Parky Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Mort - Spiv 3 (from TF). For some the softer, more acceptable face of the Ashley operation but for me and in my opinion as dishonest as the rest. The Freshfields lawyer may have got out at the right time and was not around when the real big shit hit the fan but he was around when KK and Wise were appointed and he did give evidence to the panel and appears happy for his name to be associated with the “public relations exercises” described to the panel. Public relations? Or organised lying? Mort made it his business to court fanzine lads and on a couple of occasions, along with people from The Mag, nufc.com and others, tf was invited for a pint and some pork scratchings in Shearer’s Bar. Some may yet seek to defend Mort but if the maxim of judging a man by the company he keeps is followed then Mort is damned. He was affable but there were certain questions we asked which he was not comfortable with which have nagged ever since. Why did Mort pass on the question: “what does a successful Newcastle United look like to Mike Ashley?” Mort got more from the publicity from those meetings with fanzines than we ever did. Part of a public relations con? Taken for saps? That’s certainly how I view it and have done for some time. Ever think you’ve been conned? Yes. Not as blameless and squeaky clean as we imagined? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dokko Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Least of our problems. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AyeDubbleYoo Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Not sure, you could argue that he was trying to get the fans' views and represent them to the owner. Or you could argue he's evil and just another of Ashley's Decepticons. His job wasn't to tell the absolute truth and answer any question he was asked fully and frankly, no chairman of a big company would do that. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mowen Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Hard to say. Certainly looks more shady now then he has in the past. On the other hand, things didn't start going tits up until after he left, maybe he was a better buffer between KK and MA than Lambicunt was. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hudson Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Makes no odds now anyway he's long gone. His job wasn't to tell the absolute truth and answer any question he was asked fully and frankly, no chairman of a big company would do that. Plus he was a Solicitor thay never tell the truth Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parky Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Hard to say. Certainly looks more shady now then he has in the past. On the other hand, things didn't start going tits up until after he left, maybe he was a better buffer between KK and MA than Lambicunt was. Mort must have written the KK contract. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AyeDubbleYoo Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Hard to say. Certainly looks more shady now then he has in the past. On the other hand, things didn't start going tits up until after he left, maybe he was a better buffer between KK and MA than Lambicunt was. Think that's probably the key, he was a bit less of a cowboy than Ashley and the Lamb so he could smooth things over with KK. Basically the only required skill for a Chairman in the 'continental structure' it seems. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mowen Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Hard to say. Certainly looks more shady now then he has in the past. On the other hand, things didn't start going tits up until after he left, maybe he was a better buffer between KK and MA than Lambicunt was. Mort must have written the KK contract. True. He was also there when Wise, Jiminez, Vetere etc. were brought in and must have known how they were planned to be used. However if he was able to keep KK content better than LLamb we would have been in a better situation and the whole thing might not have been quite such a disaster. Yet another unknowable though by the looks of it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tooj Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 I know he told someone who posts on here that Keegan had final say. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dinho lad Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 never trusted him anyway. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
quayside Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 It was Mort and his "strategic review" that led to the implementation of the so called continental management structure, probably as a reaction to the business done in the Allardyce transfer window. The decision to implement that structure was bad enough but the attempt to recruit first Redknapp and then Keegan to fit into it showed a shocking lack of judgement, as did the appointment of Wise. Having said that I always felt the club was in safe hands when Mort was around and he was a decent communicator - and in no way could either of those comments be applied to Derek "Baldrick"Llambias. I also have a suspicion that the Keegan fiasco would have been better handled if Mort was in charge but obviously that's just a gut feeling. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
NG32 Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Part of the Ashley crew, sadly he was a liar. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yorkie Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Hard to say. Certainly looks more shady now then he has in the past. On the other hand, things didn't start going tits up until after he left, maybe he was a better buffer between KK and MA than Lambicunt was. Yeah exactly, and i'm inclined to agree with Northerngimp aswell. The difference was his execution of the key decisions and his personality. That's why he was fucking streets ahead any of the Ashley pack. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teasy Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 So what exactly do they claim Mort did that was so bad? He didn't answer every single question he was asked?, what Chairman would? He advised the club to put in place a system that other employees of the club fucked up later on?, hows that his fault? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mowen Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 So what exactly do they claim Mort did that was so bad? He didn't answer every single question he was asked?, what Chairman would? He advised the club to put in place a system that other employees of the club fucked up later on?, hows that his fault? Equally he put a system in place and jumped before it went to fuck. Could well have been his fault, we'll just never know. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teasy Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 I'm not sure how it can really be his fault that the likes of Lambias acted so unprofessionally. At the very most you could blame him for putting Keegan into a system that he was never likely to thrive in (if he actually picked Keegan himself.). However even then it only took a bit of flexibility and some common sense from the person who replaced him to keep things from going the way they did. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohmelads Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Never understood why people cut this guy so much slack when he was around when much of our trouble started. Wasn't he Ashley's lawyer when they rushed "due dilligence" to buy the club? When Ashley took control of the club he found the finances weren't what he thought they'd be. As a result he became tight-fisted and our squad got weaker and weaker as time wore on. Much of the trouble stemmed from Ashley buying into a club he had no idea about, and Mort was a key player in this. Not only that but as quayside mentioned it was Mort's strategic review which resulted in the totally failed continental management structure. He was around when all that shady business was started and yet somehow he escapes so much blame just because he wasn't around when it all started to collapse. People seem to forget Mort was our chairman when the foundations were put in place. I put it down to good PR at the time. Free pints before kick-off and what-not, he knew how to keep the fans onside and left the club just before everything went pear-shaped. But it seems pretty obvious to me that Mort played a major part in our decline, he was the chairman of the club no less when management structures were put in place that the manager didn't know about, he oversaw contracts and brought in personnel who damaged this club and he lied to the fans as a PR exercise to cover up the mess. Why do so many fans continue to get on like he had a minor role in the events that followed? I notice he has been very quiet since he left the club. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChezGiven Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Said it ages ago, it was Mort that set the blueprint for how the club was organised post-Allardyce. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AyeDubbleYoo Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Said it ages ago, it was Mort that set the blueprint for how the club was organised post-Allardyce. Do you think the actual plan was so wrong though? Don't want to derail the thread, but bearing in mind our recent history a policy of restrained spending might have worked. Even the 'Continental model', or whatever you call it, can work if the personnel are right. Just matching it with Keegan and Dennis Wise was a disaster, and presumably they were Ashley's appointments (guessing at that obviously). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChezGiven Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Great plan, shit implementation. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AyeDubbleYoo Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Great plan, s*** implementation. Basically what I was saying, could have saved my typing fingers. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
NG32 Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 Great plan, s*** implementation. I dunno about great mind, seemed to me thy wanted a mid table side bring young talent on and flogg it. We would have never acheived anything under these as they would have sold every bit of talent. We'd have become a feeder club. How long would it have been before fans got pissed off if hey started flogging our young talent regualry, they made a massive assumption that NUFC fans will turn up 50k a week no matter what management do. Wrong Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChezGiven Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 I was more thinking of the DOF system which i disagree with in practice, even though its fine in theory. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ujpest doza Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 I notice he has been very quiet since he left the club. So quiet in fact that you'd hardly notice him in the away end at WBA, Palace and Ipswich to name but 3. My own opinion is that he jumped ship because he could foresee what was coming and didn't want to be associated with it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
quayside Posted October 6, 2009 Share Posted October 6, 2009 I notice he has been very quiet since he left the club. So quiet in fact that you'd hardly notice him in the away end at WBA, Palace and Ipswich to name but 3. My own opinion is that he jumped ship because he could foresee what was coming and didn't want to be associated with it. Dunno about that. He was never a club employee and the club paid Freshfields for his services. I think it was always intended that he stick around for a year or so to oversee things after the takeover and then return to Freshfields. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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