Mike Ashley

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Stripping the club of its assets though, especially players who are expensive to replace, is going to mean a buyer requires a lot more money to make us successful again in future.

 

No one is going to be in that position if the club is priced at £267m.

 

Probably right, I'm just saying it doesn't necessarily make the club massively more attractive to buy.

[Guest Roger Kint]

Stripping the club of its assets though, especially players who are expensive to replace, is going to mean a buyer requires a lot more money to make us successful again in future.

 

No one is going to be in that position if the club is priced at £267m.

 

Which is why he said he would sell at the right price, he knows he isnt going anywhere while theres money to be made running us as he is now.

[Toonpack]

I'd happily pay 1K to watch an NUFC side as good as KK's or Sir Bobby's trying to actually win things and in a pleasing way too. Given the amount of good money I spend on tat in my life it would be well worth it.

 

To watch what Pardew serves up.... I would pay a tenner a ticket!

 

That said, I reckon lower ticket prices is a good thing and I wouldn't like to see ours rise even if we were playing good stuff and doing well.

 

Our commercial revenue is appalling though. We have a very shitty kit deal, a shitty sponsor deal and we get nowt in advertising around the ground and even what we do get is from local firms meaning pennies. We outsourced our catering and even the club shop and website makes f*** all.

 

The corporate end is dead these days, people just don't want to pay good money to watch a s*** team and a toxic brand.

 

When KK was manager big companies and very rich men were fighting to get a box and to get tickets. Same with Sir Bobby's era. Today anyone on here can get a seat in an executive box even against the mackems.

 

You do realise what outsourcing means don't you ??

 

It usually means you get a better deal than the cost of running something yourself. Which furthermore is guaranteed for the length of the contract, no ups and downs, guaranteed steady moolah.

 

The commercial revenue is poor, granted, but to sell corporate you've got to have a company with major presence in an area to entertain visitors. Not so sure there's that many around here now, certainly not with schmoosing, entertainment budgets like they used to be.

 

Of course I do, I'm a business owner/manager.

 

For me, outsourcing is like handing over a bit of your business to someone else. While we no doubt get a steady return over the course of a few years, we have no control over the quality nor can we improve our margins while tied to such a deal. To me, its a kop-out. Under FS we made decent money from catering and events and such. I think we make like 2m a year from this as it stands which is p*ss poor to be honest. 53,000 fans every other week and thousands of people working and being in and around SJP every week?

 

Ashley outsourcing is another clear sign of an exit strategy btw.

 

Me, if I were Ashley I'd buy a Macdonald's franchise and stick one in each stand. The club would make a fortune. I'd even bolt one to the stadium for non-match days too.

 

OK you don't understand outsourcing then.

 

Businesses don't hand over "core" business they outsource peripheral stuff. NUFC's core business is not making/sourcing pies/sausage rolls or brewing/selling beer or bovril.

 

Companies who do catering (for example) are geared to be able to undertake the same catering for less (economies of scale) than a non-catering company trying to set up a catering side-line. You don't outsource to make less money, you outsource to make more money.

 

All the money you get from an outsourced deal is 100% margin, you have no overhead, run it yourself and your margin is variable.

 

BTW SJH first outsourced the catering.

[BottledDog]

Are people suggesting an expensive lawyer as a preferable director of football.

 

 

Think I'll be forever bemused at the love that Chris Mort still generates.

 

It's almost as if you always manage to be behind whatever Ashley's up to at any given time, without ever going to the trouble of criticising any past decisions in any detail.

 

Is Mr Mort your dad or summink?

 

I think you'll find the times people feel the need to look at it from the other side (which apparently grinds your gears something rotten) is precisely because someone hasn't gone to the trouble of criticising past decisions in any detail beyond 'he's a nonsensical cnut'.

 

Oh, and I'm proper loving his latest stunt by the way. Totally behind it.

[Interpolic]

Are people suggesting an expensive lawyer as a preferable director of football.

 

 

Think I'll be forever bemused at the love that Chris Mort still generates.

 

It's almost as if you always manage to be behind whatever Ashley's up to at any given time, without ever going to the trouble of criticising any past decisions in any detail.

 

Is Mr Mort your dad or summink?

 

I think you'll find the times people feel the need to look at it from the other side (which apparently grinds your gears something rotten) is precisely because someone hasn't gone to the trouble of criticising past decisions in any detail beyond 'he's a nonsensical cnut'.

 

Oh, and I'm proper loving his latest stunt by the way. Totally behind it.

 

I just find the comment strange, how come you weren't crying out for a Director of Football when the lawyer was in charge, or when the casino owner was in charge?

[biggs]

genuine belief here that if he gets the booing ,banners and media against him that he will do everything in his power to shaft us the fans good and proper by selling our best players for personal gain

 

Not enough in the world for this man. ffs personal gain? Its like selling your house for half price to a family of chav scum because you hate the neighbours. He gets no fucking gain!

I mean he is a billionaire and this is a play thing for him,do you think he is bothered 

[Disco]

Not too Ashley but I'd love it if someone made a 'Which one of you is Joe Kinnear? You're a cunt' banner to hang from the top tier at City on the opening day. Although knowing us we won't take the full allocation.

[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.