General press coverage

[Wolfcastle]

Martin Samuel today on Norwich and Watford reckons "Listen, if the owner gets it right, a team from the Premier League does not end up in the championship."

Something to bare in mind next time Barnes/Bishop get in touch for him to publish some (twice relegated, several nears misses)regime propaganda. Which is due soon. Was just last week he was bemoaning how we were well run by an English owner who we all hated.

 

 

Edited April 30, 2021 by Wolfcastle

[nbthree3]

Some big business news here 

 

[Ameritoon]

Guess they didn't get a chance to bleed local newspapers dry

[Cronky]

On 30/04/2021 at 17:04, Wolfcastle said:

Martin Samuel today on Norwich and Watford reckons "Listen, if the owner gets it right, a team from the Premier League does not end up in the championship."

I must be missing something, because three Premiership teams always end up in the Championship, no matter what the owners might be doing.

[Yorkie]

There's a fantastic article from Caulkin/Waugh in The Athletic about Charnley today. They've collected numerous accounts from several unnamed sources about his character and his role, etc. Does absolutely nothing to alter my long-since-established conclusions about the man, but interesting hearing it validated (and, in fairness, in some cases challenged). 

 

The fact he's still here is all you need to know, really. He's the Patsy in Chief. 

[Colos Short and Curlies]

On 25/05/2021 at 17:24, Cronky said:

I must be missing something, because three Premiership teams always end up in the Championship, no matter what the owners might be doing.

 

It's impossible for 20 teams to all do the right thing. There is all innovation and movement in the way the game is played and unless every player was an exact equal, every manager is an exact equal and every club does everything the same way there will be a 'wrong' way to do things.

 

I'd say rather than it being that an owner doing it right makes relegation impossible it's more a case of its actually easier to run a club in a way to stay up than it is to get it so badly wrong that you get relegated. Of course for a newly promoted club sometimes the best thing is to come up, go down and pocket the cash and then come back up again.

 

Ashley has done everything that would be on the 'do not do' list and even he has only managed 2 relegations in his time here. That's quite an endorsement on how badly other clubs get it

[Paully]

5 hours ago, Yorkie said:

There's a fantastic article from Caulkin/Waugh in The Athletic about Charnley today. They've collected numerous accounts from several unnamed sources about his character and his role, etc. Does absolutely nothing to alter my long-since-established conclusions about the man, but interesting hearing it validated (and, in fairness, in some cases challenged). 

 

The fact he's still here is all you need to know, really. He's the Patsy in Chief. 

 

Just read it - dear me!

 

This quote sums it up!

 

"With his shaven head and thick-rimmed spectacles, he is a distinctive figure, but biographical details are scarce. Senior figures who were at the club when he joined remember Charnley as the “office boy”, or the “tea boy”, someone who used “to hand out the team sheets at reserves games”, an administrator who was “entirely unremarkable”. He is a survivor, “the last man standing”, according to one."

[Ketsbaia]

5 hours ago, Yorkie said:

There's a fantastic article from Caulkin/Waugh in The Athletic about Charnley today. They've collected numerous accounts from several unnamed sources about his character and his role, etc. Does absolutely nothing to alter my long-since-established conclusions about the man, but interesting hearing it validated (and, in fairness, in some cases challenged). 

 

The fact he's still here is all you need to know, really. He's the Patsy in Chief. 

 

Interestingly, Bruce was hired to be Pasty in Chief

 

 

Edited June 10, 2021 by Ketsbaia

[Rafalove]

In the middle of reading it now. Seems interesting people seem convinced he knows football, but can’t even do a free transfer without permission from Ashley and is a glorified administrator 

[Rafalove]

Fuck me, we don’t even have our own rehab centre 

 

 

 

“There’s no pool, or other stuff which would be standard at most Premier League clubs,” the player says. “They hate it when people say this, but it’s not fit for purpose. Injured players have to work their rehab around Zumba classes at the local David Lloyd (gym)!”

[Consortium of one]

Fascinating article.  I still know nothing about the man that I couldn't have already surmised and that is what makes the article so fascinating.  

[Guest HTT II]

Anyone care to post the reticle is that allowed?

[nbthree3]

I'll put it as a Pastebin because it's exceptionally long https://pastebin.com/c9Z0D47L About 6,000 words! 

[Guest HTT II]

2 minutes ago, nbthree3 said:

I'll put it as a Pastebin because it's exceptionally long https://pastebin.com/c9Z0D47L About 6,000 words! 

Ah, tl/dr for me I’m afraid then!

[Fantail Breeze]

1 hour ago, Rafalove said:

In the middle of reading it now. Seems interesting people seem convinced he knows football, but can’t even do a free transfer without permission from Ashley and is a glorified administrator 

 

To be fair, that’s exactly what I (and pretty much every NUFC fan) expected to be the case.

 

He’s a yes man, nowt more and nowt yes.

 

He takes a lot of flack (rightfully so when he associates himself with Ashley) but unless he’s an NUFC fan you can’t really blame him. If you were a till assistant at Aldi on £12 an hour and the CEO offered you the COO role for £150,000 a year on the condition you just do everything they say, you’d probably take it too.

 

Is he an NUFC fan? Don’t know a single thing about the bloke tbh.

[nbthree3]

I'll see what I can find...

 

With his shaven head and thick-rimmed spectacles, he is a distinctive figure, but biographical details are scarce. Senior figures who were at the club when he joined remember Charnley as the “office boy”, or the “tea boy”, someone who used “to hand out the team sheets at reserves games”, an administrator who was “entirely unremarkable”. He is a survivor, “the last man standing”, according to one.

 

“Charnley knows he is on borrowed time,” a source says. “When a takeover happens, he’ll be asked for the alarm codes and the passwords and be told to leave.” For now, though, he is captain of a ghost ship.

 

“In Lee, you’ve pretty much got a yes-man, trying to predict what Mike would want him to say and then saying it. He has to go via Keith and Justin to get anywhere close."

 

“Ashley gets Charnley to do the things he doesn’t want to do and Charnley just does what Ashley tells him,” a figure who has worked for Newcastle on first-team matters says. “You think to yourself, ‘He’s a nice lad, he’ll try his best’, but as soon as anything remotely complicated comes up, he has to talk to Ashley and Ashley doesn’t have a clue.

 

“It feels like you’re speaking to someone who knows they cannot give you any answers,” says one agent. “Lee constantly says he’ll ‘need to check with Mike’ — like he has to run every little thing by his boss.”

 

“Lee is the fall guy; he’s the one who gets it in the neck from everyone, whether it’s Mike, the manager or the fans. He’s not really a chief executive because he isn’t able to make the decisions, he has to pass them upwards.”

 

In other ways, Charnley is left to fend for himself. “It’s just him, without any support system,“ says an insider. “The club is completely pared down. Beyond the first team, it’s all down to the bare bones. It’s a big club being run like a small club, and Charnley does a good job in many ways.”

 

Unlike the combative Benitez, who publicly urged Newcastle’s hierarchy “to do things right”, Bruce has kept any frustrations in-house; the head coach has been the focal point of fan unrest at his hometown club. “The Bruce relationship is fuelled by Lee’s bad relationship with Rafa, who had his life every single day,” one agent says. “I did feel sorry for Lee at that stage, because he was stuck between Rafa and Mike, who were like two fighting parents. He was in the middle of this cat-and-mouse pissing contest.

 

“To have Steve must be like a breath of fresh air. It feels like a case of, ‘I’m glad he’s taking the shit, because it means I’m not’.”

 

Although Charnley is close to what some refer to as his “inner circle” — which includes Richard Hines, the club secretary — the now-43-year-old does not socialise much with staff. Some claim he “doesn’t speak to some employees face to face, he texts and emails them”, which others refute, while some retort that he walks around staring down at his phone to avoid corridor small-talk.

 

“There’s a side to Lee that a lot of people don’t know about,” says a source, referencing Charnley volunteering at the Newcastle West End Foodbank, without courting publicity, and his regular donations to NUFC’s Foundation. “He can be remarkably generous.”

 

“Information doesn’t seep down from above,” the ex-associate says. “There’s a culture of fear, a concern that whatever they say will make things worse. That comes from Charnley.”

 

Asked by The Athletic to clarify their position on furlough, the club declined to comment.

 

There is a perception that he prefers anonymity outside St James’. A source claims Charnley “sometimes heads out into the city almost in disguise”, removing his glasses and putting on a long coat and hat to avoid being recognised (one nickname for him inside the building is ‘Harry Hill’, due to a passing resemblance to the British comedian). He also regularly plays at a popular golf club in nearby Northumberland, with another source claiming he “goes early, so nobody can see him”. Given some unsavoury incidents in the past, and his apparent unpopularity among supporters, few blame him for being guarded.

 

“When you go to Newcastle’s boardroom, it’s only Lee and a couple of mates, and you think, ‘Where is everybody else?’” a Premier League executive says. “But they don’t have anybody else.”

 

When officials deal with Charnley on a club-to-club basis, they find him to be “straight-talking”, “decent” and “just doing what Ashley tells him to”.

 

“They are a disaster on transfers,” says the Premier League director. “They overpay; they are looking at free transfers and paying higher salaries. When you’re looking at a player, and if they’re considering Newcastle too, you normally don’t do it because they pay quite high salaries.”

 

A week or so ago, The Athletic approached Newcastle and told them we were writing a profile of Charnley. We wanted to paint a picture, to explain the mechanics of what he does and what he’s like. We had spoken to a lot of people by then, but if Charnley cared to contribute, we would be happy to listen, on or off the record.

 

The offer was politely considered and declined.

 

 

Edited June 10, 2021 by nbthree3

[Yorkie]

Athletic is a pound a month atm. 

[Darth Crooks]

Tempted 

[Disco]

On 10/06/2021 at 19:40, Fantail Breeze said:

 

To be fair, that’s exactly what I (and pretty much every NUFC fan) expected to be the case.

 

He’s a yes man, nowt more and nowt yes.

 

He takes a lot of flack (rightfully so when he associates himself with Ashley) but unless he’s an NUFC fan you can’t really blame him. If you were a till assistant at Aldi on £12 an hour and the CEO offered you the COO role for £150,000 a year on the condition you just do everything they say, you’d probably take it too.

 

Is he an NUFC fan? Don’t know a single thing about the bloke tbh.

 

Grew up on the Lancashire coast IIRC.

[Paully]

Two excellent in-depth articles about the owners of every Premier League and Championship team!

 

Astonishingly, only five out of the 24 Championship teams' revenue was more than the wages they paid out 

 

https://theathletic.com/2743638/2021/08/02/shopping-malls-nitrogen-fertiliser-oil-tv-premier-league-owners-made-their-money/

 

https://theathletic.com/2736291/2021/08/04/toilet-paper-chickens-and-dating-websites-how-championship-owners-made-their-money/ 

[Yorkie]

https://theathletic.com/2755615/2021/08/08/the-worlds-largest-football-podcast-network-is-going-to-be-even-bigger-in-2021-22?source=user-shared-article

 

The Athletic tidying up their podcast section going into the new season, including the navigation to and from different podcasts - which I must admit I've found a bit faffy. Sadly no changes to Yer'dad on the Tyne. 

[Minhosa]

55 minutes ago, Yorkie said:

https://theathletic.com/2755615/2021/08/08/the-worlds-largest-football-podcast-network-is-going-to-be-even-bigger-in-2021-22?source=user-shared-article

 

The Athletic tidying up their podcast section going into the new season, including the navigation to and from different podcasts - which I must admit I've found a bit faffy. Sadly no changes to Yer'dad on the Tyne. 

 

Wish they'd spent the summer tidying up Taylor Payne's P45.

[Disco]

Guardian reckons we'll finish 15th in a pretty cliche riddled piece.

[mrmojorisin75]

13 minutes ago, Disco said:

Guardian reckons we'll finish 15th in a pretty cliche riddled piece.

 

I read that.  In there it said something along the lines of "he's done well to finish where he has in the last two seasons but Newcastle fans think they should be finishing higher with the players available" or words to that effect.

 

Do we?  Mid table is surely the ceiling for this group of players unless managed by an all timer like Rafa and even then you're surely pushing it.  The problem with Bruce is how he's actively making it much harder than it needs to be because he's fucking terrible.

 

 

[TRon]

6 minutes ago, mrmojorisin75 said:

 

I read that.  In there it said something along the lines of "he's done well to finish where he has in the last two seasons but Newcastle fans think they should be finishing higher with the players available" or words to that effect.

 

Do we?  Mid table is surely the ceiling for this group of players unless managed by an all timer like Rafa and even then you're surely pushing it.  The problem with Bruce is how he's actively making it much harder than it needs to be because he's fucking terrible.

 

 

 

That's pretty damning in itself. If they really think we'll finish 15th, either that means the squad is underfunded and pretty weak, or the manager is not good enough. I would think most neutrals who look at our potential and following would agree we should be aiming higher than 15th.