Mike Ashley

[Paully]

Well played the howlers of Newcastle

George CaulkinJune 27 2013 13:06PM

 

Sometimes, all that is left is a howl of rage. Like when you’ve been on hold to a utility company or your bank for 23 minutes too long and just at that precious moment when the Muzak stops and you get through to a real-life human being, albeit one in a call centre several thousand miles away, the line goes dead. You howl and rage and bawl into the deafening silence of a phone receiver because it’s all you can do.

Like when you’re puttering along quite nicely in traffic and some idiot pulls out in front of you without indicating; you slam on the brakes and reach for the horn and scream “FOR F***’S SAKE! WHAT THE F*** ARE YOU F***ING PLAYING AT YOU F***ING C***? IT’S MY F***ING RIGHT OF F***ING WAY!” because there’s nothing else to be done (unless, of course, you go down the route of following said idiot to work, sitting in your car all day, not eating, urinating into an old cola bottle you found underneath the passenger seat, finally following the idiot home, sitting outside his house for the entire night feeling increasingly paranoid because you haven’t eaten and because that’s how late-night call radio makes you feel, waiting until he leaves for work again and then breaking in and doing something unmentionable on his hall carpet. But I can’t really recommend that, and my bloody injunction is still in force anyway).

You don’t shout into the telephone because it’s going to persuade the ombudsman to change the regulations about out-sourced customer relations solutions, just as you don’t swear at your fellow road-user thinking it will lead to a wide-ranging review of the Highway Code. You do it because it’s the sound that comes out of you at the time and, for all that it isn’t particularly constructive and you might feel a bit daft afterwards, satisfaction can be taken from the release. So we howl.

Football makes us howl constantly. When a striker goes down like a sniper’s victim outside the area and a penalty is awarded against our team and we can all see it was outside the flaming area, even a blind man could see that, well OK, maybe not a blind man, but a man with a poor eyesight and anyway that’s not the point it was outside the bloody area and it wasn’t even a foul and we get to our feet and shout “HEW MAN REF!” and we gesticulate and our eyes bulge and veins pop.

We don’t do that because the referee is going to reverse his decision.

We don’t do it because we think Sepp Blatter will intervene on our behalf.

We do it because that’s what football is — illogical and passionate and standing up for your town or city and just being there and bearing witness and shouting.

That’s certainly what football is like in the North East. This isn’t a region where we’re defined by what we win. The things we won — past tense — is a proud part of our history and heritage, but Newcastle United last lifted a meaningful domestic trophy in 1955, the FA Cup in 1973 is the only thing Sunderland have won since before the Second World War and, while Middlesbrough’s League Cup win in 2004 is relatively recent, it is also their sole piece of silverware.

So winning, by and large, is not what we do. What we do is turn up and howl.

There are spells and eras and individual occasions when we have fun and feel a surge of momentum, but there is a lot of humiliation and dismay in there, too. Football is an extension of who we are and where we live.

We want a bit of effort and pride, something to believe in and belong to. And even when things go wrong, which they do quite often, we still turn up.

On Monday night, a few hundred Newcastle supporters turned up to the Labour Club on Leazes Park Road, a wayward free kick away (and we’ve seen plenty of those) from St James’ Park. Some came to speak, others to listen, but all were there out of frustration or concern at recent events. Some were there simply because of love. And it is fair to say that some howling was involved.

The meeting was organised by Newcastle Fans United, an umbrella group that has opened dialogue with the club while trying to collect, collate and reflect the diverse opinions of supporters. That is not a straightforward task and, as always with these things, there have been questions about agendas, motivation, why some people are involved and others aren’t, and what the point of it is. Those politics aren’t my business or interest, except to say that I know a couple of the individuals involved and would vouch for their integrity and sincerity (you can find out more here). Good people, trying to make a difference.

You cannot claim that they did not attempt to do things properly. There was a short statement about who they were and what they were doing. There was an open microphone for fans to make their points and ask questions, two representatives of the club were in the audience (Wendy Taylor, the head of media, and Lee Marshall, the PR and supporter liaison manager), as was an associate of Joe Kinnear, whose contentious appointment as director of football was one of the main reasons everybody was present.

There were frustrations, of course there were. Newcastle’s representatives could not answer the questions being asked of them, in part because they do not yet know what the new reality at the club actually is.

But they got there early and stayed there late and they listened and they engaged and they chatted. It was ballsy of Kinnear’s ally to turn up and speak, although he did not add much to the clarity of proceedings and, in the end, was effectively drowned out. A motion was called and carried requesting that Mike Ashley, Newcastle’s owner, withdraws.

If you were searching for a theme, it was fairly evident: anger. Anger that Kinnear, a man indelibly associated with the most toxic season in Newcastle’s recent history, was back at the club; anger that his interviews brought the tang of farce to Gallowgate; anger at last season; anger at Ashley’s compendium of bizarre decisions.

There was anger at their own impotence, that the club might be here but that nothing would come of it. For the record, there were a few opposing views, and there a bit of anger in them, too.

Walking away, my initial reaction was conflicted. I loved some of the eloquence and the passion, the thought that had gone into planning the event (Kinnear had been invited), the push for fairness, but I was also a bit troubled by the absence of fanzines and other people I like and respect. I’d seen the chaos of democracy and wondered what the message was and how you evaluate the worth.

It has taken me a few days to realise that I was wrong. Ungenerous and wrong. In spite of the motion, dialogue with the club will continue, and if that dialogue proves utterly irrelevant when it comes to Ashley’s mindset and redundant when it comes to influencing him, then it shouldn’t negate the fact that there are decent people at Newcastle who want to do the right thing and who have some small power to do it.

Communication is a huge issue, but talking, even in a limited fashion, is better than not talking.

I read comments about the meeting on Twitter and elsewhere. I read about a lack of dignity. I read about the Ashley motion and people wanting to know what the alternative was, and then, for a moment, I wondered at my own hypocrisy. Because I remembered a piece I had written for The Times when, in the aftermath of relegation, Ashley took Newcastle off the market and announced his intention to sell the naming rights of St James’.

I’d forgotten how angry I felt about that; angry for my friends, for the city I live in and one of its most iconic buildings, for the region I care about, angry at more words written on corrosion. I’d forgotten how important venting can be.

Amid Kinnear, Dennis Wise, Kevin Keegan, Alan Shearer, Chris Hughton, demotion, St James’, Sports Direct, Wonga and everything else, perhaps I had become numbed. (And yes, yes, yes, I know it’s not a one-way street.

There has been a plan and a structure recently, fifth place, good players and self-sufficiency, although where all that stands now we can only guess at.)

So I looked up that article. Time has elapsed and the world has turned and I’ve probably changed, but it was how I felt back then. I can understand the people who have given up on Newcastle or are close to it and I can also understand those who grit their teeth, wipe their feet on their way into the stadium and carry on.

Equally, I have a fresh understanding of those who howl. Well played to those at the Labour Club. Well played and thank you.

From The Times, October 2009:

“We may as well begin as we mean to continue: Ashley out. We may as well shed any notion of journalistic impartiality, because certain circumstances demand it: Ashley out. Just as no man is bigger than a football club — in spite of what those same men might think — some issues rise above work and professionalism and straddling a fence in the name of politics and this is one of them: Ashley out.

Now that he is staying, it warrants repetition: Ashley out. There is nothing to be gained by not speaking minds, even if Mike Ashley’s tattered regime at Newcastle United is limping on regardless and even if supporters know damn well their battered old club has not been listening. Over the past two years, they have been stripped of their pride, dignity, status and reputation; take away the howl of rage and what are you left with?”

 

[Jack Flash]

Sports Direct, the company led by Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley, will open a new superstore at 150 Oxford Street, the current site of HMV's London flagship.

 

The sportswear giant is understood to have exchanged contracts to take on HMV’s lease at the 60,000 square feet premises, currently the largest music shop in the world. Sports Direct currently have a smaller branch nearby but are expected to move as soon as the deal is finalised and HMV have relocated to a new premises further up the street.

 

 

[Dave]

From the largest music shop in the world to the largest jumble sale in the world.

[Interpolic]

The current SD place on Oxford Street is pretty small and a bit of a dump, that's a massive upgrade for them.  Rent must be enormous.

[Jack Flash]

Sports Direct is understood to have paid a premium of between £2.5m-£5m for the Oxford Street shop, which is owned by Langham Estates and has an annual rent of around £3.2m.

[Paully]

"We're all off to celebrate in Shearer's Bar.......oh wait a minute!"

 

Lineker after the match there!

[Big Geordie]

Another cracking piece from George

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Gutted when I heard about the HMV thing... it will be a nightmare of epic proportions unless he has a dramatically different plan for the layout/design. Which he obviously won't.

[Lotus]

All the best music shops are in Berwick Street anyway.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

I just don't want an absolutely massive Sports Direct right in the middle of Oxford St. Meh.

[Al Moody]

Never go shopping on Oxford St anyway, it's full of mugs.

 

Now it'll be even more full of mugs.

 

 

 

[Minhosa]

From the largest music shop in the world to the largest jumble sale in the world.

 

It's in such a prestigious location that shop. Tourists from all over the world will wander past/inside it.

 

What a fucking advert for London and England. Donnay and Lonsdale tat as far as the eye can see.

[biggs]

Another cracking piece from George

here here 

[alexf]

Sports direct. Whenever I've been in there it's absolute chaos where there appears to be no layout at all with everything randomly put anywhere.

[Cajun]

Sports direct. Whenever I've been in there it's absolute chaos where there appears to be no layout at all with everything randomly put anywhere.

 

It is a 'professional' jumble sale.

[Guest Roger Kint]

Its a smear on the good name of jumble

[Cajun]

true.

 

That said I have been to the Newcastle Sport Direct, if anyone has the misfortune to go to Stevenage visit theirs. Makes the Newcastle one look like it was designed by German organisation consultants. Absolute mess and I am pretty sure when the stock comes in the staff just throw it all up in the air and where it lands is where it stays.

 

I went to find a jokey picture but if anyone has been there they would look at this and take a few moments wondering if it was actually a real photo -

 

 

 

http://i44.tinypic.com/x6hceo.jpg

 

 

 

[Guest neesy111]

The current SD place on Oxford Street is pretty small and a bit of a dump, that's a massive upgrade for them.  Rent must be enormous.

 

Aye, it's tiny compared to the one in Eldon Square.

[LRD]

That photo was taken in the shop area of SD, really?

[Cajun]

No, well it could well be one of their stores as the Stevenage one isn't far off but I was joking

[Matt]

It's in such a prestigious location that shop. Tourists from all over the world will wander past/inside it.

 

What a fucking advert for London and England. Donnay and Lonsdale tat as far as the eye can see.

 

There is nothing prestigious about Oxford St, it's an absolute dump.

[LRD]

It looks like a fecking dump. If SD is anywhere close to that jumble, I wouldn't want to step in.

 

Just imagine going under that pile to find your size. You'll probably find the dried-out corpse of the previous customer in there.

[Theregulars]

It's in such a prestigious location that shop. Tourists from all over the world will wander past/inside it.

 

What a f***ing advert for London and England. Donnay and Lonsdale tat as far as the eye can see.

 

There is nothing prestigious about Oxford St, it's an absolute dump.

 

Bollocks, it's a landmark.

[Stifler]

As it's pretty much the only sportswear shop in the UK you would have thought he would have taken advantage of it and made it more organised inside the store, it must be a headache working there.

 

I have a feeling they may pull out of Eldon Square after they had a disagreement with the owners (INTU) over rent rates for Republic which they own. Recent rumours have said that they are interested in the old Peacocks unit in Monument mall.

[Cajun]

As it's pretty much the only sportswear shop in the UK you would have thought he would have taken advantage of it and made it more organised inside the store, it must be a headache working there.

 

I have a feeling they may pull out of Eldon Square after they had a disagreement with the owners (INTU) over rent rates for Republic which they own. Recent rumours have said that they are interested in the old Peacocks unit in Monument mall.

 

He's probably not fussed about it for exactly that reason. He pretty much dominates the high street sports shop market so people can put up with the mess or tough shit.