OzzieMandias

It seems we're both called Chris, and frankly I honestly can't. One has Chris in his name, the other names himself after an erection. To be fair, after an anagram of "Jim Morrison".

They must have had UV doing the sums.

I read somewhere that it wasn't.

End-of-season game against Manchester City, 1968. I was, like, 12, in the Gallowgate with my dad and my brother. While my father chatted to some old codgers further up the terraces, me and my brother went down the front and met some other kids, with whom we started singing -- Blaydon Races, various player songs ("sha-la-la-la McNamee" -- he scored our first), every other song we could think of though I can't remember them now. It was an exciting game. We'd lost our last four matches and lost this one, too, 3–4, but in a game in which they bagged the Division One title, we gave them a real fight. We sang our songs all over again, really singing our little hearts out, maybe a dozen of us... and then eventually ran out of steam. There was a moment's relative silence, and then the whole Leazes End started singing, "They've all gone quiet over there!" It took me a second to register, but then I realized that they were singing about us! I was so fucking proud. I also really enjoyed the game, and then felt a bit guilty about enjoying a game so much when we'd lost, and then realised that it was OK to enjoy it because it really had been a good game, whatever the result. This wasn't my first game -- I'd been to a few others that season -- but I think it was that day that I really fell in love both with Newcastle United and with the game of football itself.

I watched the documentary one time. It was really good.

Bend it like Bhutan: http://www.theotherfinal.com http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/the-other-world-cup-final-647068.html

Respect isn't the word I'd use. People my age (28) and above remember and respect us as a throwback from the 90s but younger fans have no idea about our history. We've not been on most people's radars for nearly a decade now. Plus, being known in France and Spain is one thing, the rest of the world is something else. The term "big club" for me is akin to "McBrand" and we don't come close to competing with the real big boys worldwide - from Manchester United to Real Madrid to Barca to Bayern. In any event, I wish people would stop using the term, as it gets under everyone's skin and I'm fairly sure that commentators only use it to wind up the fans. On the nail... Indeed.

What a WUM.

Look who's touchy!

They're evidently hard at work releasing bullet-points about their notable achievements, which amount to having raised a few grand for Sir Bobby's charity and getting 30,000 sigs on an anti-stadium-naming-rights petition.

That Ferencváros game is one of the highlights for me, too. I was at St James' but was living in Budapest at the time, so it was extra sweet.

Watching the Accrington game, I enjoyed the fact that we've got a second string with some character -- quite a few interesting players in there. The grab-promising-youngsters priority of recent years seems to be bearing fruit, and though I've no idea how our youngsters compare with those at other clubs, we seem to be well set up to take advantage of the "unlimited u-21s" thing should some evil flu bug strike down half the PL.

Woodgate fails to make the Spurs 25-man squad. Must be near to the end of the line for him.

The "fire-sprite"!

This we all know. The question is why was it released at all? The 'expectations' of the fans would have been fuck all given the recent history Ashley just had (Keegan, appointing JFK, not spending in Jan, selling Milner and making a profit etc.). Who in their right minds would have had any expectations that Ashley would open the chequebook? As it is they've stated 'no capital investment' then went and spent fucking money on players We're ran by incompetents and arseholes, simple as that. I don't see the contradiction. I always interpreted the "no new capital outlay" thing to mean that player purchases would be financed from turnover, rather than by the owner pumping in more of his own money. It didn't mean we wouldn't spend anything, but it didn't sound like we would spend very much. Now it's been suggested by the Journal that Ashley did fund recent player purchases. Remains to be seen whether or not that is actually true, but if he did, is that a bad thing? As investment, it looks pretty damn prudent to me. We seem to play real hardball in the transfer market now, and it seems we're quite good at it. If public lowering of expectations and a stern policy of silence on dealings (augmented by the occasional tactical leak) are all part of the strategy, then so be it. The days of doubling the only other offer for Michael Owen are over.

He did apparently try to buy Schwarzer.

This is basically my view, I'm completely mystified that any fans expect the club to release financial details mid-way through a year. The press and the world at large will make up their own minds anyway, let's just keep our heads down and get on with the job. Lest we forget, the club get hammered every time they release one of their statements anyway. It's because some people are apparently desperate to find something to complain about.

isn't he meaning the general health of the clubs finances? i.e. debt levels, income levels etc. that's what i read into it from malandro anyway, not how much they had to spend on players: "I just want to know what the clubs financial position is and what the plan is to deal with it" were the words used We do that by filing the company accounts every March/April. That and issuing the occasional statement such as "we made a loss of about £30 million last season, but our aim is to be breaking even in a few years' time."

I think "Tioté" sounds mint in a Geordie accent.

By definition it’s impossible to take ambiguous statements literally. Tell that to hundreds of millions of fundamentalist Christians.

Well, so much for "no new capital outlay" meaning a sell-to-buy policy.

Precisely.

There’s been a few five years plans, but the last one was mentioned in the no capital outlay statement “The Board have therefore structured a five year plan in which the ultimate goal will be to ensure that the club is run at a break even manner by the year 2015/2016” This official club statement also talks about “an estimated loss for 2009/2010 of £32.5 million”. Given that Lambias claimed relegation cost the club £50m, it seems reasonable to assume our return to the PL should be worth a similar amount - giving the club a projected profit of nearly £18m this season. Plus there’s also the extra money from the new shirt sponsor and kit deals, not to mention the money from selling off the naming rights to the ground . With a current outlay of about £5m on transfers fees and probably a slight increase in wages - if we’re not breaking even this season I’d like to know where the money is going. http://www.nufc.com/2009-10html/2010-05-09nufc-statement.html http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/article6904319.ece And you'll find out when they publish the accounts. The biggest item in those is always the wage bill, which is conspicuously absent from your back-of-an-envelope suppositions. Butt's gone but we've just added wages for Campbell, Tioté and Ben Arfa, who are all probably on a decent whack, plus Gosling and Perch. I appreciate this doesn’t fit in with your head in the sand agenda, but the figures are from the club. I haven’t made them up. Obviously if we had access to the books we wouldn’t need to make calculations on the back of an envelope, but since we don’t working with the information the club provide is all that’s on offer. More importantly, you should note that I’m backing up my interpretation of our current financial position with evidence, whereas as your nit picking guff is based on nothing at all. What "evidence", you numpty? The only figure that came from the club in anything even remotely resembling an official form is an estimation of our losses last season. From this "evidence" you are extrapolating the entire financial position?

The end of Owen Hargreaves? Great shame, if so. http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/sport/markogden/100012056/owen-hargreaves-facing-his-own-black-wednesday-at-manchester-united/