Mick

Shepherd didn't exactly start well but didn't get the stick that Ashley and Mort are getting, nobody judged him so soon after getting the job, he was rightly given time to prove what he could do.

Havent started well? I'm going to have to wait until the 17th March before i know whether my team is going down? If thats when we get our next points. If its not 3, we are going down imo. I see 2 points from the next four games at best on current form. But then if you'd asked me that question about these coming games in November i would have said the same thing and that cant be on account of the manager anymore, as he has changed, that'll be on account of the playing staff. THAT is the biggest failing of this board, to have failed to recognise the quality of the players working for them. I pointed out earlier in the thread that a fundamental in business is understanding the talents of those who work for you. I cant stress that enough, as we 'stumble' towards relegation. It's not up to the board to recognise the quality of the players, that's the managers job although it doesn‘t always seem to have been the case in the past. The manager is the one who should hire and fire when the players are involved. The chairman should provide the manager with the funds to do something about in and in the last two transfer windows money had been available for players and on both occasions we've come out of the window with money still to spend. If the manager is the wrong one then the chairman is responsible for that unless he goes behind the managers back and buys and sells his players.

That post is so one sided. We didn't just end up bottom half, Shepherd took over the club when we'd just finished 2nd in the league, his first full season saw us drop to 13th, a position that we repeated the next season. We then had a couple of 11th places before we had our best 3 finishes under him, 4th, 3rd and 5th, 3 great finishes which were not maintained as Shepherd sacked the manager who gave us them finishes, a manager who was not financially supported in the pre-season before he was sacked. Robson had Gary Speed sold behind his back, according to him and had Woodgate sold and wasn’t given a replacement. As for us being a laughing stock, if that’s true, and it probably is at the minute then they’ve just maintained the status quo, being a laughing stock isn’t exactly a new thing for us. If we are currently a laughing stock it’s because our new owner sits with the fans, no big deal as far as I’m concerned. We sacked Allardyce who didn’t do what most people expected, and it’s because we brought in Keegan, something which is far too early to judge. Put that against the chairman and vice-chairman making headlines for getting pissed in a brothel, supporters paying for a bond only to get kicked out of the same seats they thought they’d secured for the next 10 years, we had the fans v NUFC in the courts. The club was in such a state that our share price dropped from 95p to 35p within a few short months because of all of the shit that was going on, the shares price was less than 20p as one time. We even had people within the Plc resigning because of the way the club was being run, we were in turmoil on and off the pitch. We are currently under threat of relegation but it’s not new though is it? Souness was sacked because of where we were heading under him and Roeder was just as bad once he was given the job, both of these were capable of getting us relegated. Yes, we’ve had good times under Hall & Shepherd, we’ve also had to put up with a lot of shit along the way, mainly under Shepherd. A chairman responsible for taking us 11 places down the league in his first full season in charge. A chairman who left the club 12 places lower in the league from when he took over to when he left. Under his chairmanship we finished in the bottom half of the league 6 times out of 10, if he’d done that after taking over from those in charge before Sir John then his time might have looked better, he didn’t take over the club in that position, he took over a club that was on a high and he took it backwards. Shepherd didn’t take over a club who were languishing in the lower levels of the 2nd division, he took over the 2nd best club/team in England and he screwed it up by taking it in the wrong direction. Maybe the new owner and his chairman will do the same, maybe they wont, time will tell. What I do know is that Chris Mort took over the running of a club in a far worse state than his predecessor. Nobody is denying what Shepherd did well, he gave us 3 very good seasons, he gave us an expanded ground and he gave us training facilities that we’d never had before, he also gave us plenty of shite along the way and that should not be forgotten when we look at where we are now, it’s not as if everything was going well before the takeover, I doubt we’d be any better now if it hadn’t taken place.

Giving almost £50 million to Souness was money well spent, 5th to 14th. As for those who are “massively offended” by Shepherd, your words not mine, what about somebody who gets embarrassed by an owner who sits in amongst fans but doesn't care about what Shepherd got up to, what do you think about that sort of hypocrisy?

True, if you get a better player then you pay more in wages but I meant the income all going to the players rather than on transfers and wages.

It wouldn't help if Boro had beat us to the dealers althought us part-ex'ing would go in our favour.

Not if it's an increased transfer kitty.

What's it like in Europe?

Think again, you coul be looking at this: http://img249.imageshack.us/img249/2207/camillawh4.jpg

You clearly have your life mapped out, more power to you, good luck. Does the phone just do one flash or can you change the flashes? I was just wondering in any particular flash worked better than another, I can see a possible niche market in flashing.

None of those moaning are bothered about the fans in the slightest, all they care about is themselves and they would piss on us if it suited them. I'm not bothered about this 39th game if it helps the clubs in bringing more money and better players into our league, if it's just going to boost players wages then forget it.

Just for lent or more long term? Either way it's still got to be seen as a step in the right direction, well done.

I thought the tablet in the drink had more to do with their legs turning to jelly than the freeview box.

The 3210's his next upgrade, he's still using his one for now, it works. http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/3483/mobilewv0.jpg

The only agenda I have is wanting our club to do well. I've given Shepherd credit for the ground, the training ground, the 3 finishes and even the appointment of Allerdyce, which looked a good appointment at the time, I will not ignore or thank him for what he did wrong.

The comment above is true and I don't think anybody has ever said it wasn't, my comment is also true, the three finishes you mentioned were bettered a few years earlier.

6th, 2nd and 2nd is better but I'd settle for 4th, 3rd and 5th now, our 2nd best 3 consecutive finishes in the last 15 years.

Agreed, I didn't think he was too bad either, he was better than his central defensive partner.

What about Wallsend lad Albert Stubbins? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/01/07/db0702.xml Albert Stubbins Last Updated: 10:29pm GMT 06/01/2003 Albert Stubbins, the former Newcastle and Liverpool footballer who died on December 28 aged 83, was the leading scorer in the unofficial club matches played during the Second World War; his photograph was also used on the cover of The Beatles' album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. When war broke out, League football was suspended, and was not resumed until autumn 1946. Many players thus forfeited seven years of their career. Stubbins took full advantage of the weaker standards of the regional leagues that soon sprang up to make his name. Playing for Newcastle, Stubbins scored 237 goals in 218 matches, including four hat-tricks in consecutive games in 1941. His prolific strike rate alerted other clubs to the talents of the red-headed, muscular centre-forward and one evening in the late summer of 1946, while sitting in the Newcastle News Theatre, Stubbins found himself summoned to the St James's Park ground by a message flashed up on the cinema screen. When he arrived, he found representatives from both Liverpool and Everton. He tossed a coin, talked to Liverpool chairman Billy McConnell first, and agreed to sign for a club record £12,500. He scored on his debut, against Bolton, and that season - the first of League soccer after the war, and one prolonged until mid-June by dreadful winter weather - Stubbins was a key figure in bringing the championship to Anfield. Feeding on the service of winger Billy Liddell, both Stubbins and Jack Balmer scored 24 goals in the league, with the former claiming the vital second goal in the 2-1 win at Molineux that allowed them to overhaul Wolves right at the end of the season. Stubbins enjoyed another year and a half of free-scoring for Liverpool, but once he entered his thirties his marksmanship seemed to decline. He played for Liverpool in the 1950 FA Cup final against Arsenal, who beat them 2-0, but he was starting to lose the confidence of the club, and in 1952 he left, having scored 83 times in 180 appearances. One Liverpool fan who still treasured him, however, was the young Paul McCartney, and in 1967 he paid tribute to Stubbins by incorporating him in the montage of creative talents assembled on the sleeve of the Sergeant Pepper LP. Stubbins is sandwiched between G B Shaw and Albert Einstein, looking over the shoulder of Marlene Dietrich. Albert Stubbins was born in the North-East, at Wallsend, on July 17 1919. On leaving school, he trained as a draughtsman and played amateur football first for local sides and then with Sunderland. In 1937 he was signed for Newcastle, then struggling in the Second Division, by Tom Mather, who had brought through Stanley Matthews at Stoke. Stubbins was an exemplary leader of the line. His technique was said by some observers to be as good as that of the great Alex James, and he was tall, fast, alert and brave. He is still fondly remembered at Anfield for one full-length diving header against Birmingham in an FA Cup tie in 1947 on a frozen pitch. The effort - a late run to connect with a low free-kick of Liddell's - left him with two lacerated knees, but brought him his hat-trick. Before he moved to Liverpool, Stubbins played a handful of games with the young Jackie Milburn, who with Len Shackleton would replace him as the side's spearhead. When Stubbins left Anfield in 1952, it was Milburn who persuaded him to turn out for a non-league North-East side, Ashington, which Stubbins also later briefly managed. He then had a spell in New York, coaching a soccer team there in the early 1960s. Afterwards he returned once more to Newcastle, establishing himself as a sports journalist. Stubbins played for England once, in a "victory" international against Wales in 1945. His wife Anne predeceased him. He is survived by a son.

Why shouldn't they be given time to get things right? I didn't like what Shepherd was doing as chairman after a few months but didn't turn against him until the day he appointed Souness and he'd done plenty wrong before that, it wasn't one thing with him it was a series of blunders which carried on almost to the day he left. If I turn against Ashley & Mort to a timetable then they'll have 7 years, the same as Shepherd was given.

I know they are on a bad run, I hope it continues.

Reading are a strange one, they've lost as many at home as they've won 6 and 1 draw so they could expect to beat Blackburn, Birmingham have only won 3 at home.

I think we'll beat Blackburn and after the Liverpool game we'll still be 13th.

I think we'll beat Blackburn but lose the other 2.

I thought that we were in trouble last season but we managed to get enough points and were safe by 5 points, after 17 (not 17th played) games we were 13th or lower.