polkaDot

all that said and done, the line should finally be drawn when the turncoat puts pen to paper. All previous disagreements between fans about managers/takeovers/boycotts etc should be laid to rest, the time is now. From the moment that pen is put to paper that's the dividing line.

It's being tactically polite. You can't tell folks that what they're doing is wrong, they'll just resist. here mate your arse is on fire. fuck off don't tell me what to do.

From .com £5m minimum, say the Times.... as if being a manc turncoat & mackem collaborator isn't bad enough

godzuki > godzilla

Bruce deal done, ashley's on holiday

a turncoat that managed the mackems. you're right though.

Absolutely. I find this baffling. I work for a newspaper myself and I cover football, and I do a fair bit of investigative reporting. I would understand the hesitancy to publish something investigative (i.e. damaging for the club or individuals associated with it) if it wasn’t well sourced, hastily put together and subsequently could mean no access to anything within the club. But none of that should be an issue. 1. It’s been 12 years. There’s plenty of time for a journalist to investigate Ashley and his running of NUFC, build relationships, dig for documentation or get ahold of material. With time on your hands, you should be able to build a comprehensive case that portrays and illustrates how he’s enriched himself and his companies on NUFC’s behalf. 2. There’s no access anyway. I’ve worked in England and covered Premier League. The way it’s regulated is a piss take, players are protected, managers and others speak on their own terms. The same when I’ve been around the England team, it’s set up in a way that doesn’t exactly encourage critical reporting. When someone talks, it’s most often not through the club anyway. In other words, I can’t see the logic in withholding a relationship with the club (especially not Newcastle). Press conference quotes? Match reports? Quotes from Jamal Lascelles and Paul Dummett saying they’re excited for the League Cup tie with Luton? Nick them off others. 3. The lack of critical and investigative reporting on football in general, Newcastle United in particular, presents a golden opportunity brand-wise. From a reader’s perspective (fans) it’s hugely appreciated when irregularities are discovered and presented. There’s so much to gain from it, and it serves one of the core purposes of journalism. Put money and time into it and you’ll be rewarded long term. However, I don’t think this sort of criticism should be aimed at reporters. It’s a strategic question, most probably dealt with by editors and others higher up the hierarchy. Still, with NUFC being such an obvious case, it’s unbelievable that no investigative reporter from another desk, at another newspaper than The Chronicle, has had a real go. Good post. we need Nick Broomfield on the case.

Why not log back in as Odin? - I miss him posting under that user name. D. Yimentov Fooling no one frankly I'm not Odin. He's a little slug compared to me. And if you want to keep slinging petty accusations, name any pub car park between Cramlington and Birtley and I'll meet you there, man on man. But I'm warning you, I'm big and I'm hard . Not into dogging, thanks for the offer though sweetcheeks x Fit & proper cheeks

aye it's a bastard.

A total fucking arsehole that bloke. With fans like that we are fucked.

Out of curiosity, can those people who have already renewed their ST or may end up renewing over the next week or so still cancel and get refunded? I’ve seen a few people make comments that this is possible. It may be worth having whatever procedure it is made into a couple of lines/instructions that can be posted around online etc. If it is possible it’s worth pointing out as some people may not realise.

I watched a couple of minutes and turned it off. There’s something sickening about watching someone clearly arse licking like that. Fuck me what a total spineless cunt that man has become.

It was a joke, like.

what a knob

tuned in, turned it off after 5 minutes. Fuck that brass band shite.

Buoyant: not sunk yet but could still be eaten by sharks.

When this China link surfaced a week or so ago I laughed it off. I thought that was the last place he would go. Some people are driven by things other than money I said. Oh well, he’s gone and it’s not my concern now.

As my old gran used to say, a fool and their money are easily parted.

My feelings too. It’s total self-sabotage by the king of cunts.

This kind of post is everything that's wrong with this place at the moment. I will not renew my season ticket as a result of Ashley and the way the Rafa situation was handled but I will still have a huge interest in how Newcastle do. I'm still interested in who the manager will be and what signings (don't laugh) we will make and if I'm being totally honest I will still want us to do well, I cannot help it. I will stay away but to expect people to stop following a team they have followed for all/most of their life is ridiculous. if you are happy to stop following and have no interest in Newcastle then so be it but don't question other people for still following the team. Giving up going to the game is one thing but to give up following the team is another. Some people will stay away and want the whole thing to implode, relegation etc. Some people will stay away and still have an interest in the team. The important point is the staying away bit.

Why? Truth hurt? What I'm saying is correct and it will be the thing that keeps Ashley here and this vicious cirle going round and round. It's incredible Yes we get it you bollock brained bellend.

There's a scene in the Australian film Snowtown that would be worth re-enacting.

Mike Ashley could have had it all at Newcastle, but will go down as a mean loser Brian Reade 4-5 minutes The most insulting part of Mike Ashley’s latest kick to Newcastle fans’ teeth was the words used to justify it. “We have worked hard to extend Rafa Benitez’s contract over a significant period of time,” was his explanation for the Spaniard no longer being their manager. And if you believe that, you’ll believe Ashley was genuinely shocked to hear a Commons Select Committee tell him one of his Sports Direct warehouses was more like a “Victorian workhouse” or “a gulag” than a modern place of work. He was clearly happy to let the club’s most talented and best-loved manager since Bobby Robson walk away, because any boss wanting to keep a world-class employee doesn’t offer them the same wage on a one-year deal and refuse to back him with enough money to compete. And you don’t cut off all communication with him. It makes no business sense. But then, neither does treating your loyal customer base with a sadistic contempt. Benitez gave Newcastle's long-suffering fans hope but has been effectively forced out (Image: Getty) Yet in the 12 years since Ashley picked up Newcastle for £135million, on a whim, he has messed with their heads on such an illogical, unparalleled scale that a psychiatrist would surely conclude he gets off on it. He sacked well-loved managers Kevin Keegan, Alan Shearer and Chris Hughton, and imposed Joe Kinnear, Dennis Wise and John Carver on them. He renamed their hallowed ground after his sports-gear firm and sold their iconic shirts to Wonga. He wrote off all cup competitions, gave Alan Pardew an eight-year contract and has just priced the new replica home shirt at £65, making it the most expensive in English football. Ashley has treated the Newcastle fans so poorly you'd think he gets off on it (Image: PA Wire) And through all those bizarre decisions, he imposed a Stalinist black-out on all information about the goings-on at St James’ Park. It’s seemed deliberately vindictive. As Keegan revealed last year, he was hurt at being “treated like dirt” by Ashley and his henchmen, and was appalled at their “disregard for people”. Fans get that hurt in spades. But nothing appears to have hurt them as much as Benitez being effectively forced out, because he offered them genuine hope of a revival. He was the real deal. A talisman who could lure a rich owner with the prospect of building something special in a proper football city. The supporters have wanted shot of Ashley for years... (Image: PA Wire) ...instead, it's beloved manager Benitez who is leaving Newcastle (Image: Getty) Benitez can be a political animal, but the motives behind his grandstanding are nearly always to take his team to the next level. All he wanted under Ashley was the chance to buy quality players, enabling him to compete with those clubs trying to break into the top six. But buying quality and ceding control runs contrary to Ashley’s autocratic pile ‘em high, flog ‘em cheap business model — one he still believes can work in top-flight football despite 12 years of evidence to the contrary. Take the £50million budget he offered Benitez to re-build a squad, which has had a minus £11.2m net spend for the three years he’s been there. Newly-promoted Aston Villa have already agreed a £22m deal with Bruges for striker Wesley Moraes, who Newcastle had been scouting for months. Newcastle are a huge club who had a world-class manager but Ashley refused to show true ambition (Image: Getty) The real puzzle about Ashley is how a businessmen worth £2.5 billion failed to grasp the possibilities offered by owning a huge club with a world-class manager in an era when football success guarantees colossal financial reward. Potentially he has a Jaguar dealership on his hands but runs it like a spivvish second-hand car-salesman. If he’d possessed more courage and vision, with a bit of luck he could have had it all — a club worth four times what he paid for it, the love and gratitude of a city, and respect as a shrewd business operator rather that a rag trade hustler. Instead he’ll go down as a mean loser who refused to seek the silver lining lurking behind the Tyneside clouds.

Spot on. His involvement with the community was pivotal for me. In a world that seems to almost celebrate scum like Ashley as some hard-nosed businessman, when he is nothing more than a pathetically immature man baby that made his money ripping off everyone including his own mother, Rafa did not concede like so many weak minded nobodies had done previously. He fucked off Ashley's shilling, he stood his ground.

I picked a bad week to give up glue sniffing.