Benwell Lad

Err....... by paying off £100M of debts ran up by the previous board ?

Did you see him yesterday? Streets ahead of anyone else on the pitch and we won't see a player that good in black and white for a LONG time after he goes. And yet you want to see the back of him. Quality. He was the best player on the pitch by a country mile. Ran his stots off and despite being asked to play far too deep was still desperately unlucky not to score at 0-0 and then had a big hand in our goal and also offered support and encouragement throughout the game trying to keep everyone focused on the job in hand. I cannot understand our fans having a go at him. He is our only genuine world class player and he has been desperately unlucky with injuries while a Newcastle United player. he hasn't been out with mystery injuries caused by medication like K C Dyer, he has had a broken foot, a medial ligament injury that would have threatened his career in years gone by and the mumps. Actions speak louder than words and while on that football pitch wearing our shirt he has been nothing short of magnificent imo. Always had the utmost respect for him as a player - absolute quality. After Saturday I have equal respect for him as a person - he was magnificent a true leader in very difficult circumstances.

Is that Bill Gates, the former Boro player and brother of Eric Gates who made a fortune when he sold his sports shop chain or the other one who has something to do with computers ?

Newcastle vs Hull. Club in turmoil and boycott touted by media. 1,500 empy seats out of 52,000. Sunderland vs Man City. mackem/Keane/media "love in" still going strong. 10,000 empty seats out of 49,000. Nuff said.

Squad has definitely improved, better players brought in than shipped out. Sadly injury proneness seems as bad as ever.

Ashley wanted to set up a global scouting network and work within a structured budget. Most people agreed it was a better policy than the previous "big buy" strategy which had put the club into massive debt. Keegan decides he no longer likes the strategy , spits out his dummy and walks (again). Sky Sports television go into frenzy mode and drag various retards out of Tyneside pubs to give them a quote which fits nicely with their agenda. A lynch mob is mobilised and a boycott of the game is planned. Boycott is really successful (only 50,500 attend out of 52,000 capacity) but not as successful as Sunderland and many other Premiership teams who are already playing in front of 10,000 plus empty seats despite being in the middle of a "love in". Lynch mob decide that Ashley and Dennis Wise (who has done absolutely nothing wrong but is always a convenient pantomine villain) must suffer abuse and chant for them to leave. Those chanting abuse are in a minority but of course 10,000 singing fans make a lot more noise than 40,000 quiet ones. Hull City come to St.James' Park and beat us (quite luckily). Cue more protests. Ashley decides he's had enough and who can fecking blame him. Why couldn't my father have supported Manchester United ?

The same frustrations which caused Guthrie to make that "tackle" and left 50,000 Geordies feeling totally sick on Saturday evening. It needs to be sorted, it needs the mob to pipe down and the people involved to talk publically.

Well in a way, but the only reason the backroom setup is pissing people off is because it led to Keegan walking out. If the manager had been working with it OK, we would still be saying the players were good quality and the whole thing was a brilliant idea. It didn't need for much to change either - just for Wise to report to/work to/work for Keegan (rather than the other way round) and the structure would have worked. All this 'angst' would then have been avoided. It did pretty much work that way, both Wise and Keegan said that KK had the final say. Realistically Keegan wouldn't have lasted a fortnight if Wise was calling the shots, never mind 8 months. Wise is a convenient scapegoat for the mob to abuse but he's not the one who spat the dummy (again) and walked out on the club.

Quick death or slow death Freddie paid himself £650K p.a. plus lavish expenses and a free seat on the half way line. I'd want that back too if I were him.

top top top post no more words needed Aye, I'm very worried as well. We've driven out a competent owner with a sustainable long-term plan, and I don't know who else will be coming in who is better. And if we had such a problem with Ashley, who was essentially buying us because he loved football and wanted a hobby, what are we going to think of an oil sheik who just wants to boast to his mates and make himself look powerful in the west. Or someone who wants to bring in a couple of Chinese players just to sell more shirts in Asia? There are a lot who think this way. Whatever anyone says it was a minority on Saturday who demonstrated applauded that stupid offensive banner. However as always 10,000 noisy fans are a lot louder than 40,000 quiet ones. Media representation means no one in the UK would believe it right now but there are an awful lot of sane and rational Newcastle supporters who think a long term strategy and transfer structure is preferable to the path to bankruptcy the previous administrations were leading us down.

He already has on several occasions, via his agent. First time saying that he would be in meetings to try to sort out the issues. Second time citing the reasons for his resignation. Third time saying that more talks had been unsuccessful. What would you want him to say? He's already stated how sorry he was to have to come to this decision but he felt he was left with no choice. No we need the REAL Keegan, the passionate intelligent Keegan to tell us what he thinks. Not carefully worded legal statements delivered via a 3rd party.

Time for strong leadership, sanity, compromise and some hugging and making up. I'm sure there is still a lot of common ground for the various parties to work on and a common desire for the club to succeed. Wouldn't it be great if we could draw a line behind the horrible events of the last 2 weeks and start going forward again

It's time Keegan stopped thinking about his pay off and the legalities of it for a few minutes and make a statement to the fans who are supporting him. His walking started this mess, he has seen the reaction and support he's received, he should let us know what he thinks.

How much is the bloke who owns Sage worth? There is not going to be a Geordie white knight riding in to rescue us, nor a consortium either. Wylie is probably the only noorth easterner in that league nowadays but I doubt he would touch it with a barge pole having seen whats gone on in the last days. The fans (some) wanted Ashley out. They may soon think they should have been careful about what they wished for. plenty of people also wanted the last lot out, and should have been careful what they wished for. Simple fact is we are back to square 1. We are looking for an owner who will have good intentions for the club, and also crucially understands football and the need to support their manager. Its all a bit sad. Ultimately, the only losers are us, the fans. Some of us have stumped up a lot of money, and not been given what we quite reasonably expected to get for it. Well from Ashley's statement, it sounds like Ashley was unable to make investments in our team due to how badly the previous lot f***ed us up. I'm grateful he came in when he did, because things could be much worse. We'd have been f*cked without Ashley's investment. A nice way to show our appreciation.

How much is the bloke who owns Sage worth? There is not going to be a Geordie white knight riding in to rescue us, nor a consortium either. Wylie is probably the only noorth easterner in that league nowadays but I doubt he would touch it with a barge pole having seen whats gone on in the last days. The fans (some) wanted Ashley out. They may soon think they should have been careful about what they wished for. plenty of people also wanted the last lot out, and should have been careful what they wished for. Simple fact is we are back to square 1. We are looking for an owner who will have good intentions for the club, and also crucially understands football and the need to support their manager. Its all a bit sad. Ultimately, the only losers are us, the fans. Some of us have stumped up a lot of money, and not been given what we quite reasonably expected to get for it. True. And some have screamed for the owner to quit and got exactly what they wished for.

Wrong, 10s of thousands of people over the course of the club's history have put substantial amounts of their own money into the club - THE FANS. AS for your other comments, great, so its the fans' fault for all this eh. No-one's wish has been granted, a well run club on and off the pitch with a team and manager we can relate to and talk about. That I believe is the real kind of wish we all hoped for, no? I think even you have to be smart enough to realise theres a difference between going through the turnstiles and writing off £100M of debt. Yes, his decision to stop subsidising Newcastle does appear to have been caused by the actions and abuse of a section of the fans unless I just dreamt about all those anti-Ashley demonstrations and banners yesterday.

How much is the bloke who owns Sage worth? There is not going to be a Geordie white knight riding in to rescue us, nor a consortium either. Wylie is probably the only noorth easterner in that league nowadays but I doubt he would touch it with a barge pole having seen whats gone on in the last days. The fans (some) wanted Ashley out. They may soon think they should have been careful about what they wished for.

Agree totally. If the structure did not suit Keegan (and funny how it seemed to until last week) but he truly loved the club he could have said "hey guys this is not for me but as you're paying me millions and I love NUFC, I will look after team matters until you find someone who can work with you" It seems Ashley was far more prepared to compromise for the good of the club than Keegan ever was.

Great. The first person ever to put substantial amounts of his own money into Newcastle United is hounded out by supporters. So now we have no manager, a dis-spirited team, contract issues to resolve, a season to get through and an owner with no reason or incentive to do anything about it. To those who blame Ashley for the current crisis and Keegan walking (again), threw the "fatty" and "cockney" abuse at him and chanted for him to leave - well you got your wish, but do any of you have any bright ideas about what to do next ?

Then let him know that about 1 in 10 applauded him, but 5,000 still make more noise than 45,000 non applauders. Most wonder how any Newcastle fan could have got the timing so wrong.

Embarassed to be a Geordie today. Have any of the bright sparks who parade for the benefit of southern journalists got any ideas for what we do after Mike Ashley ?

Just been reading through this quickly. You're sad man. The kind of embarrassing idiot that my mates in London just laugh and cringe at - to them your attitude comes over like some fuckwit from a different century. It's embarrassing trying to deal with it. I talk to my family to move back up north and my wife and two (cockney, nufc supporting) lads see and hear s**** like that and just ask why we'd want to go there if we'd have to live by people who spout your kind of mindless bollocks. I begin to wonder myself, even though I know that fortunately, gobshites like yourself are well in the minority. The banner carriers were sad attenton seeking tw@ts who could have done it at half time if they'd had any sense, but to get their 5 minutes of fame they chose to do it when the team needed our support. We have NO cockneys on our board - and most cockneys probably sympathise with our situation. I say lynch the b@stards who carried that banner if we go down by 3 points.

Warner has gone up in my estimation, fine words and standing up to a country betraying thug.

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11095_4137037,00.html A disgrace to Ireland.