Mick

Martin Jol has been shit on by his directors, I'd love to see them go down.

I'm sure he did support the mackems, he came from Penshaw so he lived a couple of miles from mackemland, I knew his sister and she looked exactly the same as him, she had the same bent nose. I thought Kennedy was as good as Nattrass if that's who you're on about as being better. David Craig was better than them both, pity about his injury.

Mick and Leazes are two that spring to mind. I couldn't care less about him, he's gone.

None of that makes him reclusive, it means no more than he had no interest in his local pub and he was concerned about his security.

I'm sure Mort said that Ashley was unlikely to be seen in the directors box, he'd be more likely to sit in the middle of the Gallowgate wearing a black & white shirt.

PR isn't a dirty word so I don't understand people getting too bothered when it's mentioned. Of course what Ashley and Mort are doing is PR, that doesn't mean that they are not acting natural in what they are doing. Ashley not going mad about Sports Direct has no bearing on how he reacts to being our owner as football is a game which is based around passion. I'm not surprised that Ashley has been taken in by owning the club and sampling the atmosphere which is associated with the club, city and area in general. As for Mort, he's also doing some good PR but again that should be natural to somebody if they are good in business, it's a part of the job but doesn't make it any less genuine. They are both doing very good jobs and I think we're lucky to have them, enjoy the ride as everything looks set to bring back the good times. Everybody within the club seems to be fighting for the same cause, once again we are looking as if we all want the same thing, a bit of success. If I had to mark the change that we've seen so far out of 10 I'd probably go for 8.5.

Another thread changes direction for no obvious reason, NE5 can't help himself.

Duff has done less for us than Michael Owen, I don't see him changing too much.

I'm not saying that he should come back but the same was said when he returned as manager and I'm not sure it would be true now. I wouldn't want him to come back as manager although I'm sure he could do a brilliant PR job for the club and area.

I like half of that idea, why not use it as part of our pre-season and play them against the team we are getting ready for next season?

I can't remeber but I would be able to work it out as my uncle took me for my birthday, I sat on a floodlight in the Gallowgate and it rained all match.

2 years of Owen means 20 games and 9 goals if the last two are anything to go by, to be fair to him the last two years shouldn't be repeated but you never know.

You're right, he's a great player when fit and nobody would consider letting him go if he played even 75% of games, less than 1 game in 4 makes him virtually useless to us, not a player you could consider relying on. I like him as a person and I like him as a footballer, he just doesn't play enough football for us.

A player who scores 1 every 4 games is of more use to us than a player who scores almost a goal every other game if the player isn't playing enough games. Owen has played less than 10 games per season for us so a player who plays every game and only scores 1 in 4 will get twice as many goals. Selling Owen would be the same as selling Woodgate, selling Woodgate was the right decision, replacing him with Boumsong was the mistake.

£15 million for a player with an injury record like the one Owen has got isn't rubbish at all, I can't remember any player as injury prone as Owen going for more.

Goals per game isn't a reason to keep somebody who has played so few games. 20 games in over 2 years is pathetic by most standards.

I'm glad they've all gone, Sir John did a good job and Shepherd has done Ok at times, mainly the ground expansion and with the appointment of Sir Bobby. I can't think anything good to say about Douglas although I'm sure he must have done something positive during his time here, possibly in bringing Keegan in, I'm scratching my head after that. I knew somebody 5 years ago who had known Douglas for most of his life and he said that he was a very nice person, he would go drinking with him down the quayside most weekends, I guess the spotlight must have changed his personality.

Is the league table the barometer which we should judge us and Chelsea during the times being debated? I'm guessing that you will agree that it is as you're happy to dismiss cups won by Chelsea while we won nothing but did better than they did in the league.

Dalglish spent almost £16 million more than he brought back in through sales, he was backed more than any manager other than Souness under Shepherd so I think the theory that the floatation of the club caused us financial restraints goes straight out of the window. Dalglish spent something like £26 million while bringing in £10.4 million. Sir Bobby was backed the least per year, then comes Gullit followed by Roeder. As for the figures produced by Chris Mort, he hasn't really said anything about how much debt we had that we didn't already know, the only thing he's really added is that he thought that we were going to have problems repaying the debt. Yesterday I read something you posted about the Hall's selling shares for £4.5 million, they did do that but they deferred half of that amount, they didn't take it all in one go and they also sold the shares to the club for a fraction of what they could have sold them for on the open market, they sold them for 27.1p at a time that the market valued them at 40p each. They could have sold 25% less shares on the open market and raised the same amount of cash and received the total amount a year earlier. Cameron Hall was in a very poor position but I'm not sure how that effected the club although the football club did guarantee a loan which Cameron Hall had taken out, obviously the club would have taken a financial hit if Cameron Hall had of defaulted on the loan but I don't think that happened.

Good idea, the PA is pathetic.

You claim that Sir Bobby had lost the plot at the time of writing the book yet you were more than happy to use him to endorse Shepherd later on when he said something good about him, how does that one work? You have been told many times that we did make an accounting profit on Carl Cort as we'd paid for him in full.

Keegan seemed to think it was when he first got the job, he said as much in the Chronicle earlier this year. http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/nufc/newcastle-united-news/2007/04/18/exclusive-full-kevin-keegan-interview-72703-18923168/ "When Newcastle came calling for me it was very exciting," recalled Kevin. "John Hall phoned and said `Only two people can save Newcastle United and they are talking to each other right now.' That was a powerful message. "We went on a rollercoaster ride, all of us together. Douglas Hall and Freddy Shepherd were great when I was there. John was the figurehead but they drove the club forward. And chief executive Freddie Fletcher – we called him the Jockweiler – was also vital in our era. As for your second comment, Sir John Hall would have been stupid to let a friendship get in the way of making the right decision, it's a good job that he didn't do it.

You seem to forget that Keegan only came to Newcastle after Sir John rang Keegan and told him that only two people could save Newcastle and they were talking to each other (or words to that effect), Freddy Fletcher was the one who first mentioned Keegan as a possible manager, something to do with work they'd done together years earlier. You're right about Sir John not wanting to sack Ardilles as they were friends and socialised together.

To be fair to Owen, he does get a lot of shit from people although he did seem to be saying what he thought people wanted to hear.

Between us we've potentially saved him £7 per game, not bad.