about opportunistic troublemakers who often just rock up on the day- hence the game being all-ticket. Sensible move all round, even though it may well have shaved a few off the gate.

Of course it looks great, the computer mockups always do. Not sure I'd like to be sat at the edges of that single tier with a massive wall on one side of you.

Return to - Pub

No it doesn't blow my theory out of the water. Whitley have enjoyed big crowds over the last few years where they have been at the top end of the NL. There are boatloads of floaters who will go to whoever's on a decent run of form, including Blyth. You watch Bedlington's gates this season go up, and that won't just be people trying to get a tan off the new scoreboard. Yes, Cuggy tried to sign 5 or 6 players from Whitley in the summer, but I think that says more about the manager's naivety at that level- only young Mason gets a look in. Dale is a quality player, shouldn't have released him, he loved it at Blyth and the fans loved him.

The charges at Blyth have gone up gradually over the seasons, they didn't just whack it up from six quid to a tenner overnight. I think it might have gone from £7 to £9 for the first season in the Conference North, then another £1 after that. I think there is a mental barrier about the round ten- it was certainly robustly debated at the time- but with an underlying hardcore of around 400 at Blyth it probably worked out when it came to the bottom line. A lot of local floaters headed down to Whitley Bay because they were hammering Twobob Welfare week-in, week-out. I used to see a lot of them at Bedlington in the late 90s. They'll go where there are lots of goals for a few quid, the actual level of football is a secondary concern.

Would he have bought the club if he had done due diligence? Not at that price. But he didn't even need that. He could even have just looked at the last couple of sets of accounts for half an hour and saved himself a small fortune.

But the 2007 going concern opinion surely reflects the fact that £50m+ of debts had become due under change of control and repaid by shareholder loans? We'll never know for sure what the opinion would have been if the status quo remained. It could have been worse of course, Paragon were sniffing around the club at the same time. I can only assumed someone there got their decimal points in the wrong place.

Might just be the normal thing that fans and media do. A few years ago it was trendy to claim players were earning 60k, now it's 90 or 110. Doubt if anyone in public really knows. And even if they did, both wages are as crazy as each other. Not unusual to have a ratchet in there to keep it at least contant in real terms. His wages were around 70-80k at some point a couple of years back, could well have increased now.

It must have been tough spending so long in a coma, only to go into another one a few years later.

I'm with Jonny on this, I don't think this is true, all this does is further mask the underlying feelings of the fanbase. Unless you have clear evidence to the contrary. I very nearly jacked my ST at the end of the ShepHall regime, as they were taking the piss. I'm in a very similar position now. This 10-year ticket disaster means you need to cancel by February to get out. The natural instinct of the football fan is to take a punt and believe that next season will be better. There is always next season. The club however have made it clear in their transfer dealings that taking a punt is not something they are prepared to do. So I am tempted to correct this asymmetry and go match-by-match, when it suits. I do not expect prices to rocket any time soon. As for the earlier comment about London clubs, I know a lot of Arsenal ST holders. They are in a similar position to where we were in the 90s in that if you want to go to games, the only way you can be sure of getting in most weeks is to have a ST. That has allowed them to keep the prices staggeringly high. For many of the people I know, that is a huge burden. With overall demand for tickets dwindling, they are in danger of the ST no longer being necessary, with fans able to buy 10 or 11 home match tickets of their choosing (barring the biggest games). That in turn reduces the need for a ST further. In the current climate, a lot of people simply can't or won't pay £1000+ when the club are making chunky profits but not putting cash into the team.

I cannot fathom this 'win and everything is OK' attitude. It's not just NUFC, it's endemic in football. It is too much emotional complexity to enjoy a win but still think that the plastic is garish and tacky? It's much like enjoying watching a player banging in the goals, but at the same time knowing he's every closer to a nice profit-taking sale. The advertising is not some Mike Ashley package deal. You do not have to demonstrate a passive attitude in order to be entitled to celebrate on field success.

So is the 'Mike hasn't taken a penny out of the club' line just another lie? Because if this is some kind of mutual beneficial arrangement, then this must be payment in kind? Unless Sports Direct are sending over their head of marketing to play left-back.

Not so much that, more that they have had a bad start in the league and the manager is under pressure. Players could be trying a bit too hard to make tackles.

Seems a lot of the time he comes off with minor knocks. Other than that, it's pretty normal for attacking players to be subbed off. True enough, but it seems he gets subbed regardless of whether he plays well or not, or is obviously injured or not. For the number of starts he had second half of last season and start of this it's an amazing stat iyam.. He always looks shattered in the final quarter of a game. He certainly does a lot of chasing but we'll need to work on how he manages his energy levels now he's a regular starter.

He will be helped if Ba gets a run of games. I thought Ba tracked back well today and took far more of the workload than Ameobi does.

Obertan. There he is, brain the size of a planet and he can't even connect with a cross.

So to vote for MoM you need to text the surname. That new striker at Everton doesn't have a hope of a bottle of bubbly this season.