What constitutes a big club?

[TRon]

What constitutes a big club? When award winning sports journalists can't stop mentioning our club in their lead comment stories for the national rags. Thanks fatty for the public vindication.

 

 

[Guest BlacknWhiteArmy]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/article-2005670/Martin-Samuel-So-whats-left-make-Toon-swoon.html

 

It was the eve of a European away game in Germany a few years ago. Manchester United were playing, but Newcastle United were giving them a run back home. A few journalists, a few beers and the talk turned to that most futile of debates: what constitutes a big club? Specifically, did Newcastle now qualify?

 

There was a significant Geordie presence around the table. The sceptics were outnumbered. And yet, as much as anybody ever wins a pub argument, we thought we carried this one. Our case was that the reach of a truly big club must extend beyond their locality. International stature was required, and therefore a significant European pedigree.

 

Newcastle were huge in the North East, granted, but invisible beyond. Kids in areas not served by a Premier League football club did not gravitate towards them the way they did Manchester United or Liverpool. Half of Singapore were not signed up to the supporters’ club.

Name the biggest club in Germany. Easy: Bayern Munich. Now the second. The consensus was for Borussia Dortmund, very strong at the time. And the third? There was much discussion.

 

Finally, it was agreed: Hamburg. And nobody even mentioned Schalke 04. Nobody advocated the third best-supported club in Germany, regularly pulling in crowds of more than 60,000 from the industrial outpost of Gelsenkirchen.

 

Schalke were omitted for the same reason Newcastle would be absent from any list of English juggernauts — because they had never experienced great success in Europe. Hamburg played Nottingham Forest in the 1980 European Cup final and signed Kevin Keegan in his prime.

 

These men, of a certain age, all knew Hamburg. None would recognise Schalke as greater simply because of local support. QED, the same applies to Newcastle. Now, who’s getting the beers in?

 

And without wishing to reignite the hoariest of disputes, never has Newcastle’s place in the hierarchy of football been more relevant than now, having lost arguably their best performer, Kevin Nolan, to second-tier West Ham United.

 

Nolan missed out to Joey Barton in the player of the year polls, but Barton is likely to be on his way, too, as is Jose Enrique, Jonas Gutierrez and perhaps Fabricio Coloccini. Even with £35million from the sale of Andy Carroll in the bank, the men who own Newcastle have looked at the numbers and decided many salaries are too rich for their tastes.

 

Size does matter. The Toon Army will consume the dreadful new shirt and fill the ground as always, they will plaster the name of Demba Ba on the back while waiting for the next local hero to emerge, but it is no longer enough.

 

Nolan was earning roughly £45,000 per week and was offered an extra year on his contract at £50,000, plus a £500,000 bonus if Newcastle finished in the top 10. West Ham proposed £55,000 per week and the chance to work with Sam Allardyce again, and Nolan took it.

 

Potential is the key here. West Ham may be in the Championship, but the club are eyeing a swift return to the Premier League and a move to the cavernous Olympic stadium.

 

Mike Ashley, Newcastle owner, clearly believes his club are operating at capacity. What would it take to compete with the new elite as represented by Manchester City and Chelsea, or even those bubbling under, like Liverpool or Tottenham Hotspur?

 

Ashley needs resources that Newcastle cannot generate alone, money that requires global revenue streams he has been unable to exploit. He either throws his own fortune at the problem, or finds a conservative third way.

 

So Newcastle are in limbo. Still big on expectation, hope and desire, just not big enough to stop their best midfielder dropping a division. Previous owners may have been unrealistic in their ambitions but at least they shared them with those in the Gallowgate End.

 

Ashley, an outsider, simply sees Newcastle for what they are. He would have been on the side of cold, hard logic that night in Germany but where is the fun in that?

 

 

 

 

 

Someone got paid to write that? Fucking hell.

[Guest guinness_fiend]

We're a well supported club,  with a rich history and our fair share of battle scars. No more, no less.  Quite frankly, any discussion about whether a club is "big" is cringe-worthy (in my opinion).  The topic gets brought up all over the land, year on year, and no-one is any the wiser.

 

As far as I'm concerned, a club is only as good as its last season. We've done bugger all for years other than be consistently well supported. That's it.

 

No doubt a "fan" v "supporter" thread will start soon enough.

 

(Sorry if I sound jaded, but this topic really gets under my skin )