bealios

This is only going to succeed if it is open to all NUFC fans. If it is closed to people who can't easily attend the meetings then its a limited group you're aiming at. Hence the request for full detailed information, either in an investment memorandum, or published on a website. If you ask the detailed financial questions at the meeting, the chances are that the answers will be aspirational i.e. what the guys starting this off would like to happen in an ideal world. Once you get the lawyers, accountants, tax advisors etc. involved you're likely to get a different answer unfortunately. Which is why you need a proper investment memorandum and business plan approved by the trust lawyers/accountants so that they can sign off working capital provisions etc.

Incidentally why isn't Moat part of it? Has he been approached? Has Shepherd? I would have thought fans with that sort of financial muscle would be ideal investors. It's been mentioned before that Moat has been approached. Has it been mentioned whether he's backing the NUST bid? Incidentally why isn't Moat part of it? Has he been approached? Has Shepherd? I would have thought fans with that sort of financial muscle would be ideal investors. I think I read somewhere he has been approached but didn't respond/wasn't interested. Well, I wish the NUST good luck but if fans with the clout of Moat or Sehpherd can't be persuaded to back the cause the whole premise of wanting a club owned by fans looks like wishful thinking which is unlikely to stand up in the face of cold hard financial reality. Having read the details on the website, there's a very good reason why Moat/Shepherd won't be involved - its one member one vote - so if you put in £20m you have the same influence over the club as someone who puts in £1,500. This might end up being stumbling block to those with serious money to put in, or on the other hand it might end up being an example of perfect democracy, who knows.

There is a full Q and A section on the website in realtion to the proposed buy out. At the moment we will be asking peple to deposit 10% of their pledged investment into an escrow account which is set up and handled by a respected city centre local legal firm. If the buy out does not work then the 10% is refundable. By all means be secptical, ask the questions, read what NUST has to say, and watch the campaign grow over the coming days, the chron, journal etc will feature full page ads, the website will be updated and reflect whats happening, this is the ultimate protest and the best, most organised, professional, clear and transparent way to remove the current regime. Thanks, I've seen that, although it doesn't seem to give a lot of detail. From what I can see, the aim seems to be to raise £200m, and pay a return of 2%. Begs the question, why pay a return at all? Anyone investing in this could invest elsewhere and get better than 2%, so they're obviously doing it for non-financial reasons, i.e. to help the club, which is great. So surely the sort of people who would put their cash/pension funds towards this would happily agree to foresake what is a fairly minimal return and have it invested back into the club? Is it one of the qualifying conditions for the qualification for SIPP investment? THe website also doesn't make it clear what the trust policy is to gearing, borrowing at a sustainable level to invest in the club. I've got a bit of spare cash at the moment and would give it some serious consideration, but not before seeing some detailed funding plans. It mentions on the website that there will be a detailed business model released shortly, surely this should be made available before seeking investment? There also doesnt seem to be any indication of what level of funds will be required for the acquisition to get the go ahead from NUST. I'd be very nervous if the NUST was planning to buy the club when it has only raised £80 - £100m worth of funds, however if it raised £200m then I'd be more confident you could get the club back into the Premier League and cover the inevitable losses as you put in place your business model over a 5 year term. Is there a number where you will/won't go ahead, and wouldn't it be sensible to communicate this to potential investors? I don't want to come across as picking holes or anything, would love this to work, but there are some key facts missing from the website - this sort of investment should really have a proper information memorandum with more detailed financial information.

I'm not so sure, I think our first choice defence this year is better than 92-93. The fact that it is playing behind such a weak midfield doesn't help, whereas the defence in 92/93 played behind a midfield that was starting off wave after wave of attacks.

I received an e-mail this morning asking me to invest, as I imagine a lot of people did. Have to admit I'm very sceptical, but thought I'd take a further look. Since they're asking for investment now, is there any sort of detailed business plan available anywhere for investors to look at, detailing the source of funding for the club post acquisition, how they plan to convince Barclays or another bank to put up a new working capital facility, and what security will be offered to obtain funding? There is plenty on the website about the make up of the executive committee, but there doesn't seem to be any detailed financial planning. The Barcelona model works mainly because of the huge income generated, so the club is to an extent not completely reliant on bank funding. NUFC are losing £20m a year at the moment, how will that loss be covered in the first year?

I find myself agreeing with this if I'm honest with myself - what my gripe probably is is that I really want to go to the game and get behind the team and the players, and if someone is having a shocker I want to encourage them, and have a positive impact on the team, and this doesn't seem to happen much any more - Middlesboro at home last season being one of the few, shocking considering the circumstances last season really. Maybe I steer away from the protests because in my own little idealistic world each Ashley Out chant is a chant which could have been encouraging the team, and if I look at it this way then the people staying quiet are just as guilty.

Northerngimp is right, I usually sit in the East Stand and its quiet, but probably more to do with the fact its the oldest stand, with generally the best views available to general public, so you get a lot of older season ticket holders who haven't moved and don't want to move, and the term "burnt out" is probably not too far away from the truth! Seems like this thread has got a bit confused with a reaction to protesting during the match generally and the specific protest on Saturday. I wasn't there on Saturday, but from what I've heard the fans got behind the team as much as they did having a go at Ashley, and the atmosphere was generally positive, and fans didn't get on players backs. Although Little Icke won't value my opinion since I wasn't there, sounds like the perfect way to go about things. Generally though a lot of the protests do have a negative impact, at least the recent games I've been to, and you've got to think what might have happened if we had gone a goal down early on on Saturday rather than scored an early goal to lift the fans. I've been to some shocking home games in recent years where the atmoshere has been shite, fans booing there own players on to the pitch etc. From what I've seen the Level 7 blokes have tried to start to change this, trying to get new songs in circulation and keeping the songs up for the whole game, but generally there's too much negativity around St. James. Park games and I can't see this changing until Ashley has gone.

What a complete pile of shite. I didn't go to the home game yesterday as I live 300 miles away and I was moving house. When I do go, due to travel/accommodation my hand goes deeper into my pocket than most fans. Same goes for a lot of posters on here who live abroad but still follow NUFC despite it being incredibly difficult, or even those who have decided not to go back whilst Ashley is here. I don't agree with them, but everyone is entitled to an opinion, and spending £30 every 2 weeks on a home game ticket does not make it any more valid than anyone else. Protesting during the match does create a negative atmosphere, and if the players are saying it then you're not going to convince anyone otherwise. Beating a team who are now bottom of the league 3 - 1 doesn't vindicate your point, If we were playing West Brom and were 1 - 0 down and the team needed a lift, would you still rather be chanting Ashley Out rather than trying to lift the team? Having said that, got a lot of respect for any of those who got there early and protested before and after the game outside of the ground. ASHLEY OUT

3 - 2 Swansea, get in

The principle on reducing what clubs can spend to a figure based upon income received is fine, but the detail is going to be difficult. There are flaws with focusing on debt, as the examples above show. They key is to control wages, they are the single biggest cost. Everyone hides behind European law when this is discussed, saying that it would be "difficult", but that's complete bollocks. There are other options other than setting a fixed cap at say £50,000 per week per player. You could quite easily set an aggregate cap that applies to the whole registered squad, but any one player could earn whatever they wanted within that cap. That wouldn't be contrary to European law, since a player could still earn what he wanted, and if a club had too many other high earners he could also seek work elsewhere in the market i.e. another club. Result? The top clubs could not sweep up the best players, as players are generally motivated by money, and they would then be dispersed more evenly between the clubs. Each team would have a few "star" players on higher wages, however as they would take up a disproportionate amount of the total cap available, the other players would need to be on disproportionally lower wages - i.e. young players. So at the same time you're making the leagues more competitive, and forcing clubs to bring through young players.

Ban suspended so they can sign players in January. What a surprise.

Jon Dahl Tomasson and Dietmar Hamann Hamann was pretty good for us in his only season here imo. Certainly remember being gutted at the sale at the time, although iirc he said a few bad things about the club after leaving (or maybe that was about Gullitt?). Good signing Hamaan. Did very well for us in his year and then when he decided he wanted out we made a fair old whack on him. I'd have preferred him to stay but that's the next best option. Class player. Remember at the time thinking that it was the first time since Keegan's second coming that we've lost a player who actually wanted to go and play for another big club, rather than manager thinking he wasn't what we needed. The start of the downward spiral....

I've just used it to register for a few free porn sites, seems to work just fine

You've probably also missed the fact that Phil Brown is rumoured to be being lined up by Ashley to take charge next season to lead our Premier League assault

Alex Ferguson. The fact that an old school manager who I like to think of as similar to Clough and Robson is still at the top of the game and has adjusted his style so successfully to deal with the modern overpaid millionnaire aresholes that the vast majority of our footballers have become. I also like Arsene Wenger. Harry Redknapp is still a twat though.

There are other shops with similar prices. My worry about protests is the negative atmosphere in the ground and the affect on the players. The last few games I've been to the atmosphere has been crap - plenty of numbers, but basically the only original song being the fat bastard get out of our club song, which is catchy enough, but the players must be thinking We're top of the league, and the only noise coming from the crowd is a protest against the owner. I haven't been to a game this year at all where the crowd has lifted the players

Milner and Bramble I agree with, not sure about Parker though. As an aside, what's Dyer doing these days, has he played more than 5 games since he left?

Or a transfer policy that involves buying all of the expensive declining players past their peak thinking that because they used to play for Chelsea/Man Utd/Barcelona/Liverpool/Real Madrid they will be great for Newcastle

Thinking about it more widely, there aren't a lot of players in recent years who leave Newcastle and go on to really hit form and perform significantly better than they did at NUFC. Bellamy maybe, but he was pretty good here. Bassong might do so. I think Given is just continuing his decent form here, but I don't think he is as good now as he was at his peak here.

If everyone would just stop buying their cheap tat at sportsdirect and buy it somewhere else then although it probably wouldn't hurt Ashley that much directly, it would show anyone thinking of sponsoring next season that it might not be the best move for their brand. This is one form of "protest" I would support as it wouldn't have an affect on the team or create a negative atmosphere on matchdays. Or how about we try and fight this another way - take banners to the game relating to whatever brand is competing with the stadium sponser - "I'd rather shop at JJB", "Sportsdirect kill kittens" or something similar.

The deal on the table is £80m (just over, but close enough). This is the purchase price for the outstanding Ashley debt, the shares are £1 - probably so Ashley can move the huge loss on the share disposal elsewhere in his group, but I'm no tax expert. I don't think I'm disagreeing too much with what you say, I accept that if new buyer borrows money to acquire the club, and has to service that debt at a proper interest rate, then you're close to back to where you started. However if the new owner puts in equity, it has scope to borrow more funds to invest in the team. Going back to my original point which was trying to take an optimistic view on life, if (big IF) we get promoted, and the club gets sold to a new owner on the basis of the deal on offer, financially the club is liekly to be on a better financial footing in terms of debt and running costs (long term commitments to crap players on lucrative contracts) than we were just before Ashley took over. That is my reason to be optimistic - yes there are big IFs with promotion and whether a new owner doesn't borrow to the hilt to get the club, but we can but hope.

I've read it a dozen times and I don't understand what this post is trying to say at all, but it's got me intrigued as to what you think Ashley's plan was/is. Are you also saying we should be grateful we're not Chelsea or something? There is a clause against his loan saying he can charge interest at 0.5% over the inter bank lending rate (from 07-08 accounts). He didn't charge it that year but he could in the future (though to be fair, it's still a very good rate for a football club loan even if he does charge it). He could be charging the club for it now for all we know (but it would currently only be just over £1m a year). There's nothing to stop a buyer from borrowing money against the club to fund the purchase (apart from the current difficulties in borrowing cash, but that will ease in the future) so saying that the debt to Ashley will be written off is meaningless and not even necessarily true. If Ashley manages to sell the club (even if we're promoted) for anything near what he has spent on it, it will be absolutely criminal considering the significantly worse state the club will be in. If Ashley doesn't sell I have no doubt that at the very best we will be a constant PL struggler as he claws back his investment bit by bit. How can it be meaningless? Ashley bought a company for for £130m which had £70m worth of debt it needed to service. Also the existence of that £70m worth of debt mean that borrowing any more was highly unlikely, if not dangerous. If the club gets sold, £80m or so will purchase a company with £0 debt, ignoring any working capital overdraft, which will be less than £10m in any event. This means less debt to service, but also the ability (if a purchaser wants to) to gear the company up and borrow at the appropriate level, when borrowing conditions improve.

There's plenty to be optimistic about. We're top of the league of course, and this has been achieved whilst missing some key players - both central defenders and our best striker missing for the recent poor performances. The crippling running costs are heavily reduced due to the departure of expensive underperforming players, and will be reduced even further at the end of the season when we lose Butt and Geremi. We do have other high earners, but at least they are contributing with performances, save for Barton at the moment. There are also a lot of talented kids getting some valuable experience - this was a massive factor in the success of the early 90's with the likes of Watson, Clark, Cole and Howey getting blooded in the second tier before stepping up the Premier League. And although its boring, we're one of the few clubs effectively free of debt. Whilst Ashley is the owner we pay no interest. Once he sells the debt is effectively written off.

Its a short step from re-naming the ground to playing fucking music after a goal, and then we become one of those clubs, and we might as well just fucking relocate the ground to a retail park in Gateshead.

Arsenal had to pay £390 million to build a 60,000 seater stadium, we have a ready made 52,000 seater stadium thrown in with the price. We don't own the land which the ground has been built on but for football purposes that doesn't matter as we will not be looking to sell it as we couldn't play without it. If we owned the land we could sell it and move to cheaper land to build a new one but a new build would cost more than the land would be worth. As for Portsmouth, yes they were given away, they still have debts which could be up to £40 million, they look like playing in the Championship next season and they have a s*** ground which would cost a fortune to replace, I don’t see what they have going for them yet they have been taken over twice this season. The stadium bit is also a bit more complicated than that, in that we have to pay a rent up to the Council for the stadium land, which is based upon a certain % of matchday turnover. So the club is a tenant under a lease and has to pay rent to its landlord, which makes the stadium less valuable than the Emirates. The reason why we we can't sell the ground and move somewhere cheaper is not that we don't own the land, its because the lease says that the use is restricted to use as a sports ground, and there isn't a lot of demand in the region for a 52,000 seater sports ground other than Newcastle, so effectively you can't really sell it, hence why its difficult to raise bank funding for a purchaser - there isn't a big enough asset to offer as security.