afar

Yeah I'm quiet partial to a bit of baseball myself, although I've been pretty much a fair weather supporter of my team the Mariners, I have to admit, last time I saw them play was 7 or 8 years ago at Dodgers stadium. I love American football well at least the Dolphins. But with just 16 regular games a season (that's only 8 at home !) they tend to charge through the roof for tickets. Mind you, they do have the consideration of taking over 3 hours to play a 60 minute game to ensure you get value for money The big thing here in Canada is Ice Hockey, can't bear the game myself TBH but it's very much a religion here. Wherever you go though and whatever sport you watch this side of the Atlantic, they basically have one chant "Go <insert team nickname here> Go".

I agree, if nothing else to get this thread back on track, since it's been successfully hijacked.

I was living in Florida at the time and took a flight up to DC to watch us play DC united at RFK, on the last tour we did to the US. We got beat 3-1 and we were totally inept, but I had a great time, some DC fans took me under their wing and took me along to their tail gate party, I sat with them in the ground, took me to the pub all the players went in after the game and showed me a great night around the city. They made a banner for our match that was quite humourous I thought "Welcome Newcastle: Texaco Cup winners 1978". Not really got anything to do with this thread but your post reminded me of that trip.

Hoping for a decent FA cup run. I got all excited looking at the fixtures until I remembered I won't see any of them. Setanta showed at least 1 live championship game a week. It was usually on first thing saturday or sunday morning, can't remember. But they also showed tape delayed stuff during the week. If Setanta continue to broadcast next season, we'll see the boys a few times, but if they go under the best we can hope for is goal highlights on Sky Sports News extracts, that FSN show.

I agree

Source? http://www.skunkers.net/reunited/showthread.php?t=509 If true it bodes well for the takeover too, I suppose. I can't access that link, blocked by firewall here, what does it say ? Edit: NVM say the post above.

This reminds me of last summer when you kept telling us that there was plenty of time to make signings and not to worry. Although I do agree with you this time. The end of the month is most certainly d-day, if we don't have resolution on both ownership and management, we better get set for a long stay in the lower leagues. There was plenty of time to make signings, they just didn't do it. So I was wrong when saying things would happen, I don't mind admitting that. Not my f***ing fault they were useless. LOL, Dave's so easily stirred. Funny thing is we are even less prepared this summer than last, which led to woeful season. The work that has to be done in the month on July is absolutely huge, I hope Shearer snd whoever the new owners are, know what they are getting themselves in for.

This reminds me of last summer when you kept telling us that there was plenty of time to make signings and not to worry. Although I do agree with you this time. The end of the month is most certainly d-day, if we don't have resolution on both ownership and management, we better get set for a long stay in the lower leagues.

No Idea. I suppose they could pick up those foreign channels although not sure about the legal implications of doing that. They first though would need to have a suitable dish to pick it up. Not many if any pubs will go to the expense of having one installed just because NUFC are in the championship now

What have Setanta got to do with anything? About as relevant to our games next year as Netto going under! They've got everything to do with the coverage here in North America. They are the only channel that shows championship games here. No other broadcaster will likely pick that up should they go under. So you cant get streamed Sky broadcasts? How can they own rights in one country yet not this one? They overseas, well at least the North American rights are owned by Setanta, they sell some of the games on to other channels, like sportsnet or the score here in Canada. But no one will pick up the championship games, there's just not a market for it here, it the premiership or nothing, no one cares. We've been spoilt over the last couple of years with the coverage Setanta has given us. A pub could decide to go to the trouble to install a satelite dish to pick up native UK broadcasts of SKY or find some illegal stream of the championship games but that's highly unlikely. Learn something new everyday. Must say i am surprised the special dishes arent more common there. They probably would be, but Setanta when coupled with the Fox Soccer Network offers pretty conclusive footy coverage. Probably more than in the UK tbh. Absolutely. There are plenty of houses you'll see around with huge dishes that can probably pick up channels from all around the world, although how they would unscramble encrypted channels like Sky Sports is something I'm unsure about. But The pubs that show footy really have had no need to go to that kind of expense or trouble, the coverage here has been excellent through Setanta. Prior to them coming along, Fox sports world and Soccer Network used to serve NA pretty well but not to the degree Setanta do now and I don't recall them showing live championship games at all. Hopefully Setanta will stick around because we are gonna be kinda screwed over here for coverage next season.

What have Setanta got to do with anything? About as relevant to our games next year as Netto going under! They've got everything to do with the coverage here in North America. They are the only channel that shows championship games here. No other broadcaster will likely pick that up should they go under. So you cant get streamed Sky broadcasts? How can they own rights in one country yet not this one? They overseas, well at least the North American rights are owned by Setanta, they sell some of the games on to other channels, like sportsnet or the score here in Canada. But no one will pick up the championship games, there's just not a market for it here, it the premiership or nothing, no one cares. We've been spoilt over the last couple of years with the coverage Setanta has given us. A pub could decide to go to the trouble to install a satelite dish to pick up native UK broadcasts of SKY or find some illegal stream of the championship games but that's highly unlikely.

What have Setanta got to do with anything? About as relevant to our games next year as Netto going under! They've got everything to do with the coverage here in North America. They are the only channel that shows championship games here. No other broadcaster will likely pick that up should they go under.

Surely it's not as simple as just seeing if everyone interested in buying the club wants Shearer as manager. What about contract conditions ? What about Shearer's demands on player retentions and transfer pots ? Are they going to get full agreement on that too ? I just can't see Shearer being appointed until the ownership issue is resolved, which basically means we're screwed.

No one knows right now tbh. If setanta go under, you probably won't be able to see the game at all. If they stay around then you'll have to find a football focussed pub someplace. I lived in NYC for a year but couldn't tell you where you'll find one of them unfortunately.

I would just like to point out that Dave, last year deleted my completely fixtious fixture list prior to the publishing of the official fixture list. I'm still bitter at the overly officious twat tbh

That's a really good interview tbh. He really opens up there, fair play to the lad. I can feel his frustration and that's exactly how it should be.

15 days before the players return to prepare for next season and we have: No Manager, 1 coach, an Owner that has absolutely zero interest in us and is desperately trying to flog us, an absent chairman, no pre season plans and zero positive vibes that any of this is going to change anytime soon. We are royally fucked right now and can't see any light at the end of this bloody long tunnel.

For a weekly wage of sub 20k, I would, but that's not going to happen.

I'm not quite sure what kind of sick dreams you have but you do realise that Shepherd was not the major shareholder the last time either. So in effect he was managing someone else's money back then too. It'll be no different this time round, he'll still have a sizable slice of the pie.

At the end of the day, we as fans have little say in the matter. Personally I'm not overly excited by his possible return, and you have to be a little sceptical at the way he let things slide towards the end of his reign. He did do some things right though it would be churlish to say otherwise. I just hope that whoever takes over wraps things up quickly and starts to rebuild this club in a sensible manner.

Funny how the signing of players in the off season, is possibly the furthest thing from our minds atm.

4 people for some Shola love I see Echoing what most have said, really for me only Enrique, the rest can piss off to the highest bidder for me.

Surely Ashley has a responsibility to keep the club functioning at a certain level otherwise he is really messing things up for the people buying the club. If he sells players and there is no preparation for pre-season, that must lower the value of the club as it will leave the new people with so much to do and a lot of immediate outlay. Once a deal is agreed, will the new people still have the option to pull out? That Portsmouth takeover is not due to be complete until the end of August (I think) and that has already been going on a while. (If it is Shepherd, he will know whether Ashley has been shifting the assets out of the club.) Thwe only responsibility Ashley has is to himself. For all we know he could have said fuck this I'm not going to bother a jot with this lot anymore. Write the club off as a tax break and move on. He's rich enough and stupid enough to be able to do that unfortunately. In fact that's looking increasingly likely, the only thing he'll do regarding NUFC now is to hand over the keys to anyone who'll give him a few quid to take it off his hands. He's being an arsehole, but clearly doesn't give a toss, common sense would have you believe that he would put safeguards in to protect the club's valuation but he's simply not doing that, as every day goes by the value of the club drops.

Put a quid on whoever buys him to be relegated next year, seems to make a habit of that

That's the end of that then. He won't be going anywhere if we don't receive an acceptable offer, unless of course our ownership are a bunch of baffoons.... doh !