bealios

Ok, well I think Duff actually looks as though he cares and is not playing that badly. Bassong and Edgar are looking good. Jonas will make a difference.

1. Setanta, fucking arsehole commentators. 2. Shola, I take back every single fucking word I may have ever said defending him in the past. 3. Stoke, a horrible fucking town with horrible fucking fans, and now a horrible fucking football team. 4. Faye, can someone remind me why the hell we sold him for pennies when he was our best defender last season. 5. Nolan, I cannot remember a decent pass, tackle or contribution he has made since he signed. 6. Desperation, I'm almost wishing Alan Smith was on the pitch.

Bunch of twats. That's Portsmouth and Boro now moved to a Monday night just for Shitanta. Its bad enough if you live in Newcastle, but I've got to drive 300 miles to get to the game, which means I need Monday and Tuesday off work. There really should be some sort of limit on how many times they can do this in a season. Moving the mackem match as well, even though they are mackems, is also fucking stupid. Clearly the FA doesn't give a shit about anyone except there fucking finance managers. I really do want to punch Richard fucking Scudamore in the face this morning, I don't even care if it is not his fault.

It was on the BBC website before midnight last night. It is still up now and all over Sky. If it was a hoax you would like to think Shearer might have called somebody before now?

I don't think you need a season ticket to enjoy the match though. I think most matches this season you've been able to get in by buying a ticket on the day. It's a lot of money, but for a lot of people its the same price as a night in the pub. Problem is when you combine them though...

You run a business right? Do you have any plans for the future of that business? If you do, do you put a time-scale on those plans? If you do and you were to hypothetically put a time-scale of, erm, let's say five years on those plans, how exact would you expect that time-scale to be? Do you think that there's a possibility you might refer to that plan as your "five-year plan"? If a week after it's implementation you had a meeting and you mentioned that plan, would you refer to it as your "four-year 357-day 22-hours 35 minutes 46 and a half seconds plan" or would you have a life and call it your "five-year plan"? Do you think that there's a possibility that due to amongst other things external market conditions, for example a global recession, your plan might change somewhat over time (I'm talking in more than just its name)? Are you going to show up at 10.30am 27 Rue de Helder on 21st May? If you are, don't tell me, I haven't got to that bit just yet and I don't want to spoil it. There are a lot of good things about you Indi and we go back a couple of years on these here boards. But in all seriousness they never had a plan and still don't that must surely be clear by now. It's day to day bungling. To be fair Parky, I don't doubt they had a plan. Its just that they were a bit rubbish at implementing it. I'll defend Ashley on here on the financial side of things, but on running the club I think its been a shower of shit. But to think they have no plan whatsoever and react to things on a day to day basis is a little bit naive. I'm planning to show my girlfriend the time of her life tomorrow night. But at the end of the day she might have a shit night, but not through lack of trying on my part, I might just not be on form tomorrow..

Yes, but wasn't the original point from my original post that as a region we have an interest in NUFC (whatever corporate entity it currently operates as) and that business is a loss making business? And if it were not for Ashley, then that business would not exist? I'm thinking about the fact that the only reason the auditors could give the legally required going concern statement in its statutory accounts was because Ashley underwrote the running costs of the club for 12 months? I don't want to have a personal argument with someone who obviously cares enough about NUFC to bother writing on a forum, but it just winds me up when people manipulate the finance side of things. Attack Ashley for being incompenent at running a football club (or appointing people to run a club) is fine, but focussing on the financial side of things ignores reality a little bit.

Agree entirely, except we're not "getting to the stage", we've been at it for about 4 years

He is not doing it as a f***ing favour, it is his f***ing club man. Wrong actually, the club belongs to the region. If it was just his, then nobody would give a f*** if it existed or not. Bottom line is that we do care, and factually and legally Mike Ashley is keeping the club afloat. I wish a few people would read that article this week which points out (using established fact rather than opinion) that the previous directors took out nearly £150m out of the club into their own pockets, and Ashley has so far has only put money in. Why the f*** have we as a supporter base suddenly gone all militant?! Belongs to the region or us!?!? My fucking word its a day dreamer. Ashley has pumped the money in to save HIS business paying millions in £££'s in interest. The previous lot for the majority of there time were/meant to be running the club as a PLC. Jesus, I do think everyone should have an opinion and everything, but you are coming across as a bit clueless - no offence. The £100m that Ashley has paid in means that on an annual basis the club are not paying £10m to Northern Rock every year in interest. Yes that benefits NUFC, but it is not going into Ashley's pocket (unless he sells for more than £250m which he can't). It means that the operating costs are £10m less than they would have been otherwise.

Try living in within spitting distance of the Emirates and having your season ticket and trying to get to only half of the home games - its a lot more! At least its close to the annual 3 points from Spurs

He is not doing it as a fucking favour, it is his fucking club man. Wrong actually, the club belongs to the region. If it was just his, then nobody would give a fuck if it existed or not. Bottom line is that we do care, and factually and legally Mike Ashley is keeping the club afloat. I wish a few people would read that article this week which points out (using established fact rather than opinion) that the previous directors took out nearly £150m out of the club into their own pockets, and Ashley has so far has only put money in. Why the fuck have we as a supporter base suddenly gone all militant?!

I was taking the piss a little bit. I think the 5 year plan was genuine, but it was a very business orientated plan based upon turnover/expenditure i.e. stop paying a bunch of useless twats shit loads of cash per week for doing bugger all, but reduce it over 5 years. Replace them with a bunch of people who want to actually play and make their name in the game. Appointing Keegan (and then forcing him out) may have caused the plan to need a bit of tweaking.

yes but it starts afresh every year Otherwise in 2013 they would have to go to the Chronicle and tell them we have a 1 year plan

NUSC is a brilliant concept and we should support it. Unfortunately because in the early days they came across as an Anti-Ashley group, all of the Anti-Ashley fans gravitated towards them, hence making the public meetings more like a forum where a bunch of blokes who hated Mike Ashley could go and shout about it. I would love it (!) if they could take some of the more sensible posts from this forum, stick it on their website as an agenda, and get 30,000 fans behind them not 1,000. HTT's lengthy rant was even a good start. The majority of fans now appreciate how much crap NUFC are in, and like it or not Mike Ashley is keeping us afloat from money from his own pocket. That fact alone makes it very difficult to protest/rally - I'm not sure what I'm rallying against!

Might be ill advised, but didn't Sourness have a similar operation years before he came here?

Sorry David, not meaning to wind anyone up, but read the first few pages, skipped to these and couldn't believe what I as reading on a forum which is representative of our fan base, at a time when we have arguably one of our most important games in our recent history and a manager who has a life saving operation tomorrow. What the fuck are you protesting against? If it is the usual "its the way our club is being run" then what the fuck is your gangs proposal for making it better? Mike fucking off? I love a protest as much as anyone, but surely anyone with half a brain and the ability to read can see that as a club we are fucked financially. Everyone gives our owner shit loads of stick for just realising it AFTER he bought the club, ignoring the fact that most fans haven't even picked up on it two years later! Its only when the recent accounts were released that most of us realised how close to not existing NUFC actually is!

Ah, yes, so those who support Ashley do it because they are intelligent and knowledgeable people and those who do not do it because they are stupid. That's the reasoning of an idiot. To spell it out for you: your reasoning is the reasoning of an idiot. Ashley knew what he bought, or at least he should have. Most clubs have huge debts, and Newcastle's were known to be particularly bad. The debts and the cost of running the club were part of the price. If he couldn't afford it, he shouldn't have bought it. That's stupid. Demanding some ambition is not: without it, the club is headed for relegation. Ashley deserves no more sympathy than a landlord who lets his house fall down. I think if you look at the whole post I was trying to comment on the ridiculous statement in the earlier post which referred to all those supporting Ashley had low IQ's - it was meant slightly tongue in cheek. Re your second paragraph, we all know that Ashley bought the club with only rudimentary due diligence - not because he is stupid, but because the Halls would only sell the shareholding if a deal was done there and then. I believe he had a deadline of less than a week. The due diligence could only be done on limited financial statements - to do detailed due diligence would have required Freddie to allow acces to confidential documents. Only when the club was bought was it apparent what a mess the club were in from a funding perspective (i.e. future income used to secure loans, immediately repayable on change of ownership), and from an operating cost perspective (a load of useless crap on long contracts at £3m+ per year). Ashley probably could have afforded the club when he bought it, and the £20m operating costs. But the financial world has changed since then, coupled with the fan base turning against him so he can't go to games or enjoy owning the club, which is to my mind without a doubt the reason he bought it. As someone else said elsewhere, it's like finding one of your toys is broken - would you spend a load of money fixing it if you know you weren't allowed to play with it! I don't have sympathy for Ashley, I want what is best for NUFC. And what is best is focusing on the things we can change, or at least influence i.e. - - demanding a proper football man (Kenyon/Dein type) is appointed to the board. I have no doubt that our poor performance in higher profile transfers so far is not through wanting to make profit, but in basic inadequacy dealing with agents and other club. Llambias?? - thank JFK for his short term efforts, and demand a proper manager is brought in Demanding Ashley writes off £100m and lets the club go to someone else is wishful thinking.

I listened for a couple of hours, and from what I heard there were some very good contributions which suggested a pragmatic way forward of continuing to try and speak to the club in a conciliatory fashion, but there were a hell of a lot of people saying Ashley had to go and that we should keep up protests/boycotts etc. The first part of the meeting was for members to air their own views, which is the bit I listened to. The latter part was supposed to be the bit where they look for the "common ground" and a way forward for the NUSC. Didn't hear much of that, but if it was anything like the majority of the first part I fear that they might not find their "common ground" between supporters and the membership will stick around the 1,000 level.

Somebody please print the above post out and send it to NUSC. I listened last night for 2 hours to the meeting, and I have upmost respect for what they're trying to do, but unfortunately due to early mistakes and some agenda driven committee members they are becoming an Ashley Out lobby group which many supporters do not want to be associated with. They said last night that the overwhelming feedback they get from fans is that they want Ashley gone now, but they fail to see that the reason that might be is that they are now seen as an Anti Ashley group, so the Anti Ashley brigade gravitate towards them. Last night's meeting seemed more like a gathering of all of those who were against Ashley to come and slag him of in various ways. The meeting was supposed to find some common ground between fans, but they failed (at least in the first couple of hours) to even address the point that the club are losing vast amounts of cash and are technically insolvent without Ashley. That was just unbelieveable, given that the main point that those against NUSC's stated views are that the club was massively in the shit before Ashley, and his net £20m per annum spend sounded quite good if it meant we had a club to support. Ashley is by no means doing a good job, but that is not because he's asset stripping or holding on for a profit, it's because those appointed to run the club have been poor appointments - Llambias, Wise, Keegan - not necessarily bad appointments by themselves, but madness trying to combine them in a management structure. IF NUSC need to change their agenda and focus on NUFC as it is now i.e propped up financially by Ashley, with no buyer interested. Release a statement or proper set of written principles on the website that actually reflect reality. Use Wallace's post above as a starting point. Express that after the recent financial information they are now aware of the perilous state of the club's finances. Express that they believe that the communication from the club needs to be improved - but stop asking to meet Ashley personally. Until you have a membership which reflects supporters as a whole you have no legitimacy and are nothing more than a pressure group. Express the fans concern at the fact that there is a man with no football experience running the club, and if he is to be retained then he needs an experience Kenyon type character to avoid transfers going tits up. Express thanks that Joe Kinnear took the job in the circumstances and kept us up, but his lack of recent top flight experience should mean that a new manager is brought in June - imagine that, changing manager before a season starts!!! They are all realistic aims/goals for supporters to find common ground behind, and if they were part of an NUSC agenda you could have my tenner. I can't think many fans could argue with those or point in Wallace's post. But running a supporters club based upon "We want Ashley out because he's killing our club" is never going to find common ground between fans because it ignores the reality that is NUFC in 2009.

Or another way of looking at it is that only 15,000 of Blackburn's usual attendance deserted them for the FA Cup, compared to nearly 27,000 of Newcastle's fans in a similar situation. The figures clearly show therefore that Blackburn fans are considerably more loyal than Newcastle fans. Thought that might illustrate how daft this thread is. If you're going to pick on fans, stick to Chelsea.

What are they actually doing to the club? Wheres the long term plan in all this? Supposing they get there way and Ashley leaves - then what? I havent heard them mention once what happens after that. If Ashley just "leaves" and takes his £100m loan back and refuses to underwrite the clubs debts for the next accounting period then the answer is easy, the company that is NUFC is technically insolvent (unable to pay its debts when they fall due) and would with need to bring in administrators.

Doing the maths, on a £600 season ticket isn't the VAT saving about £13 a year, i.e. about £1 a month? The admin cost of sending back the £1 would outweigh the refund, surely its a bit daft asking for this back? Don't think they have to send it back per month like, they'd send back the full amount for the time the new tax rate is in place in one go. Still not going to be much though. To be fair they could also just reduce the direct debit, however I'm not sure how the structure works. The tax point is the date of the supply to the consumer, and the legal position could be that the tax point is when you sign the contract to buy the tickets, you're just paying for it afterwards.

Doing the maths, on a £600 season ticket isn't the VAT saving about £13 a year, i.e. about £1 a month? The admin cost of sending back the £1 would outweigh the refund, surely its a bit daft asking for this back? No man, you have to criticise him for everything. You'll never make the committee. Have you considered attending mate? Me? I'm back in London now, just made it back after the match on Sunday - would be a bit of a stretch going to the meeting - trying to listen online.

Given the amount of ill advised comments, blatent disregard of facts etc. I'm not sure you can call anyone in particular a fool for the view points expressed tonight.

Doing the maths, on a £600 season ticket isn't the VAT saving about £13 a year, i.e. about £1 a month? The admin cost of sending back the £1 would outweigh the refund, surely its a bit daft asking for this back?