OzzieMandias

Excellent piece about the "Yid" thing (and written by someone I happen to know is an Arsenal fan, though you'd never guess it from this): http://petersilverton.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/yiddos-yiddos-so-today-west-ham-play.html

Not really. We sold 50k for a testimonial and Barcelona as a city is probably more than 10x the size of Newcastle. Not really, Barcelona isn't that big. Newcastle would need to be some hamlet if Barcelona were 10 times the size of it. Population wise 1.6 million v 279,000, only 5 times the size.. See, I was right. Hum. Sorta. Had Newcastle for a bigger city for some reason. It looks bigger in Geordie Shore. It's bigger than that. That's the population figure for Newcastle proper. The population of Tyneside, a contiguous urban area on both sides of the river including Gateshead and the places you'll have seen on Geordie Shore, is more like 880,000. The region has a population of more like 1.6 million, though that includes Sunderland. But then the urban area of Barcelona, according to wiki, is 4.5 million – "the sixth-most populous urban area in the European Union after Paris, London, the Ruhr, Madrid and Milan."

I'll keep an eye out when I'm on my lunch break.

I'm glad you had a good time! I've never seen Hertha come back from behind, ever. Must admit I was concerned when they went a goal down. Great comeback though. As an aside, Berlin is a beautiful city and I'd move here in a heartbeat. Totally my sort of place. I hadn't realised the marathon was today as well so caught some of that in a few different areas including towards the end up towards the Brandenburg Gate. Aye, it's a good city. Friendly, laid-back, interesting, easy to move around in, relatively inexpensive, 24-hour licensing, very cosmopolitan, and absolutely stacks going on. Not great for football, though. Where have you been staying?

I'm glad you had a good time! I've never seen Hertha come back from behind, ever.

I can't see how, unless Ashley wants to sell them cash at a discount, which seems unlikely.

The opposite of Di Canio would surely be Egil Olsen – communist Norwegian long-ball merchant who wears wellingtons.

I liked Vásás in Budapest. Friendly place with terraces full of drunken trade unionists, and a bar behind one of the goals where, surprisingly, you can just wander in, sit down at a table by the window, and watch the game with a beer and a chicken sandwich. Not many of the regular fans go in there for some reason. Saw them beat (surprisingly) Werder Bremen one time in the Intertwobob, and the guy on the next table was the chairman of the club. Only him and us in there. Weird. I live in Berlin but have no affection at all for Hertha. Used to go to matches reasonably often but have stopped bothering in recent years. FC Union is a bit more fun. If football is the primary purpose, probably better to go to just about any other big German city, though. The craic at St Pauli is legendary. And for some reason I've started having a soft spot for Eintracht Frankfurt, even though I've never been to Frankfurt. If in the Czech Republic, Viktoria Zhizkov seemed to be the St Pauli of Prague. Been to all the clubs in Lisbon, but the nicest one to visit is not Benfica or Sporting, but Belenenses. They have a ground near the river (more of an estuary at this point) and it's open on the river side. No stand. So from much of the stadium you have this spectacular view across the water. Excellent place to watch a game on a sunny afternoon. Hmm. I seem to like the smaller clubs in big, multiple-club cities. But I suppose what you don't get with those is the "big match" feeling that might propel you halfway across Europe for the purpose of being there.

Should be spanking these. About time Cisse found his scoring boots.

A big part of the problem is that the people making the decisions are all obsessed with the idea of "legacy", as if the only point of staging a World Cup was to leave behind a bit of sporting infrastructure... like the now barely used white elephant stadiums in South Africa. England already having great stadiums then becomes part of the problem. "No point doing the World Cup there, they don't need the legacy." I seem to remember Qatar arguing that they would build temporary, prefabricated stadiums for the World Cup and then afterwards donate these to needy undeveloped countries who are gagging for new places to play football.

"A letter from a Jewish Tottenham fan to David Baddiel" http://www.thstofficial.com/latest-news/a-letter-from-a-jewish-tottenham-fan-to-david-baddiel.aspx# This guy's got a point.

It's pathetic how little fans count in the overall picture. The ideal World Cup for us ordinary folk is somewhere where the facilities are good, travel is easy (both to and from the country and internally), and there's plenty to do between matches – somewhere that makes for a nice summer trip. Not a fucking tiny desert state where no one in their right minds would take a holiday, where alcohol is forbidden and where ordinary folk might get thrown in prison just for being, say, gay. Nor in winter at a time when people might have difficulty travelling. Germany, Brazil -- these are good places for a World Cup. Qatar, Russia -- hopeless. Though at least you can get a drink in Russia.

He was sold because we needed to sell to recoup some of what we'd shelled out on Shearer. Great striker and clearly lovely bloke and one of the few ex-Toon players that I carried on liking after they'd left us. Prone to big dips in confidence, though, as (sadly) in the 1996 Premier League run-in.

I seem to remember you being a big fan of protests against the NUFC board in the past. Thanks for the characteristically cheap shot. No answer to my honest question, however. There have been protests. Did you think they did any good? How's it a cheap shot? For people who are unhappy with the direction and stewardship of the club there's little alternative other than to shut up and meekly accept it. Something you weren't prepared to do under the previous regime. Strange. Still going for the man and not for the ball. I'll rephrase my question yet again, in the probably vain hope of actually getting an answer: If you think any of the protests against Ashley have had a positive effect, please tell me what it was. Acknowledging he was out of his depth and openly putting the club up for sale. Why is your opinion on protests against such an unpopular NUFC tenure diametrically opposed to your opinion when Shepherd was here? Both the personalities and the circumstances have changed. Football has changed, the economy has changed, and Ashley is not Shepherd. Shepherd was vulnerable to being hit in the pocket -- given the tying of loans to season ticket sales, for example, fan unrest had the potential of totally hobbling his already unsteady cash cow and a few chants of "sack the board" would have the effect of getting him to scurry out and blow some more borrowed money on Michael Owen or some such. Now there isn't even a board, and Ashley is too rich to be vulnerable in the same way. Such protests as there have been seem to have had no effect but to make Ashley give up trying to enjoy his ownership of the club, and he's clearly not interested in acquiescing to the wishes of a bunch of people who think he's a "fat cockney rapist". In short, just because one thinks protest is a good idea in one set of circumstances, it doesn't follow that one should think it's always a good idea in any circumstances. Can't believe I'm having to point out something so blindingly obvious, like.

I seem to remember you being a big fan of protests against the NUFC board in the past. Thanks for the characteristically cheap shot. No answer to my honest question, however. There have been protests. Did you think they did any good? How's it a cheap shot? For people who are unhappy with the direction and stewardship of the club there's little alternative other than to shut up and meekly accept it. Something you weren't prepared to do under the previous regime. Strange. Still going for the man and not for the ball. I'll rephrase my question yet again, in the probably vain hope of actually getting an answer: If you think any of the protests against Ashley have had a positive effect, please tell me what it was.

I wonder if Josef Goebels is now working for NUFC and SD? It would seem so. Nah, the PR would be more effective.

I seem to remember you being a big fan of protests against the NUFC board in the past. Thanks for the characteristically cheap shot. No answer to my honest question, however. There have been protests. Did you think they did any good?

There have been various protests since Ashley arrived. Have any of them had a positive effect? They've arguably made the situation worse.

Regardless. The appointment should have been made with Sir Bob's approval and blessing. That would have been the way forward for the club. I'm pretty sure SBR would have picked none of the aforementioned knackers (McClaren being less knackerish, but a knacker nonetheless). Keegan told Big Shep to get Brian Little to succeed him in 96 fwiw. Keegan had nowhere near the global footballing experience that Robson had. Aye, Sir Bobby thought Steve Bruce would be a good manager for us.

Eh? Newspapers are going broke left, right and centre. If you don't see how this affects the way people consume media and read news then you're nuts. The Washington Post was just sold for $250m, a fraction of its peak value. The Boston Globe was sold for $70m, a full $1bn less than its price 20 years ago. Advertising revenue doesn't cover the decline in traditional revenues. It shouldn't matter who owns it as the effect of this decline is far more damaging to the people who work in it, and also affects the way news is reported. This is not music where artists earn a majority of their money from other sources, anyway, not that it makes downloading music something that is commendable. It's not a good situation when news organisations which should be impartial are all tangled up in shitloads of conflicts of interests because they don't have enough subscribership revenue and have to depend on corporate sponsors instead, the same corporations that they report on. (coincidentally everyone is killing the Chronicle on their reporting on Wonga) If you want good, honest, impartial reporting then you have to pay for it. People bitch and moan when the local journalists don't print stuff because they're afraid to offend the club's hierarchy yet fail to see that leaving news organisations completely beholden to corporate sponsors is by default forcing this status quo on editors and journalists. Anyway, the mods have probably made this decision because posting articles behind a paywall could get this site in trouble, in the same way as posting copyrighted football videos once got this place shut down. I'm sure all the people bitching today would moan even more if this forum was shut down. I'm certain that the moral argument matters less to the mods than any possible legal consequence, but nonetheless they have merit. To be fair, though, the local papers still had to cuddle up to the club even when advertising revenues were healthier.

It doesn't have to be "editorial instruction". The copy could have been re-angled by a sub-editor without the reporter even knowing about it until the paper appeared. And if "instruction" is what the difference is all about, then it could just as easily have been the Journal saying "put this in" rather than the Chronicle saying "leave it out". The difference is weird, though.

100% this. Our average league position in Ashley's tenure is lower than in the period before he took over. To suggest it isn't debatable if we have made progress is quite frankly laughable. Unfortunately our resident balance sheet fan has given up on trying to explain with arguments his opinions presented as fact. Am interested in who you are referring to and why you say that. Are you for real? I hardly ever see you post about anything other than finances. I like you as a poster, and I certainly value your contribution on those finance topics, as you are obviously knowledgeable about accounting/finance, but passing off some very subjective statements about Ashley as facts that cannot be debated has got my back up a bit. I apologise if an opinion that doesn't tally with your "objective" view of the world offends you. Am for real. Thanks for the stuff about my financial posts, but I am at the end of the day a NUFC football fan believe it or not. This is a forum for opinions and I freely admit I have punted one or two out there tonight. But no one has really knocked back anything I have said. There have been worse Premiership owners than Ashley, our previous regime had reached a point where the 2006 intake of players can hardly be described as ambitious etc. Not offended btw. I think you will find not many people agree with you on those statements, especially the second one. Look, the one thing that Ashley seems to gave sorted is not wasting huge sums of money on players without resale value, and even then, from a footballing perspective financial frugality only benefits us as supporters directly if these savings are invested more wisely in the playing squad, which they currently aren't. Other than that, I struggle to see how we are far better off than before he took over (your words) by any measure. We are worse off in terms of (average) league position, club reputation, non-TV revenue (in absolute terms, but certainly relative to our competitors) and to top it off we have a management structure and personnel that would make many Championship club blush with shame. Without doubt our current management structure is embarrassing, probably worse than that tbh. Your point about the average league position is statistically accurate. But imo we were f*cked in the summer of 2007, I have explained why elsewhere on this forum. And I have (I hope) explained my frustrations with what Ashley is doing and especially the utter rubbish that was the last transfer window. The trouble is if anyone puts anything up on here that doesn't conform to the "Ashley is Satan and anyone who doesn't agree is beyond belief " view you get trashed unfortunately. He is Satan but there are other factors. You consistently talk good sense. Don't let the lynch mob grind you down.

What money has he been trousering, exactly? Hows about 60 million Sky money or haven't you been paying attention to the fact that the likes of Southampton, Norwich and Swansea have been blowing us out of the water in the transfer market. It would be hard for him to trouser the Sky money you speak of as it won't be paid out until the end of the season, or are you under the impression that Ashley is the new Dr Who?