OzzieMandias

The first time Keegan walked out, I cried. The second time Keegan walked out, I thought, "you faint-hearted tosser!" I hope to God there won't be a third time.

he left because he was told that he would have to sell to buy, he had already bought a and built a title challenging team, the board changed to wanting to make money rather then win summik. Having said that KD was still given some canny wedge to spend. In that scenario of KK staying you'd have to imagine that he wouldn;t have had to sell anyone. if he stayed of course. see what i mean. a definitive reason why he left has never been established. he himself used the "the club was becoming a plc and i was going to have to commit to longer than i felt happy with" reason. also the " i wasn't happy with how the club would be ran as a plc" reason and at the time the "i've taking them as far as i can" reason. doug and fred reckon they got rid of him and there was the story he left after giving yet another ultimatum about signing beppe signori. one of them may be true. There was also the "I felt sorry for Gerry Francis after tonking Spurs because the fun's gone out of it" reason.

Was that Pierce Brosnan or Timothy Dalton?

Doesn't mean you've got the others, though. Shepherd "had ambition". Shepherd appointed Souness. I rest my case. You've been arguing with NE5 for too long. I didn't say you've got the others, I said you'd know you'd need the others. But surely we can agree that knowing you need the others is not the same as actually having the others? That's all I was saying, really. And as it goes, I don't think "having ambition" even necessarily means that you know you need the others. Or you can still be deluded about whether you've got them or not. Imagine Shepherd saying to himself, "Oh dear, I'm obviously not as good as I should be when it comes to appointing managers, so I'll get someone in who's better at it than I am." Aye, but the question is which is the most important. I think that to have ambition is the most important because in aiming for heights you NEED all, or at least some of the others. You need less for the others. For example, you don't need to have money to hit a goal of being decisive, or you don't need to have ambition to have a plan, if that plan is to make money out of the club. You see what I mean. In order to hit a goal of having ambition, the others are needed, so its the most important in my eyes. Yeah, I basically think that all of these qualities are important. Ambition alone is not enough. My ideal owner right now would be big on vision, decision-making, and implementation.

Doesn't mean you've got the others, though. Shepherd "had ambition". Shepherd appointed Souness. I rest my case. You've been arguing with NE5 for too long. I didn't say you've got the others, I said you'd know you'd need the others. But surely we can agree that knowing you need the others is not the same as actually having the others? That's all I was saying, really. And as it goes, I don't think "having ambition" even necessarily means that you know you need the others. Or you can still be deluded about whether you've got them or not. Imagine Shepherd saying to himself, "Oh dear, I'm obviously not as good as I should be when it comes to appointing managers, so I'll get someone in who's better at it than I am."

Doesn't mean you've got the others, though. Shepherd "had ambition". Shepherd appointed Souness. I rest my case.

I'd cheat and watch where he was going through my fingers.

A leveraged buyout would depend on the club having a decent turnover to fund the debt. We don't.

In which case it's probably Ronald McDonald. In the hollywood version it'll be a heartwarming tale of four successful ex-frat boys out to save the club that shares the name of the brown ale they pounded down nightly while in college. Along the way they learn a little bit about football, and a lot about life. Maybe we'll get Al Pacino as manager. Great half-time speeches.

If it's a consortium of Americans experienced in owning a "sports franchise", I'd be all for it.

I wonder where I can get a copy of Michael Owen's "personal brochure".

No. I mean, what would we actually get? If we're lucky, a Shepherd with his debts paid off. But a Shepherd with new ideas? The old board brought us some success in a totally different football/business climate, but were not able to sustain it. In their last five years we went from riding high to being a mid-table/bottom-half club – a trajectory that showed no signs of changing for the better at the time they cashed in their chips – and they threw more and more money at the problem in a failed attempt to stem the tide. That's all they seemed to know how to do – throw money at it. When it worked this was "backing the manager"; when it didn't it left us with the fifth-highest wage bill in the Premiership and a crippling wages/turnover ratio to pay for an increasingly mediocre, bottom-half team, and a shitload of debt with just about every future revenue stream in hock. As SJH admitted in so many words, they had run out of ideas. Sorry, but even if a returning Shepherd was supplied with new money to throw, more than ever we need to be run by someone who can take a broader view of the club, continue the aggressive development of the academy that Ashley got off to a stuttering start, build a world-class scouting network, and look a bit further into the future than the next dividend day. Shepherd and "fresh start" is a contradiction in terms. This club badly needs to get its head out of its past.

Shearer's probably already told them which players he'd want to keep, and which he' d want to get rid of.

We need someone who'll put money into the club. That rules out Fred.

Ray Ransom?

After a Chelsea fan I know only very vaguely posted a thing about looking forward to "seeing fat Geordies crying" on Facebook, I badly want Everton to nick this.

It's probably something around 10% of NUFC employees going off last year's accounts. Could have been worse, then. I was expecting it to be a larger percentage.

120 out of how many in total?

No, we're not renewing our pair of family STs. It's my brother's decision really, as he forks out and uses them the most, and I feel a bit sad about it but it's fair enough. My nephews are off to college, I get back to Newcastle less often these days, and with increasingly crap football on offer it all seems too expensive now -- especially as tickets are available match by match. The decision was made prior to relegation, FWIW.

From Veszprém, eh? I've got a happy memory of changing trains there one sunny afternoon. Had an hour or so to wait for my connection. As in most Hungarian stations, there was a small bar with tables on the platform. I sank a beer or two, enjoyed the sleepy atmosphere, and watched old locomotives pull in and out.

I'm inclined to agree with the above and have been thinking much the same myself. Is Shearer the right man? One win and one draw as manager? No experience of the Championship? Maybe. But right now the only box he ticks, as far as I can see, is that the knee-jerk element among our fans -- the ones whose ridiculous protests had such an undeniably negative effect on our season -- will accept him and give him a bit of time.

Might pay a bit more attention to the Bundesliga next season. Other Premiership clubs? Fuck off.

A fire sale would simply have to happen. There's no point in complaining about it. Our wage bill is unsustainable in the Premiership, never mind in the Fizzy Pop league. And there aren't that many players I'd cry about losing. The real test would come in how intelligently we rebuild.

There was a new owner called Ashley Keegan walked 'cos no splashing of cashly Kinnear was a tit And Chris H wasn't it So Wor Alan came in, maybe rashly

"not everyone"..."for no apparent reason"...too many switching negatives. theres vodka going on here dude. Er... so some people don't hate Newcastle for apparent reasons?