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Harper: 'The football club is dying a slow, painful death'


Dave

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Harper is quite right - the club IS dying a slow painful death.

 

Unless the situation is clarified this week, there is a real danger of the club imitating the Mackems back in the 80s and going into the old 3rd Div(Lg 1) ; if that happened, I reckon there would be huge repercussions off the field because support would dwindle away until there was a hard core of around 10,000 fans....

 

This season is almost dead now, and unless the club starts performing convincingly, both on AND off the field, it will become harder & harder to attract decent recruits - look at Sheff Weds, for example, once a major player in the top league - it is hard to see them ever regaining anything like their former status and before anyone says ' we are NUFC, we are different..' NO, we are NOT ; even Wednesday fans never had to put up with the amount of sleaze and off-field balls-ups that Newcastle supporters have faced over the past 5 years, and the fans have had enough...if this isn't sorted out soonest, the attendances will be laughable in comparison to those over the past 15 years, and if NUFC lose its supporters, it loses everything that makes it look like a 'big' club - lets face it, the trophy record doesn't, the way it is viewed by the rest of Football doesn't and even the stadium doesn't ; Sheff Weds built Hillsborough at a time when other clubs played in hovels, but the team lost out as a result of the cost - now, Hillsborough is old hat and the team matches it...

 

NUFC needs NEW, switched-on owners who want to succeed - a return of the Shepherds does NOT fill that

requirement and will always be viewed with suspicion by many fans so it can only be hoped that, either by good luck, greed, or whatever else motivates Ashley, we get the new owners the fans deserve.

 

Results on the field are vital, because the club will get nothing but bad publicity from the Murdoch-owned press and media who have been behind the club's demise right back to 1998.

to be fair the press licked our arses when we were doing well as the entertainers etc.
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I know he's right, but I'm not sure what he's going to achieve here other than venting his spleen. I hope these statements will speed up the takeover, but I can't see it TBH.

 

Whoever it is won't even of heard of Harper, never mind Sky Sports News. They'll take over (or not) when they are ready and have read every last word of every account related bit of info since 19canteen, not because some goalie tells them to.

 

Anyway the players will be alright, they know most of them will be sold, or they can comfort themselves with their massive salaries. Pity the fans, not the players.

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Taylor admits players are in the dark over owners[

Jul 13 2009  by Lee Ryder, Evening Chronicle

 

STEVEN TAYLOR has admitted that players are being kept in the dark over the future of Newcastle United.

 

The defender bagged the opening goal in United’s 3-0 win over Shamrock Rovers in Dublin on Saturday.

 

But while the friendly victory looked good on paper, the turmoil at the club was still the only talking point in the Irish capital over the weekend.

 

The former England Under-21 skipper was linked with Chelsea over the weekend, yet is understood to want to remain on Tyneside – if Alan Shearer is appointed as boss.

 

Taylor said: “We want a manager and a bit of stability – we need that.

 

“We’ve got a chairman who wants to sell, but as players, we don’t know what’s going on.

 

“We want something sorted quickly, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens.”

 

“I’ve got two years left on my contract – it’s as simple as that.”

 

Taylor says that the battle scars of relegation will always remain, but that United must begin to move forward. He said: “I was devastated when we went down – it was the worst day of my career.

 

“There’s no worse feeling than getting relegated, and we all want to put that right.”

 

He went on: “Every day there’s something happening at Newcastle, and, to be fair, we just want to stay out of it. All the players are just keeping their heads down and getting on with it.

 

“Every day you hear something different – you don’t know what to believe until things get signed on the dotted line. We’d like it sooner rather than later.”

 

Taylor scored United’s opener on Saturday before goals from Shola Ameobi and Nile Ranger, and he added: “I’ll always treat every game the same. I know it was only a friendly, but I scored, and I don’t score many, so I made the most of it!

 

“I was in the right place at the right time, and hopefully I’ll get more than last year.”

 

:: GEORDIE boy Mark Doninger is on trial with Plymouth after being released by Newcastle, while Greek outfit Atromitos are weighing up a move for free agent Cacapa.

/quote]

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/nufc/newcastle-united-news/2009/07/13/taylor-admits-players-are-in-the-dark-over-owners-72703-24140234/

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Harper is quite right - the club IS dying a slow painful death.

 

Unless the situation is clarified this week, there is a real danger of the club imitating the Mackems back in the 80s and going into the old 3rd Div(Lg 1) ; if that happened, I reckon there would be huge repercussions off the field because support would dwindle away until there was a hard core of around 10,000 fans....

 

This season is almost dead now, and unless the club starts performing convincingly, both on AND off the field, it will become harder & harder to attract decent recruits - look at Sheff Weds, for example, once a major player in the top league - it is hard to see them ever regaining anything like their former status and before anyone says ' we are NUFC, we are different..' NO, we are NOT ; even Wednesday fans never had to put up with the amount of sleaze and off-field balls-ups that Newcastle supporters have faced over the past 5 years, and the fans have had enough...if this isn't sorted out soonest, the attendances will be laughable in comparison to those over the past 15 years, and if NUFC lose its supporters, it loses everything that makes it look like a 'big' club - lets face it, the trophy record doesn't, the way it is viewed by the rest of Football doesn't and even the stadium doesn't ; Sheff Weds built Hillsborough at a time when other clubs played in hovels, but the team lost out as a result of the cost - now, Hillsborough is old hat and the team matches it...

 

NUFC needs NEW, switched-on owners who want to succeed - a return of the Shepherds does NOT fill that

requirement and will always be viewed with suspicion by many fans so it can only be hoped that, either by good luck, greed, or whatever else motivates Ashley, we get the new owners the fans deserve.

 

Results on the field are vital, because the club will get nothing but bad publicity from the Murdoch-owned press and media who have been behind the club's demise right back to 1998.

brilliant post :thup:

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We need a manager, and soon says Taylor

 

Jul 14 2009  by Mark Douglas, The Journal

 

 

STEVEN Taylor has likened the behind-the-scenes mess at Newcastle United to the reality TV series ‘Big Brother’ – and called for Alan Shearer to be appointed to restore respectability at St James’s Park.

 

Taylor is ready to assume his role in leading United back into the Premier League but is unhappy at the instability that is undermining the club’s efforts to make an immediate impact in the Championship.

 

He feels that United have become the ‘Big Brother’ of English football and says he is fed up with all the negative publicity that surrounds the club.

 

Taylor is the latest player to speak out about the chaos that has engulfed United since the end of the season – following Steve Harper, Sébastien Bassong and Kevin Nolan in appealing for the club’s ownership and managerial limbo to end.

 

Their words illustrate the growing feeling of unease in the Newcastle dressing room and have heaped fresh pressure on those responsible for selling United to try and speed up any prospective takeover.

 

The defender, who is interesting West Ham United, Arsenal and Everton, also believes that Shearer is the correct candidate to help rebuild the shattered club.

 

“We need a manager in as soon as possible,” Taylor told The Journal. “We need things sorted out. Not having a manager and having a chairman who wants to sell the club – it’s not a situation that we want to be in. Every day we pick up the papers, it’s something new. We just want something to happen as soon as possible.

 

“I’m sick of seeing our name in the ‘papers for the wrong reasons. The football club is like Big Brother – there’s always something going on. It never has any stability and it needs it. I’m sure the next manager will manage to do that, we just need him to take over as soon as possible.

 

“I want Alan Shearer to come back, absolutely. He’s the right man for the job.”

 

The defender was one of the few players at the club to come out of last season’s bitter relegation with any credit – teaming good displays with scoring crucial goals against Hull, West Brom and Middlesbrough that nearly kept the club in the Premier League.

 

But personal accolades did not soothe his pain after a relegation that Taylor admits is “still sinking in”.

 

To compound the pain of demotion to the Championship, Taylor also missed the

 

European Under-21 Championships with an Achilles injury. The stricken defender (pictured above right) ended up having to watch as England, who he would have skippered, made the final in Sweden.

 

“It’s been the worst summer of my life. I haven’t been able to relax and enjoy myself because it hasn’t really sunk in yet that Newcastle are in the Championship,” he said.

 

“Newcastle United in the Championship just doesn’t seem right. It was probably the worst day of my career when we went down but now we’ve got a job to do – we’ve got to get the club back in the Premier League.

 

“We’ve got some difficult games at the start of the season, we’ve got to be strong and stick together through these difficult times. At the minute we need stability, we need a manager and we need to know who the owner is going to be.

 

“Watching the Under-21s was horrible. Getting relegated was the worst thing, but watching the England team out there and getting to the final and not being part of it – it was killing me.

 

“It was the worst summer I’ve ever had, I’m desperate to get the club up so that I can enjoy next summer.”

 

Despite his obvious disappointment at the direction the club is heading, Taylor said he did want to stay at United – provided they don’t want to cash in on him.

 

“I’m still here,” he said. “I’ve got two years left on my contract and that’s all I can say. Unless Newcastle sell me, I’m a Newcastle player.”

http://www.journallive.co.uk/nufc/newcastle-united-news/2009/07/14/we-need-a-manager-and-soon-says-taylor-61634-24145114/

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The Guardian is reporting that a  source close to the goings on to find a buyer for the club has revealed that Mike Ashley may still be in control at St James’ Park next season.

 

The news is that the due diligence that would-be buyers have completed, has shown some troubling things about Newcastle’s financial liabilities.

 

The source said:

 

“The process is moving extremely slowly, there is still genuine hope of a sale but it’s not looking imminent,”

 

“Newcastle comes with a lot of baggage.”

 

If the sale is not completed by the end of August then there’s no way a buyer would come in, because they’d be burdened with the massive problem of paying the wage bill,  which is still around £62M a year.

 

And Ashley has done nothing to reduce that wage bill by selling players, or even getting any new players in.

 

 

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interesting that harper in the sun piece says the club has been  "gradually imploding for five or six years", when those first few of years were under fred who if rumours are to be believed could be his new boss in a while.

 

 

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EVERY single Newcastle United player is uncertain where they will be starting the new season, according to the club’s frustrated goalkeeper Steve Harper.

Jul 16 2009  by Mark Douglas, The Journal

 

The Easington-born keeper has called for an end to the state of limbo that is undermining the club’s attempts to bounce back into the Premier League at the first attempt, but there is little prospect of that at the moment.

 

And with the club looking to shift their high earners – and a clutch of United’s established first-team players ready to slap in official transfer requests – Harper feels that no one can be sure where they will start the season.

 

It is now almost two months since the club’s relegation to the Championship but the frustrating impasse continues, with the claims of sources close to the takeover that a deal was imminent proving not to be case.

 

Most importantly for incomings and outgoings, Newcastle have no manager – an impasse that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, despite claims Joe Kinnear was set to make an unwelcome comeback.

 

The reports were dismissed almost instantly by Newcastle officials who will move forward with Chris Hughton still in charge.

 

The remit of the caretaker boss has not been extended to dealing with recruitment or letting players leave – that will be down to his eventual successor. But the uncertainty over who that might be is causing consternation in the camp.

 

“The players are very disappointed with the situation. Obviously what happened at the back of last year, to fall a goal short was demoralising,” Harper said.

 

“Players like structure and discipline and at the minute the structure is up in the air. The players don’t know whether they’re going to be here or elsewhere come the start of the season – none of us know at the moment.

 

“It’s a situation where, as players, we have to concentrate on getting as fit as possible for August 8. But the sooner the better for us to get things resolved.”

 

The words of the longest-serving campaigner in the United dressing room are just the latest dispatch from a camp clearly unsettled at the way the club is being run.

 

Kevin Nolan, Nicky Butt, Steven Taylor, Sebastien Bassong and Jose Enrique have all uttered similar sentiments, laying the

 

disenchantment of the first-team squad bare for owner Mike Ashley.

 

But despite their unrest, Hughton is adamant that the players have been training well and applying themselves professionally during these crucial weeks in pre-season.

 

“Whatever has been said, the application of everyone has been excellent. I can honestly say that I can’t fault any player for what they have done during pre-season,” Hughton said.

 

“Their requirements are to be as professional as they can be in training and during the games, as and when they come up. It’s inevitable that the longer the situation goes on without a resolution the more and more will be written about it.

 

“That’s something we have no control over, so we just need to get on with it.”

 

Like most concerned with Newcastle United, Hughton is still waiting for developments on the managerial and ownership front.

 

“I’m not quite sure when something is going to happen. I just ignored the story about Joe (Kinnear), to be honest,” he said.

 

“I have spoken to Joe a couple of times about his recovery from the operation and I do check up with him, but not about anything else.”

 

While he is still uncertain about his own future, Hughton was happy to see Jonas Gutierrez and Bassong return in good shape after international exertions.

 

“They both have applied themselves well and we’re glad to have them back. We’ve not had any real injuries so far, which is pleasing, and there is a chance that Oba Martins will be back in full training on Monday.”

http://www.journallive.co.uk/nufc/newcastle-united-news/2009/07/16/every-single-newcastle-united-player-is-uncertain-where-they-will-be-starting-the-new-season-according-to-the-club-s-frustrated-goalkeeper-steve-harper-61634-24165208/

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Guest Phil K

I have long since stopped believeing theres is anything positive in the disgusting way that Ashley/LambsArse/Harris are conducting themselves over the sale.

But my thoughts are the same as the above - the fans should be the ones to sympathise with, not the treacherous players (not counting Harper amongst that to be fair)

Not that we're getting any whatsoever to start with. Its one thing that has staggered even me - the ranting assaults on the fans by the press.

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Harper's gonna be on Five Live just after 9pm apparently.

 

any chance of a link, i cant be arsed to get off the sofa to turn the radio on.

 

That's the attitude that meant you got beat 3-1.

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Harper's gonna be on Five Live just after 9pm apparently.

 

any chance of a link, i cant be arsed to get off the sofa to turn the radio on.

 

That's the attitude that meant you got beat 3-1.

 

 

i know, its a tw@t running on that deep pile 3g, with a sofa stuck to my arse.

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