Benwell Lad

What a complete pile of s****. I didn't go to the home game yesterday as I live 300 miles away and I was moving house. When I do go, due to travel/accommodation my hand goes deeper into my pocket than most fans. Same goes for a lot of posters on here who live abroad but still follow NUFC despite it being incredibly difficult, or even those who have decided not to go back whilst Ashley is here. I don't agree with them, but everyone is entitled to an opinion, and spending £30 every 2 weeks on a home game ticket does not make it any more valid than anyone else. Protesting during the match does create a negative atmosphere, and if the players are saying it then you're not going to convince anyone otherwise. Beating a team who are now bottom of the league 3 - 1 doesn't vindicate your point, If we were playing West Brom and were 1 - 0 down and the team needed a lift, would you still rather be chanting Ashley Out rather than trying to lift the team? Having said that, got a lot of respect for any of those who got there early and protested before and after the game outside of the ground. ASHLEY OUT The old "I'm better than you cos I go to the match" chestnut. I agree with you that exiled fans have just as much passion (sometimes more) than some of those who are at the match. My yardstick has always been that if, for the 90 minutes Newcastle are playing, you are there with them whether in body or spirit wherever you are in the world then you are a TRUE fan. Equally, as the previous correspondent said, if you pay your money then you are entitled to voice opinions whether they be political protests or support for the team. As someone who is always at SJP, I'll put yesterday's protests in context as I saw them. They were sometimes loud but pretty sporadic, certainly louder than at any other game but the atmosphere never sank to the vile level it did last season vs Hull. Surprisingly those who were singing the protest songs were still in the minority, but as we all know a vociferous minority will always stand out more than a silent majority. The "stand up" song had the most impact, although that's always a difficult one to gauge as once a few people stand up everyone has to follow suit just to see what's going on. The new "Sports Direct" ditty was a bit feeble and ironic - I'm sure most of those singing it have been known to buy an occasional pair of cheap trainers there. Once again the old "you're support is f*cking shit" ditty got an airing for the Posh fans who had sold out their section to follow the league's bottom side, unlike the fantastic support our team got when the third goal was immediately followed by the "fat cockney b@stard" ditty. So another day of protest at SJP but probably not at the levels some had hoped for. Maybe the realisation that until some "skinny Geordie b@stard", or other, is prepared to show the real colour of their money then the "fat cockney b@stard" is all we've got.

That's the most constructive and intelligent post on this thread so far.

Where is the new stadium going to be and what will happen to the old one ? Are the Falcons moving in ?

Someone told me when watching the match on Monday evening that they hated Ashley so much they'd signed the online petition 10 times at work. He must have been pretty patient as the link didn't work when I went to sign it. Is it worth signing, or is it about as valid as a third world banana republic election result ?

It was a horrible game against a side who kicked and wrestled anything that moved and a referee who allowed them to get away with it. Not pretty but if Arsenal or Man U had that for an away FA cup tie they'd probably be happy to come out nicking a 1-0 too. So a decent battling performance and excellent result, but if we had let it slip we'd have had no one to blame but ourselves as the last 15-20 minutes we sank so deep and also squandered the ball far too often.

I like to put the boot into .COM for the way they've got up themselves as much as the next lad but you're chatting s**** here. Local Hero and St. James' simply aren't comparable. One was a song (which I like, for the record) by a faux-Geordie that was introduced a few years ago. The other is the name of our ground and has been since the 1880's. I don't agree with the banner adds, i'm sick of the sight of seeing Jennings Ford advertising some wonderful deal on Fiesta's, but again they're not comparable and it doesn't make them hypocrites. If the crux of .COMs opposition was bourn out of some anti-capitalist sentiment then fair enough but it's not. It's about history and heritage, something a two-bit website simply doesn't have. And please don't try to paint Mike Ashley and his pals as some unfortunates who can't do anything right. Maybe .COm would've kicked off had they poo pooed persuing other revenue streams but that's because said revenue streams don't begin and end at renaming the f***ing stadium. Good post. It seems the only way people can try to justify this is by making absurd comparisons to totally unrelated situations. I can't fathom why any Newcastle fan would want this to go ahead, and I certainly don't believe we or any fans would accept this without putting up a fight. You can't compare this farce to Arsenal or Bayern getting new stadiums or to Local Hero being changed by the DJ before kick-off! And in today's world, you can't compare it to adverts on strips because almost everyone has those and almost noone changes their stadium's name. Let's stop trying to compare it to something it's not and just call a spade a spade. dot com don't seem to be on any high horse of their own here, they're sticking up for something the vast majority of Newcastle fans believe in. With the club in the state its in, battered bruised and humiliated, pride in the club's tradition is all the fans have left. You can't take that away from us. Or can you? If we let this happen, where does it end? i don't think anyone does want it. i also don't want advertising on the top,advertising hoardings round the ground,a page in the programme telling you who sponsors alan smiths undercrackers or a bloke standing by the pitch to tell the ref he can start as the advert for tampax has finished. unfortunatly i also realise that it is all about money and if doing that brings in a hefty chunk of moolah then it's likely it'll be done. and i still think that having the fans walking round as adverts for some company is as bad if not worse than selling the stadium name. Totally different kettle of fish tbh. how. my guess is that in this country people will still call it St James' and that abroad the strip is more recognisable than the stadium name. (thats using myself as a guide..i recognise a lot more clubs strips than know their stadium names). given the choice i'd say no to it but i don't have it as a knicker wetting issue that some have. It's a crackpot idea and as I said earlier I think it's some kind of smokescreen. Personally I'm more concerned about what we're doing for backroom staff and scouting networks in the future than whether some corporation is daft enough to pay millions to "sponsor" the stadium name which will ALWAYS be St.James's to those who really matter. Strange that this has become the "knicker wetting issue" after football has sold virtually every other part of it's soul.

Hated the ides when I heard about it - although I still think it's some kind of smokescreen and unlikely to happen. There again I hated shirt advertising, the Milk/Littlewoods/Carling Cup and the FA Cup sponsored by E-on etc etc. If it has to happen then Adidas St.James' Park probably sounds OK, especially if they're daft enough to pay millions for it and it would always be known as St.James's anyway. Think it's quite funny how NUFC.com are on their high horse about this. A lot of fans were upset when "Local Hero" wasn't played as they thought that has become part of the matchday tradition, but .com thought it was sentimental tosh and refused to support it. Sometimes you get the feeling that if the present "ownership" had said they would not consider new revenue streams, they'd be going hysterical about the useless cockney w+nkers doing nowt. They're pretty useless but they seem to be damned whatever they say or do. By the way that's the same NUFC.com which has about six tacky banner adds surrounding the little bit of (old) news on their site.

Did a bloody good job for us. Why did he leave ?

Is anyone else confused about which threads they're posting in and which ones they aren't, as there seem to be several on about the same thing right now. Maybe it's just senility setting in ??

Any chance of Ashley resuming the free beer offer (but after the match instead of before it) if we're not going straight to the pub.

If you could (hypothetically) guarantee that back four I'd put my house on us for promotion. Coloccini's injury record is excellent and Taylor's a fairly robust lad so I think they'll play more than most. I think we're quite well covered at centre back, the wide areas are the problem. Let's get the champagne on ice in that case. (Only joking)

But it doesn't have to happen at all. Having a sponsor on your shirt has become an industry standard, a fact of life, and who knows, in time selling the stadium's name may become the norm. But right now it isn't, respectable clubs just don't do it and never have. We would not be following the trend on this one, and supporters of any major club would be up in arms if it were them too. I agree with you that people might get used to the idea after a while and the anger will die down, but I honestly think Ashley would be pushing his luck too far this time. People say he owns the club but it's financed by our money and he's screwed without that. As ever, a lot would depend on performances on the pitch - when you're winning games it's easier to pacify the fans, but I think for many their patience has run out with this guy. Would that be a "respectable club" sold by philandering locals who paid themselves huge amounts out of club funds to often dubious offshore accounts and then sold it to a sports retailing wide boy. Seriously though, I agree with you.

If you could (hypothetically) guarantee that back four I'd put my house on us for promotion.

Shepherd Offshore Bowl ? Cameron Hall Developments (Gibraltar) Ltd Arena ?

Which was renamed/rebranded to the HSH Nordbank Arena two years ago and will be the Imtech Arena from next year on because due to the current banking crisis the sponsor cancelled the deal. The result? The stadium is more than often referred to by its old name not only by the fans but also by the media, though latter quite often speak of the (non-existent) HSV-Arena... Sorry about the minor detail but I suppose that proves how futile attempting to re-brand a stadium is. I have never referred to the Leazes or Gallowgate as anything other than Leazes and Gallowgate and SJP would be the same. The time for ALL football fans to worry is if the Millerntor Stadium was ever offered for commercial sponsorship, although strictly speaking that is the Willem Koch Stadion -but that is leading us onto another discussion altogether.

Expand? upon? How we need a new PR man?... And: http://i36.tinypic.com/1zptc1y.png Better? Stay behind where? Why have you got TU.com on the poster when that isnt your website? As someone said earlier, getting many Newcastle fans just to stay in the stadium until the final whistle would be quite an achievment. I intend to do my 5pm protesting in a nearby bar, perhaps one with smaller queues than normal.

Another way of looking at it is that it is an issue which almost unanimously unites our usually fractured and increasingly apathetic support. Good thing imo, but I know what you mean about it not exactly being the biggest issue - it's more just a cheeky, humiliating kick in the bollocks when we're already lying in the gutter. Which really makes me quite suspicious about all of this. On the day they make 2 major announcements they throw this snippet in too, knowing the hysteria it will cause. I'm not sure why, but the hysterical ones may be playing right into their hands like some kind of 3 card trick ?

That doesn't make sense though, he isn't making any money from NUFC, or 'draining anything out'... he's losing millions. And protests and boycotts do little more than make us even more unattractive to serious bidders (if that's possible) thereby prolonging Ashley's ownership. i.e. the protesters end up achieving the opposite of what they want. You couldn't make it up.

Does anyone else see a bit of black humour in amongst the hysteria surrounding the SJP naming rights furore ? In amongst everything that has gone wrong in the last two years and PR gaffes by the bucket full, a mere proposition - a cosmetic one at that and one which will probably never be carried through, has become THE issue. THe tabloid press must be loving it. I'd hate to see SJP renamed and don't think it really could be - it simply won't work - although in another country HSV Hamburg's 60,000 fans seemed to adapt to the AOL Arena quite well - does anyone know how much is involved in these deals ? I also remember certain "conservatives" saying that that clubs were selling out when they "emblazoned" their shirts with sponsor's names. That all seems like a long time ago - bloody hell we even had "Greenalls" on them once upon a time. Traditionalists similarly said renaming the F.A. cup would signal the end of that competition. Perhaps we should blame the businesses ( mostly Geordie and NE based) who have deserted SJP, for the drop in finances which have led to crackpot ideas like this to increase funds. In the farce of Newcastle United I can see this as no more than a minor sub-plot, mere dramatic relief, and I'd be much more concerned about how we get promoted and the framework of our scouting policies etc. Still once again it gives the "politician fans" something to bang their drum about and will provide the nation at large with even more amusement at our expense.

I hope the protest stays as far away from SJP as possible and allows the vast majority of us who just want to go to the match and support the team to do so peacefully. I'm sure Sky and the tabloids are licking their lips already in the hope of another Hull City "debacle". P.S. The link doesn't work.

What with this and the "better social housing" someone mentioned earlier it seems like Newcastle has no chance now. That is despite having an international airport, mainline train station, media centres, the region's most hotels/restaurants/pubs etc., as well as a bigger and better stadium which has actually staged international matches WITHOUT riots. Perhaps Saint Niall has offered FIFA a "kids for a quid" deal. What next ? Will Sunderland players and staff be living and socialising in Sunderland from now on too ?

Guthrie Premiership quality as in he could probably get in the Hull team? He's been awful this season, yet people don't seem to care. Guthrie has been miles from his best its true, and he's still got 4 assists and 1 goal despite playing in an unfamiliar position. He's easily PL quality, I suppose you're going to say some Scunthorpe midfielder is twice the player he is though? I think he's PL quality, although this season (albeit mostly playing out of position) he could have done better on occasions. For some reason I think Guthrie is affected more by what goes on around him than most professionals and needs to strengthen mentally. He was affected badly by his penalty miss against Leicester and certainly seemed to be really badly affected by the Hull City debacle at home last year. He probably needs the "supportive arm around the shoulder" type of management. He always gives 100% and contributes a lot to the team. In a situation where all is going well and with a supportive crowd he could be very good, but he'll have to learn to also do it when things aren't going perfectly.

That kind of sums up my take on this league. After the disappointment of relegation - days where the quality of the game is not great but the overall entertainment value is so much better than the PL. Saturday was sh*t and great at the same time ??

In the Shearer V Hughton statistics debate, the really salient points are :- Hughton = short contract at £300K pa Shearer = long contract at £3M pa Club (eventually) sold to new owner who wishes to appoint own manager :- Hughton fired = no big deal Shearer fired = huge payout and Keegangate mark 2 Hughton being "upgraded" to manager is no risk and even isn't an appointment as much as a statement that no real appointment will be made until the club is sold. As Blefuscu said earlier it all adds up to nothing different to what's being happening since the end of last season.

Best post-match I've heard in a while. That last line regarding our reliance on good players [relative to this league, before you start ] is pretty disheartening. Very intelligent appraisal - sounds like a very decent guy. Interesting comments about the effect our crowd has on the team, he politely and euphemistically called us an "expectant crowd".