NUFC media bans - Telegraph now banned from club

[WarrenBartonCentrePartin]

Unfortunately can't see him accepting any offers unless they're considerably higher than his own true valuation of the club.

 

He's all about making money.  If someone stumps up an offer whereby he'll pretty much recoup his overall investment but with little to no profit on top I think he'll turn it down for the sake of it.

 

It's not that he wouldn't sell us if an offer came in, it's that he's not desperate to.

 

He may not be desperate now but that could change if we became a problem for him.

 

And that's the difficulty.

 

It'd be fantastic if we could have enough fans make, take and put up various pro-NUFC flags and banners over as much SD signage inside SJP as possible.

 

If it was done en-masse there's no way the stewards would be able to go around the ground and make sure they're all taken down immediately.

 

For example, this beaut.

 

[NUFC]

Mark Douglas ‏@MsiDouglas  2h 

My union demands #nufc rescind ban.  http://www.nuj.org.uk/documents/newscatle-united-letter/newcastle-utd-letter.pdf …

 

Great letter trying to get common sense to prevail

[Wullie]

newscatle united?

 

Fairly accurate tbh.

[newsted]

 

Better to die on your feet than live on your knees. People need to stop being so petrified of him.

 

That is a great quote.

 

I'm not going to die over this issue btw

[Happy Face]

There will be buyers out there, if he wants to sell. Remember, it's only a couple of months since Fulham (and all their debt) were bought.

 

Relegation bait Fulham?

 

[Guest neesy111]

They've went with that cover btw. 

 

[NG32]

Good on em

[Big Geordie]

Yup - well played The Chron

[Guest chopey]

I'm buying my copy tonight then

[Beren]

Wonder if Ashley is going to use the money he recouped from MASH Holdings to buy up the local press

[Happy Face]

I'd be interested to know how many readers here actually buy the chronicle normally.

 

In my mind it's an ageing readership happy to get their news 24 hours after the rest of us that use forums and twitter. 

 

The more militant it gets the better, obviously.

[pedro111]

I have a hard time believing that the club was ever really up for sale in the first place. There will be buyers out there.

[nufc4eva]

I'd be interested to know how many readers here actually buy the chronicle normally.

 

In my mind it's an ageing readership happy to get their news 24 hours after the rest of us that use forums and twitter. 

 

The more militant it gets the better, obviously.

 

Never bought or read it for years as Twitter etc miles ahead, odd time read online article

[Dr Venkman]

The only way to get rid of Ashley is to find a buyer.

 

Sigh.. Yes, obviously a buyer is ultimately needed for the club to no longer be owned by Ashley, but that doesn't mean there is nothing we can do except wait. We can make life really uncomfortable for him, making it more appealing for him to up sticks and lowering his asking price. Also, when the club is in turmoil the club could well also be otherwise more attractive to certain types of prospective buyers iyam.

or it could put off buyers, they weren't exactly queuing up last time it was for sale and the club was in chaos.

 

They were put off by the asking price.

which isn't going to change

 

He appears a sensitive soul, who knows what might happen if people start calling him nasty names on a regular basis again.

he's also a guy who's amassed a very large amount of money and ignored plenty of media criticism about his primary business I don't think nasty names will change much about the asking price

If everyone stops putting money into the club, it's worth less.

[BrettNUFC]

The only way to get rid of Ashley is to find a buyer.

 

Sigh.. Yes, obviously a buyer is ultimately needed for the club to no longer be owned by Ashley, but that doesn't mean there is nothing we can do except wait. We can make life really uncomfortable for him, making it more appealing for him to up sticks and lowering his asking price. Also, when the club is in turmoil the club could well also be otherwise more attractive to certain types of prospective buyers iyam.

or it could put off buyers, they weren't exactly queuing up last time it was for sale and the club was in chaos.

 

They were put off by the asking price.

which isn't going to change

 

He appears a sensitive soul, who knows what might happen if people start calling him nasty names on a regular basis again.

he's also a guy who's amassed a very large amount of money and ignored plenty of media criticism about his primary business I don't think nasty names will change much about the asking price

If everyone stops putting money into the club, it's worth less.

 

Never going to happen though is it? We will always put money in to the club.

[Dr Venkman]

The only way to get rid of Ashley is to find a buyer.

 

Sigh.. Yes, obviously a buyer is ultimately needed for the club to no longer be owned by Ashley, but that doesn't mean there is nothing we can do except wait. We can make life really uncomfortable for him, making it more appealing for him to up sticks and lowering his asking price. Also, when the club is in turmoil the club could well also be otherwise more attractive to certain types of prospective buyers iyam.

or it could put off buyers, they weren't exactly queuing up last time it was for sale and the club was in chaos.

 

They were put off by the asking price.

which isn't going to change

 

He appears a sensitive soul, who knows what might happen if people start calling him nasty names on a regular basis again.

he's also a guy who's amassed a very large amount of money and ignored plenty of media criticism about his primary business I don't think nasty names will change much about the asking price

If everyone stops putting money into the club, it's worth less.

 

Never going to happen though is it? We will always put money in to the club.

 

You will, aye.

[BrettNUFC]

The only way to get rid of Ashley is to find a buyer.

 

Sigh.. Yes, obviously a buyer is ultimately needed for the club to no longer be owned by Ashley, but that doesn't mean there is nothing we can do except wait. We can make life really uncomfortable for him, making it more appealing for him to up sticks and lowering his asking price. Also, when the club is in turmoil the club could well also be otherwise more attractive to certain types of prospective buyers iyam.

or it could put off buyers, they weren't exactly queuing up last time it was for sale and the club was in chaos.

 

They were put off by the asking price.

which isn't going to change

 

He appears a sensitive soul, who knows what might happen if people start calling him nasty names on a regular basis again.

he's also a guy who's amassed a very large amount of money and ignored plenty of media criticism about his primary business I don't think nasty names will change much about the asking price

If everyone stops putting money into the club, it's worth less.

 

Never going to happen though is it? We will always put money in to the club.

 

You will, aye.

 

Hey, this is the first season i've refused to buy the shirt, progress. A minor one at that, but still 

[Guest icemanblue]

Dr V is the model supporter. Everything he does is what's best for the club. Everything you're doing is the worst for it.

[Decky]

I have a hard time believing that the club was ever really up for sale in the first place. There will be buyers out there.

 

I was always suspicious of it, especially when it was available for a massively cut price. The fact is Newcastle are still one of the biggest attractions in the biggest league in the world, why wouldn't there be interested parties? We have a fantastic stadium, the 3rd biggest in the league and a large, passionate fanbase. If someone came here and got it right the sky is the limit, but yet we were led to believe no one wanted the club for £80 million or whatever it was.

[Dr Venkman]

The only way to get rid of Ashley is to find a buyer.

 

Sigh.. Yes, obviously a buyer is ultimately needed for the club to no longer be owned by Ashley, but that doesn't mean there is nothing we can do except wait. We can make life really uncomfortable for him, making it more appealing for him to up sticks and lowering his asking price. Also, when the club is in turmoil the club could well also be otherwise more attractive to certain types of prospective buyers iyam.

or it could put off buyers, they weren't exactly queuing up last time it was for sale and the club was in chaos.

 

They were put off by the asking price.

which isn't going to change

 

He appears a sensitive soul, who knows what might happen if people start calling him nasty names on a regular basis again.

he's also a guy who's amassed a very large amount of money and ignored plenty of media criticism about his primary business I don't think nasty names will change much about the asking price

If everyone stops putting money into the club, it's worth less.

 

Never going to happen though is it? We will always put money in to the club.

 

You will, aye.

 

Hey, this is the first season i've refused to buy the shirt, progress. A minor one at that, but still 

 

It's not a slow and steady approach that's needed though. We all need to just sack it off completely until he goes, the alternative is this absolute horseshit we're putting up with now.

 

I'll tell you something else as well, with every passing month that we do absolutely nothing with regards to cutting off club revenue (i.e. the only way we can make any real difference) we're setting a very dangerous precedent in terms of letting every prospective buyer out there know that they can get away with pretty much anything they want.

[Dr Venkman]

Dr V is the model supporter. Everything he does is what's best for the club. Everything you're doing is the worst for it.

 

Such a surprise to see you respond in that manner to a few posts on this subject, it's almost as if you're a bit sensitive about it. Ultimately everyone does what they feel is the right thing to do, I haven't called anyone for thinking differently to me, just giving my opinion.

[Tooj]

They've went with that cover btw. 

 

 

What cover?

[Guest bimpy474]

Fair play to Douglas he hasn't held back. Could have been more damning in my opinion but it's a start.

 

http://www.thejournal.co.uk/sport/sport-opinion/agenda-mike-ashley-cant-obscure-6251290

 

 

 

Newcastle United can take all the steps they want to suppress questioning of Alan Pardew and the unaccountable suits that sit on the St James’ Park board, but it won’t obscure an uncomfortable truth.

 

On Mike Ashley’s watch, supporter satisfaction and connection with the club has plumbed new depths, the organisation has become riven by internal politics and paralysing power struggles and the painfully-inconsistent team that Pardew manages have developed an alarming tendency to self-combust when pressure is applied.

 

It is a unholy trinity of problems that has been brought to a head by a damaging derby defeat and a regional press ban that is an affront to newspapers that have covered and supported the club fairly and without prejudice for more than a century. To be banned by a director of football who has a somewhat elastic relationship with the truth is laughable; that the order probably came from Ashley is depressingly par for the course.

 

Back in September, The Journal mused on the slow disintegration of Newcastle United’s reputation within the city. It has been a largely unseen and unspoken process: supporters still attending matches, but feeling increasingly divorced from the club they have invested emotionally and financially in.

 

Their reward is to know that their hard-earned support is filtered through to Joe Kinnear – a man who has mocked and misunderstood the club that pays him handsomely for a role that he singularly failed to do over the summer. No wonder the fizz of rebellion is never far from the surface. But the bond is strong. Disillusionment and discontent has turned the relationship toxic but has not yet severed it completely. Moreover a channel for that discontent is yet to be discovered, even though the Time4Change march was a bold attempt to galvanise the support in the name of a new direction.

 

It is this event that has caused the schism between club and local papers.

 

They believe the coverage of the march against the owner is disproportionate and described it as “staggering”. Yet the only thing that seems staggering here is that the club mistake a lack of attendance as complicit support for an owner who has held them in contemptuous disregard almost from the moment he wrestled control from Sir John Hall.

 

Ashley’s lack of accountability is not the biggest issue here, though. It is the direction that he delivers from the top that causes most anxiety. A culture of fear seems to echo through the corridors of power which castrates the efforts of good people who work there. It was a sickening turn of events that as Newcastle made two respected members of their press office redundant they were building an office for Kinnear at the ground.

 

How is this justified? Simple: it is not. Ashley doesn’t talk, he doesn’t work through the decisions he makes with anyone at the football club. They are simply left to pick up the pieces, much as the embattled press office were left isolated by their employer when he parachuted Kinnear in. He didn’t even put his name to the press release.

 

And there are consequences to this method of running things that have a direct impact on the club. Graham Carr had to be talked out of walking away twice this summer. Yohan Cabaye resolved to leave because he could not see ambition at St James’ Park. He harbours resentment because of the way Kinnear – who claimed in board meetings to be close to Arsene Wenger – failed to negotiate with Arsenal in what he thinks was an honourable way.

 

Ashley has free reign to run the club how he wants, but it is his attempt to control external forces that exposes the flaws in his approach. The number of bans handed out to journalists is disgraceful. The club has banned journalists from the Daily Mail, the Telegraph and – on a previous occasion – the Sunday Sun’s former sports editor Neil Farrington for penning things they did not like. Under Ashley, the muzzling of the Press has become a desperately depressing but recurring theme.

 

Indeed it can now be revealed that they issued warnings about various shades of non co-operation to ncjMedia when we refused to call the ground the Sports Direct Arena (a renaming that Ashley paid not a penny for). We didn’t back down then and won’t now.

 

Funnily enough, the club’s attitude to the Press is not mirrored in their dealings with the nascent Sports Direct News website.

 

They were granted a ‘one-to-one’ interview with Alan Pardew over the summer, along with gaining access to Cheick Tiote at the training ground. All this was at the behest of the owner.

 

You see, this is the thing with Ashley and it always has been: Newcastle United is strictly business. For as long as it benefits the fantastically successful Sports Direct, it will be worthwhile for him to continue to cling on to power at St James’ Park.

 

Perhaps because it is the company that made him one of Britain’s richest men, Ashley treats Sports Direct with respect.

 

He employs good people with far-reaching knowledge of the leisure-wear business, rewards his staff and consistently invests in the business. Last year he bought Republic, the youth fashion line, and the gamble paid off.

 

By contrast, in the world of football he listens to the likes of Dennis Wise and Kinnear. In the words of his most high-profile employee Pardew: “He loves football but he sometimes can’t understand how it works and it confuses and upsets him, and when he is upset he does things that aren’t brilliant for the football club.”

 

It is a spectacularly ill-advised approach. Surely nourishing the club’s soul and empowering good people would be a better approach from the owner? If you’re unsure ask the people of South Wales who support Swansea City, one of the biggest success stories of the Premier League era.

 

Presumably, Ashley and his cronies had hoped to send a message by preventing us from asking questions of the manager or attending matches. They did just that, and the proud supporters of Newcastle United are hearing it loud and clear.

 

[Thomson Mouse]

ITV news has just put the moment up that it happened.

 

Looks to me like Pardew is going to say he can't answer rather than answer it before being stopped.

 

http://t.co/VXO6yAe3Ub

[Big Geordie]

Was just about to post that, Bimpy. It's a start indeed - the gloves are off.