peasepud

Apologies as Ive not had time to read the whole thread (its been a busy day so far) so things I say here may have already been said/ discussed. Firstly, lets dispel the rumour about us writing to members asking them to invest. Below is the email that was sent out, its aim is to inform and notify people of whats going on, its not designed to say "give us your cash now" thats not what we are saying.. My first advice is simple and straight forward. Clear your mind of any thoughts you may have had, statements such as "the NUST alienated a lot of people last year" and such, people are talking about early on when we were protesting, things that we are now being slated for not doing. We felt it was right to do that then, others didnt, fair enough but as has been said on here many a time, the past is the past, we were learning (and still are), we're not experts or experienced in this, we're just a group of fans that felt we needed to start something. The next thing to do is to read everything thats released about the scheme, whats there now is the overview and information on how it can be done. Over the next few days/ weeks we'll be releasing more, thats for a number of reasons, firstly we dont want to swamp everyone with tons of financial gumph on day 1. Theres no reason why you have to jump in now and sign up, paying over your cash today, no reason at all and frankly anyone who does so is mad in my view. Read everything, take in what it means for you as an investor, decide which route (if any) you would be interested in, get further info on it either from what we release or by speaking to a financial advisor, we are going to have details of the 27 or so Indipendant Advisors throughout the North East that will be involved in this. Theres going to be a place opening in town where you can drop in and discuss your particular aspects with someone face to face. After speaking to one of our people to get the full facts etc then have a think, if you're then considering it Id say go and talk about it with someone you know personally and trust who has financial experience. Only then should you consider investing. We're not here to rip off people or buy a football club and get ourselves on the board. Someone made the point about why all the board members had to be Trust people, maybe its a misunderstanding of the meaning Im not sure but whats meant by that is all of those involved would be investors, Ant and Dec may stick a million in each, the bloke that owns Sage might put in 2, you however could have invested the minimum, you've all got the same right to be on that board, if you can show your ability and forward thinking then maybe you will be. Someone who has put nothing in however has no right however to be there. If you thought it mean current committee members then you're wrong. Being on the committee for the NUST has absolutely no bearing on the board of the club, Id be hugely surprised if I for instance got a role in there, delighted obviously but I reckon there'll be a thousand ahead of me with better CVs for the positions. The President will be elected by the investors, one member one vote thats the rule so same as above applies. The President however is less likely to be one of us unknowns in the business world because you want someone who has experience of big business and multi million pound decisions, someone with a football past as well as business. We cant say who would be standing because we dont know yet and wont until the day we have bought the club. One question Ive seen already in this thread is where the day to day running costs will come from, we are realistically believe we could raise around £200m through the plan we have in place, that may sound fanciful but when you imagine it would be 8,000 people investing £25000 pension and not actually forking out any cash themselves then it becomes quite realistic (thats not taking into account the cash investors or big business/ individual investments). Overall it could be possible to actually raise £300m. What is important to remember is that £200m @ 2% interest is £4m, roughly the same as we are paying per year in interest on the £40m overdraft and that once we've raised £100m, £200m or even £300m we dont have to stop however the financiers would have to predict the overall impact long term on the amount we pay in interest etc so somewhere there would be a break point. People are questioning whether Moat is involved and why he didnt speak to us when he was "attempting" to buy the club. Those that see it as a bad thing against the NUST should maybe have a sit back and think of the other possible reasons why he didnt. Maybe just maybe he wasnt the white knight hes being seen as, what I will say is that our bid does not involves the football club paying to buy itself and make someone a big profit in the future. Make of that what you will. Everything thats being planned has been drawn up with professional people, not just a fanciful idea ran past a solicitor, welder, shop assistant and civil servant or two sat at a committee meeting, its been scrutinised, discussed, amended and redrafted a number of times to make it what you will see over the coming weeks. Talk of the Barcelona on the Tyne are not wrong, IF this works then we will have achieved something which only one other football league club (Exeter City) currently has, full fan ownership, we however will be the biggest by a country mile. I was speaking to Exeter reps at the Supporters Direct AGM a few weeks ago and although they're not a big successful club they hold their own and more importantly would not change it for the world. Thats another thing that really needs to be drawn out, the increase in income this could generate, a successful club which is heavily linked with the local community will bring more money into the city, increase the feel good factor for both the club and city and as a result increase the ticket sales and merchandise. Oh and St James' Park will always be St James' Park when its owned by the fans. Apologies if Ive not answered a lot of the questions, Im happy to answer anything you put forward, if I have the answer, if someone else has it then I'll get it but if its things such as "when will we see Champions League football under this regime" then Im not going to bullshit and say we'll be there next year.

Cheers for the fix

You may have seen yesterdays Ronnie front page, if not here it is again > Click Here Sophies appeal is something we're trying to help and on Saturday 30 of her family and friends will be carrying out a sponsored walk from Stadium of Light to SJP and should arrive at about 2pm. We're waiting to see if they will have permission to collect outside the ground but either way they will be collecting somewhere, if you see them please stick a quid or two in their buckets. They are also collecting old mobile phones and now gold (broken necklaces, earrings etc) so if you've got an old Nokia or Motorola and that old Run DMC style chain that now looks a bit naff on a 45 year old accountant why not drop them over to them too. You can also donate online at http://www.justgiving.com/Sophie-appeal/ dont forget to tick the Gift Aid box to maximise your donation. Thanks folks

I think this is fairly on the nail but not because the new people will make money necessarily but because it will show him up as being useless. I honestly believe that if he can sell the club to someone who will then get us relegated rather than promoted then he would do. Last thing he will want is for those that follow him to be successful.

I tell you what if Thomo's source is real then hes out of a job this morning. According to Thomo hes so high up in the club that hes got an invite to Sir Bobs funeral. Considering its a family affair and at best there'll be two representatives of the club there (one of them being Llambias) then it shouldnt be hard to work out who the mole is. And seeing as its bolx anyway then some poor sods going to lose his job..... "Thomo? I dont know any Thomo!"

Here is the top 10 most supported clubs (in percentage) 1. Liverpool – 14.3 2. Manchester United – 11.8 3. Tottenham Hotspur – 9.7 4. Arsenal – 9.6 5. Newcastle United – 5.8 6. Manchester City – 5.3 7. West Ham United – 4.9 8. Aston Villa – 4.4 9. Chelsea FC – 3.6 10. Everton FC – 3.1 According to the Daily Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/leagues/premierleague/3797456/Liverpool-best-supported-team-in-Premier-League.html

I personally would say that Everton have a lot more fans from the neighbouring counties of Merseyside than we have from outside of our region...jesus its like you saying Leeds dont have a big fanbase just because they dont fill elland road anymore whereas Leeds United have a much bigger fanbase than we do Im searching but I dont see either of those "bigger" teams on this list. Deloitte Football Money League - 2007/08 revenue (previous year in brackets) 1 (1) Real Madrid £289.6million 2 (2) Manchester United £257.1m 3 (3) FC Barcelona £244.4m 4 (7) Bayern Munich £233.8m 5 (4) Chelsea £212.9m 6 (5) Arsenal £209.3m 7 (8) Liverpool £167.0m 8 (6) AC Milan £165.8m 9 (11) AS Roma £138.9m 10 (9) Internazionale £136.9m 11 (12) Juventus £132.6m 12 (13) Lyon £123.3m 13 (16) Schalke 04 £117.5m 14 (10) Tottenham £114.8m 15 (15) Hamburg £101.3m 16 (19) Marseille £100.4m 17 (14) Newcastle £99.4m 18 (-) Stuttgart £88.3m 19 (-) Fenerbahce £88.1m 20 (-) Manchester City £82.3m You can argue that Leeds dont reach the richest clubs because of the difference in Sky payments but whats Evertons excuse, they even had Europe. These clubs are on the top twenty due to a combination of success and global fanbase purchasing power. In our case we can discount success on the pitch.

I would have said fanbase was a global figure and not just bums on seats. Regardless of that though, we still absolutely piss on Everton whichever figure you use so the argument is irrelevant.

Disgraceful. Yet our lot push to have one of our most ardent and loyal fans banned from football because he got into a spot of handbags with another Newcastle fan during a game. Many loyal years of supporting the toon home and away without a problem yet he gets banned for one incident in which many witnesses confirmed he didnt start.

is there any chance you could string that into an actual sentence thats readable?

So do you want them to appoint a manager now? yes or no? how many fans do you know that dont want them to appoint a manager and would prefer to start the season with Hughton in charge? So now we've cleared that up, you have two choices in getting a manager in you can either: scoure the globe for a suitable candidate then try and convince them to take on a job for a football club which is currently in the process of being sold and where 3 of the alleged bidders have already stated Shearer would be the manager if they took over. Forgetting the fact that any manager taking the job under those circumstances would either be stupid or just after the money the process would clearly take a number of weeks meaning we start the season without a manager so thats out of the window. which leaves option 2: take a manger who has already stated that they want the job, now how many managers have done that? I'll save you the hassle of looking it up, its 2. Alan Shearer and Joe Kinnear. So the options are appoint Alan Shearer or Joe Kinnear as manager of our football club. No brainer. In an ideal world Alan Shearer would not be the only candidate and we'd have our pick of the worlds best managers. Its not an ideal world, we are not Barcelona, Man U, Chelsea or Real Madrid. We are Newcastle United, a crumbling mess of a Championship football club without any leadership at boardroom level, a club that is the laughing stock of English football if not a lot further. A club which changed manager 4 times last season (and at one stage had 4 managers on the books at the same time yet still got relegated) and the only football club in three years of the entire football league that thought Joe Kinnear was a viable prospect to manage them. Forget the Geodie nation shite or the realistic but unmeasurable factor that Shearer understands the area, the club and the fans, forget the fact he was our greatest ever striker and that he stook by us for years winning nowt. None of that is important, what is important now is that we get a manager on board immediately and Shearer is the only plausible candidate we have.

So you dont want them to appoint Shearer then? you're happy with the current situation? Us saying that we believe that the messages of support received by us and the Chronicle for Shearer to be signed doesnt reflect the general mood of the fans? You reckon that theres at least 250 fans out there (working on a very conservative estimate of 250,000 NUFC fans worldwide) that will be pissed off if we announced Shearer as manager do you? We're not claiming that we're speaking for all the fans, we're saying that we believe that the emails we've received reflect the mood of almost all the fans. We're also not linking the 99.9% to the petition, you've done that. We make it clear (as someone nicely pointed out in big letters) that we believe the "messages of support" reflect the vast majority of fans views.

And where does it say that? point out where the statement claims we have the backing of 99.9%

I agree, but I also like the petition calling him a c*** idea. Maybe this could be somehow incorporated into the current work? hmmmm interesting idea, so maybe just a change of wording to add something such as "...and we all think you're a c*** too" I'll take a look

Has anyone actually read it or is this just another "lets look big and clever by knocking those that are trying to do something?" The petitition has a simple aim, to show all of those involved how much the sale of the club means to the fans, how important it is to get this sorted out and fast while making it clear that we want to just get all this put behind us and move on. 15 posters on Newcastle-Online v 700+ fans elsewhere, I know which one at least has a chance of being listened to.

I actually wasnt there It wasnt a meeting as such but a roadshow (I think nufc.com wrongly advertised it as a meeting yesterday). The usual stuff happened, quiz, talk in with John Gibson and a Q&A session with committee members. I know Happy Face from Toontastic went and posted about it. http://www.toontastic.net/board/index.php?showtopic=25008

As far as Im aware its fine, definitely navigation wise. In what way are you having problems?

miaoow

Fair point, page amended now.. http://www.nusc.org.uk/petition.php

Ive taken on board that idea and will (after loading them up with a hefty curry tonight) put forward the motion to take motions outside Ashleys place.

Yep, within the Shake shop on Dean Street, just up from the Mountain gear place.

Is there any chance you could get me a screenshot cos it works fine on Firefox. You did mention about colour blind, do you have some visual impairment as to be honest Ive got no idea how the site does look to people with differing sight difficulties. I would however be more than happy to speak to anyone with any kind of visual problem to see what the site does for them and if I can change anything.

These things that would make you consider it are what you mentioned earlier? interclub relationships, cheaper tickets, free cup tickets for ST holders, a fight against seat relocation and the online football team? interclub relationships first then, what would you like to see? how about us creating links with other Supporters Clubs and being heavily involved in the FSF? Cheaper tickets / free cup tickets - nobody has come to us and said they think this is a priority and frankly I dont think it is for many people, club stability and moving forward is whats more important. Again though, any member is free to raise this as a motion and see what people think. Fight against seat relocation - Has anyone really been affected by this? again, I dont believe we've had any emails on this subject. Online football team - You'll have to explain this one to me.

This is a classic example of what I was saying earlier. People believing one thing that is actually the total opposite of the truth. The NUSC has never once called for the boycott of games, in fact we've made it clear from the start that fans should be at the games.

Any member in the boardroom would influence change, thats why they're there. If decisions were being made which were to the detriment of the football club then the board would know that would get out into the public domain because the fans were there and involved. What qualifies me to question decisions made within the club? thats an irrelevant question as I wouldnt be the one in there, it would be a member voted on and agreed by the rest of the members based on the information they supplied as to why they were suitable. What makes Derek Llambias qualified? absolutely nothing, hes ran a casino, hes a businessman yet still now you would rather he made these decisions after everything thats happened without the inclusion of a fans representative than have someone appointed by the fans involved?