biggs

Any reason why The Profitable group would be worse the Fat Fred give me your reasons for this please. Answer: http://www.newcastle-online.org/nufcforum/index.php/topic,62654.msg1848627.html#msg1848627 That really didn't take a lot of digging. Surely someone in the media should have picked it up long ago. Oh well we will get sold to Tescos

oops my deepest contrafibularites.

Possibly the worst thread on this forum ever totally pointless

Article from The Guardian that is remarkably frank and informative ,and not in the least bit mocking Ten questions to help clear the fog over Tyneside Mike Ashley's Newcastle are still without a new owner or a manager as the club prepares for life in the Championship Will club be sold this summer? Sources close to the sale have admitted that, while "genuine hope" of a takeover being completed before the end of August remains, there is a growing possibility that Newcastle may still be under Mike Ashley's control come September. There is no reason why a deal could not be done in the autumn but football clubs traditionally change hands during, or just before, transfer windows, thereby enabling new owners to make an immediate impact by buying and selling players. Sources indicate that if a deal does go through this summer, it will take another month to complete. Things could, of course, be accelerated were Ashley to lower his £100m asking price significantly. Who are the potential buyers? With any consortium entering the due diligence process required to sign "non-disclosure" agreements binding them to utmost discretion, their identities are unknown although it has leaked that Freddy Shepherd, Newcastle's former chairman, is involved with one group. Two consortiums, probably from the United States and Malaysia, remain "very serious", another remains in the equation and others are on the periphery. Why is the process so slow? The due diligence process – an inventory of Newcastle's finances – has thrown up some unpleasant surprises and interested parties are duly employing extra forensic accountants and lawyers to dig even deeper while also providing in-depth forecasts of potential future revenue streams. This is sometimes referred to as "due diligence squared". Newcastle's enormous player wage bill – currently £65m per annum – is giving key investors cold feet. Principal concerns revolve around the financially ruinous fall-out if the team do not win immediate promotion back to the Premier League. It also does not help that Ashley has retreated into "remote" mode. Where does Alan Shearer fit in? Sources close to Shearer say he is still "completely in the dark" about his chances of returning as Newcastle's manager. The former England captain wants the job and it is thought all bar one of the consortiums involved would appoint him. Ashley, though, resolutely refuses to recruit any manager until a takeover is sealed. Shearer is still contracted to work as a television football pundit for another year. He is currently in talks with an "extremely understanding" BBC which is allowing him to keep his options open. Soon though, it will need a decision. Who else is in the frame? Seemingly not Joe Kinnear. In a rare public statement Newcastle ruled out the possibility of Kinnear returning to the helm. Then again, Ashley has been known to change his mind. Alan Curbishley remains a dark horse. Might the players mutiny? Up to seven – including Steven Taylor, Habib Beye, Nicky Butt, Sébastien Bassong and Alan Smith – have threatened to submit transfer requests at the start of the week if Shearer has not been made manager. Talk of impending, wholesale revolt may be exaggerated but Newcastle's players are in increasingly militant mood. Why no player sales and buys? Clearly oblivious to the reality that such enduring inactivity might hinder rather than accelerate a sale, a senior club source has declared: "There will be no players coming or going until a buyer has been found." With Newcastle players' often exorbitant wages already discouraging prospective purchasers, stringent efforts should be made to move some on. If, and when, they are eventually sold it is likely Ashley's successor will be forced either to pay them off or continue meeting a percentage of their salaries at new clubs. Do the fans make it difficult? According to popular stereotype, Toon Army foot soldiers suffer badly from Messiah Complexes, demand an absurdly entertaining, yet winning, brand of football and decline to offer their heroes space or privacy in the city's "goldfish bowl". This is largely, often laughably, false. If a few Newcastle fans appear guilty of overly romantic notions, the vast majority are grittily realistic. After having their fingers badly burnt when Ashley - remember his beer drinking days in the Bigg Market - effectively played them for fools their old, near unconditional, loyalty is fast evaporating. Even so, the new owners can still expect to inherit some of the best supporters in England – providing, of course, they bin the team's gruesome new yellow and orange striped away kit. It does not go on general sale until next week but Newcastle have already reduced the price of replicas by 20%. Are they a victim of geography? Enticing "big names" to Tyneside has frequently involved Newcastle paying way over the odds on wages. Is Roy Keane a problem? Sunderland's former manager has now decamped to Ipswich where promotion to the Premier League is this season's aim. Some potential Newcastle buyers are seemingly having second thoughts after realising that competition from potentially strong rivals including, among others, Ipswich, Middlesbrough and Cardiff may make escaping the Championship anything but easy.

Any reason why The Profitable group would be worse the Fat Fred give me your reasons for this please.

Just a general observation here but it is the fans of football clubs who are the lively hood and it wasnt for us imho clubs would go to the wall if we stopped going so i cannot believe the contempt that we are treated ,and another thing why can someone from seymour pearce not keep us up to date with the current situation and is that too much to ask unless they dont give a shit about us either or there is a problem with the take over i.e no bidders ,the debt,asking price etc FFS LET US KNOW SOMETHING

Not much relevance i suppose but grabbed this ,you money people will probably make sense of it but as Wayne from Auf Wiedersehen Pet said to the lads "your just thick Geordie bastards" i think he said that anyway and thats me :-[ Meanwhile, Ashley’s Sports Direct is reportedly set for an investor battle on Thursday when the company, 71 per cent owned by Newcastle owner Ashley, releases its annual results. It is expected to scrap its dividend, saving the company around US$33.7 million, with the proceeds going towards paying down debt. According to the Daily Telegraph newspaper Sports Direct, ‘is also thought to have revised the terms of a proposed £50m bonus scheme that could see more than 2,000 staff earn a year’s salary in free shares. The bonus plan will reportedly hand staff a share windfall worth an average of £25,000 if the company meets self-imposed profit targets.‘ The share payout would dilute Ashley’s stake. Ashley is keen to sell Newcastle, and is considering a number of bids from interested parties. In other news the club, relegated from the Premier League in May, is believed to be paying the difference in striker Michael Owen’s wages, reduced dramatically when he moved to Manchester United, for the rest of July. The agreement could see the struggling club pay upwards of US$200,000 to its ex-player over the rest of the month.

Better change you name mate cos this is a happy positive forum

Just put your own name on then you dont have to feel embarrassed cos thats what i will do obviously not your name cos its my shirt and that would be stupid but my name BIGGS and that would be nice but i have a random observation to make would anyone get Amoebi printed on cos that would be stupid too and would make anyone look like a right :duff:

Good interview and speaking from the heart bravo to you sir

This will be seen as a Militant act and will frighten off any potential investor. Should be ok if we wear flowers in our hair and just sit down

I agree with you on this all this bragging is just pretty stupid by these so called bidders and is not very professional tbh although the Malaysians is a different situation as they were spotted twice and its hardly there fault unless someone had ignorantly mistaken them for potential buyers but were Japanese tourists.

Tbh it could only happen here ,not any other club on the planet could have a story line like ours and its straight out of a horror story,ffs is it too much to ask to be informed off this Harris bloke whats going on.

The profitable group are just self promoting and imho would not break a confidentiality agreement if they were .

It was never really intended to leave the board. It was just a daft rumour someone posted to take the piss out of a few other posters who were claiming to be ITK. Obviously some people who read Skunkers have picked up on it (completely missing the white text at the bottom saying it was a piss take) and started e-mailing it around. It's not really the fault of the poster that it's got to the point where national newspapers are running with it I get it now

Now lets get this right ,was this a toon fan on skunkers who created this Hong Kong hoax and if it was he should know better and not sink to that level to trick fellow supporters shirley.

Dont know if im having a blonde moment but is this about editing the wikipedia page

looks like my wish came true and its information we all needed at last wasnt to much to ask was it .

As i'm sure it's been said before, we would have been better off getting Orville to sell the club. Harris has sold other clubs before, so why is he so f***ing clueless when it comes to ours? All this "by the end of next week... by the end of the month" crap. Either he really is a useless t***, or Ashleys keep moving the goalposts (ironic metaphor). yes it makes me think Ashley is being a right twat with him as he has been with us but it seems like for ever .

Think i want to cry now tbh this is just getting more frustrating every day with no info other than speculation coming out and i just wish Keith Harris would come out and give us a time line or anything to let us no the progress ,ffs is it too much to ask as i dont want names just an idea on whats going on

Here is another article from today and ffs its unrelenting atm From The Sunday Times July 5, 2009 Pleasing deluded fans has turned Newcastle into a joke Rod Liddle APPARENTLY, Newcastle United first learnt that their talented Canadian centre-back David Edgar had joined Burnley when they saw the news reported on television. They then rang the player to find out if it was true. “Um.....yes, really.....sorry, bye....” Edgar replied. I don’t suppose they were daft enough to ask him why he had left, although one underestimates the stupidity of the club at one’s peril. In the same week the players who haven’t quietly slipped away from St James’ Park while no one was watching returned to training, including a certain Joey Barton who had been told by his manager, Alan Shearer, that he should not bother to come back. But Shearer is no longer the manager. Or at least he might be, who knows. If he is, then Joey should get on a train to Birmingham sharpish and start lamping people at St Andrews. If not, maybe he has a gilded future at the club. You would need a heart of stone not to fall about laughing at the present plight of Newcastle United — and just wait until mid-August, when they step out at the Hawthorns in their new second strip, inset, which resembles the sort of pineapple cheesecake served in Italian restaurants in the early 1970s, a fabulously hideous yellow and cream concoction. I wonder how many they have sold. Nobody knows who will eventually own the club, only that it is for sale at the unfeasibly high price of £100m. There are persistent rumours that Freddy Shepherd has his cheque book out, but also there are mysterious Malaysians hanging around who, you assume, are considering buying it for a laugh. My guess is that the average Toon fan would rather the club be sold to Kim Jong Il than Freddy Shepherd — but, as ever, a fairly large number of them still believe that Newcastle will waltz the Championship and that the team has had imposed upon it a level of opposition not befitting to its status as the greatest football club the world has ever seen. There was one Geordie, writing on a messageboard, cheerfully looking forward to Newcastle’s Premier League challenge in the season 2010-11. You wonder, sometimes, how come Tyneside has a better supply of Class A drugs than anywhere else in the country. Football fans are almost always wrong; wrong about team selection, wrong about the manager, wrong about suitable owners and so on. The best clubs ensure that the supporters don’t have to pay too much to get in and are decently treated while watching their team, but otherwise ignore the demands from the terraces. Newcastle United’s main problem has been that there are so many of their loyal, committed and utterly deluded supporters that they are inclined, all too often, to listen to them. Hence the ludicrous procession of managers, always following the same pattern: first, sensible man with experience of performing adequately with scant resources (Joe Kinnear, Glenn Roeder) then, when relegation is competently avoided, delusions of grandeur set in and a Messiah is demanded (Kev, Al). I have nothing at all against Alan Shearer and I’m sure that one day he will make a fine manager. But what on earth convinced the supporters that he was the man to rescue them from oblivion with eight games to go? The fact that he once scored a lot of goals? The fact that he is more articulate on Match of the Day than Martin Keown? Or is it just that he is a famous Geordie? Someone probably could have rescued Newcastle with eight games to go — one of those managers the fans don’t think quite big enough for them, most likely. Shearer brought to the club belief, without doubt — but belief manifested in an unjust cause, unfortunately. I’m thinking of putting a bid in for Newcastle. I have only £400 in the bank right now but that seems to me a realistic estimation of the club’s worth. The temptation is to continue running it as a situation comedy, giving pleasure to millions and millions of people across the world. But the trouble is I would like the northeast of England to be a force in football and it certainly ain’t going to be Boro or Sunderland — so, the necessity is to resuscitate Newcastle. The first task, then, is to find a suitable manager and give him a three-year contract that will be stuck to no matter what happens. And it should be a manager who is adept at stabilising floundering football clubs and getting them up and out of the Championship. Neil Warnock springs to mind, so too a revisited Sam Allardyce. The fans don’t like the style of play? Lump it, in both senses of the term. Alan Shearer, meanwhile, will be offered the job of assistant manager just down the road at Hartlepool (I’m buying them too) for a year or two, to see how he gets on. Fellow members of my new board — and the new manager — will be enjoined to take absolutely no notice of the fans, even though there are a lot of them, on any issues other than stewarding, ticketing and the quality of stottie cakes sold on matchdays. The realistic target for the coming season, assuming there are any players left, is the top 10 with an outside bet of the playoffs. Once that is accomplished, we’ll take it from there.

Rob Lee said it all for him tbh ROB LEE has warned that Alan Shearer will not sit on the shelf forever when it comes to waiting for the managerial post at Newcastle United. The former No 9 has maintained a dignified silence since United were relegated at Aston Villa in May, but is unlikely to be appointed under wantaway tycoon Mike Ashley. Instead, Shearer must wait to discover the identity of the club’s new owners. And it remains to be seen if the Malaysian consortium who are believed to be leading the takeover chase go along with the widely held view that Big Al is the right man for the job. However, with the sale of United taking far too long in the eyes of Toon fans, Lee fears the Magpies may lose out on Shearer. Lee, one of Shearer’s closest pals, told the Chronicle: “I think at the moment he is waiting to see what happens. “However, if it drags on for too long and somebody came in and offered a job elsewhere, he might go. “It would be tragic to see him be a success elsewhere when Newcastle had him well within their grasp. “Of course, the deal would have to be right, but at the end of the day he wants a crack at management and he would be very good at it.”

He will always try to big up Fat Fred cos he is the one who is the "INSIDER" who leaks the news to the Evening Chronicle,Journal,Sunday Sun and the papers get all the so called exclusives from him so its in there best interests to have him as owner imho.

Another Malaysian newspaper report July 04, 2009 23:03 PM AirAsia Chief Denies Newcastle Purchase KUALA LUMPUR, July 4 (Bernama) -- AirAsia chief executive officer Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes has denied that the low-cost airline (LCC) is keen on buying English football club, Newcastle United. Contacted by Bernama on the matter, Tony Fernandes said: "We are not either directly or indirectly part of the said Malaysian-led consortium intending to purchase Newcastle United. We deny any involvement whatsoever." A report published today in a Malay daily, Harian Metro, said AirAsia had confirmed that it was in discussions to become the biggest shareholder of Newcastle United. The daily had quoted an unnamed source within the airline as claiming Tony had an interest to buy a British soccer club. The British media Friday reported that a Malaysian consortium led by several well-known businessmen had put in a 80m (RM456 million) bid to take control of Newcastle or 'The Magpies' from its owner Mike Ashley but they were bound by non-disclosure agreements.

Agree he gets on my tits on the legends and he's been foolish in his personal/ private life but, and a big but, he was f***ing magnificent in his pomp; he was strong as an ox, as fast as an olympic sprinter (fact), he was brave, had an awesome shoot and power in his headers. The only comparable centre forward of the last 35 years was Sir Les. On top of that he then made Fulham into a fantastic footballing team. He came up here with Houghton, Lewington & Davies & they murdered us in the old 2nd division (shown on motd) 3 or 4 - 1. What the f*** went wrong I don't know; they were the best team in that league by a mile. Yes i remember that game and they were a cracking team back then .