HawK

It's a battle that won't be won in Ashley's lifetime in my opinion. I got slated when I called it a couple of years ago on here, that we lost the moment that all the 'proper', i.e. invested fans walked away. It's a unique problem of this club, for every proper fan, there's another happy clapper ready to take their place. Who would have thought being a one club city would help make the perfect storm of circumstances to let the cancer thrive. 50 thousand proper fans could be militised, could protest en masse in the ground, could deface/damage/vandalise SD hoardings. Could refuse to buy anything in the club shop or refreshments. Could sit through a match in total silence. Could mob Ashley inside and outside the ground. It's a situation of advantage that we'll never get back, Ashley has won. He won when we didn't make the most of the Keegan tribunal. Most of us chose what we thought was the best option at the time was, which was to vote with our feet. None of us could have anticipated the willing apathy from the casual fanbase and to lap up all the spare tickets. The pennies of the match day tickets compared to the brand exposure of SD globally which saw the share price rise to over 500% of its flotation value a couple of years ago is absolutely nothing to Mike. The odd 1000 staying away won't matter one iota, it has to be all or nothing, and the damage is to the brand, not the NUFC bank balance. The only hope now is to damage his SD brand through Newcastle United. A media campaign, or attention, on negativity surrounding the partnership between Newcastle United and Sports Direct. Fans were on the right lines during the SD protests but there's just not enough like minded people. Education of the fanbase has to be key. As long as the discontented is the minority, nothing will ever, ever change... unless someone takes one for the fans and does something that would have custodial ramifications.

Bit harsh on his missus and kids, that tbh!

99% of match goers don't visit this forum. 99% of this forum don't regularly attend SJP. Soapboxing on this forum demanding that people don't go is beyond pointless. If you care that much, door-to-door in your spare time rather than preach to the converted on an internet forum which is largely populated by people not even local to the area.

Except it's a private company, so you can't do this. If NUST were buying NUFC shares (which don't exist currently), I'd be fully on board. Although I'd probably consider just buying them myself.

That won’t ever happen. But if it were to turn into more of an investment group. More incentive for people with money to invest in. The dream of owning a slice of a club could be attractive. It would be basically a Newcastle-branded fans investment group like you say. I'm not sure how much I would trust my fellow peers with investment funds over more 'established' investment companies at that...

Just how many fans of the club are there? If we count every living man, woman and child in Newcastle, according to Google that's about 250k people. If they all somehow conjured up £1k each to put towards a bid, that's still £100m short of the supposed 'asking price'. I don't think you could ever get to a solely fan-owned PL club now with the money involved.

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Shit on his driveway Just throw lots of stale bread on it. Let the pigeons do the dirty work.

..should be prevented from entering the ground by rings of protesters.

Wouldn’t want him. Think he’s a bit of a Pratt. I know, I just mean the only scenario Jose joins us will be the case of a successful takeover So the odds for both events should be the same Not really, only if it was a 100% certainty that if the fakeover happened that Mourinho would be made manager.

It's not even funny - think how many people are reading this who are not forum regulars or are from media or other clubs. I just want it to all crash and burn so we can one rise up from the flames and it would be a bonus if these two parasites were in the driving seat. Ok that I can get behind

It's not even funny - think how many people are reading this who are not forum regulars or are from media or other clubs.

Bale imo. I'd put a : lol : smiley but I can't be sure it won't be at least attempted

How does the 'takeover' save face? Agree about the China carry on, that's just the start. To me it's just more excuses, he doesn't ever seem to want to be seen in a bad light. Anything to protect his image, anything to deflect the blame from him. One way or another he's kept the mob at bay for a decade.

'Clubs from China offering £12.5m a year', 'mysterious investment group from the middle east'... all smells of the same shit to me. All to get rid of Rafa and save face, the slimey thin-skinned cunt.

So...

Well it's only unfathomable if you have no knowledge of Mike Ashley whatsoever, Benitez is Ashley's worst nightmare in some regards. Too much hassle despite the ££ saved in not spending on better players because of the quality of the manager. Curblishley / Phil Brown / Kinnear / Pardew again / Allardyce . Place your bets, please.

Sounds like you do understand. Basically what the more sensible lot have thought all along. Genuine takeover attempt (not an MA/KB masterplan), fat mike to pull the rug at some point. Basically it. I still genuinely think there's a strong chance this has been engineered, I don't know the BZG or anyone from it, and I'd rather go with my gut when thinking about what MA and KB would be willing to do. I wholeheartedly agree that takeover rumor or not, the end result in terms of the financial outlay/investment in the club is the same regardless. However, this is Mike Ashley, a man seemingly hell-bent on deliberately misleading and downright antaognising the fan base. With cronies in Sky Sports to peddle whatever plan of the day he wants to peddle. I think he's had it in us for a long time, remember that letter he wrote to the fans about not being able to bring his family because he didn't feel safe at the ground? The guy is willing to bet huge sums on a whim in casinos, what's a hypothetical 5-10m kicker to a previously unknown figurehead Arabian investment company to him to further annoy us even more. It seems to be pretty much his mission in life to antagonise and do whatever he can to the club to 'get back' at the people of Newcastle. Would be ecstatic to be proved wrong, but 10+ years of experience of having takeover after takeover fail when he's 'trying' to sell the club has me pretty much entrenched in not believing a single word written about, let alone from the club. Until I see a press conference at SJP with someone saying they are the owners of the club, I won't believe in literally anything. So whilst I do consider myself sensible, I just have a different viewpoint based on my own values. I woudn't label people who disagree with your point of view as 'unsensible' by inference, forums are for debate and discourse FWIW, I think you're one of the more sensible posters on here.

Yeah, Bale comparisons are ridiculous. It was a good run, but some of the overreactions here are just absurd. I knew the Cult of Miggy was very powerful - guess I won’t comment on him at all... Seems I should have made this more obvious but I wasn't actually comparing him to Bale as a footballer. My point was when a top player does that (Bale is a random example, since he's a star in a weaker international side and made those trademark massive runs) then people celebrate the outcome - ie running from his own half past two players and putting it on a plate - rather than nitpicking and finding moments where he might've got lucky in the buildup. Can't believe you had to clarify this, it was obvious from your post.

7 working days to go before Rafa's contract is up, well played Mike.

I’d rather be dead than live in your world. Imagine if Fergie had done that. Don't think even Fergie would live long in Dokko's world either, tbh.

Why? How does that benefit Ashley? It's about patterns of behaviour. Hes quashed Staveley (who was genuine), and Kenyon (who he was mates with), why wouldnt he have dumped these lot by now. He will be inundated with questions, he could have responded at any time and hasn't. Not until after the story had served its purpose 2-3 weeks left to go, expect another drip-fed, sugar-coated shit pill to tide us over till then.

Turned it off after the guy suggested that Yedlin is one of the four current players that could be important when we eventually challenge for the title. Well, I rate him higher than PL winner Danny Simpson... meaning pretty much any PL RB could win you the league