frankpingel Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 It's over 50 years since I 1st stood in the Leazes End and, honestly, was of a mindset that I'd never witness a trophy win. Now I've hope if not expectations of something tangible happening within the next 5 years. What a feeling. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Duper Branko Strupar Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 51 minutes ago, TaylorJ_01 said: Side point, but this place is going to be mental now will be quite fun. I hope this place swerves most of the mental crap and it sticks to twitter. Seeing the mid 80s crest in Green is already a sore point Ive done well so far to ignore. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miggys First Goal Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 What were the early days like when Ashley first took over? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 8 hours ago, Hanshithispantz said: It's time to fall back in love with the beautiful game. Hans! Fucking get in. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyman Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 I think I need to give my resignation at work tomorrow to keep up with the forum. Just went to cook some dinner, watch a bit of tv and do some laundry, and now I have a heck of a task to catch up Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Bonk Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 4 hours ago, 54 said: This image is the exact reason why we should not be involved in any sort of docu-series. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scoot Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 Bit cheesey like but so what eh? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Bonk Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 (edited) 7 minutes ago, Miggys First Goal said: What were the early days like when Ashley first took over? Mostly piss taking the Mackems from what I recall, sprinkled with some “we’ve got a billionaire now” lifting craic. Took one season to realize it was going backwards for those with any intelligence towards football. Edited October 10, 2021 by The Bonk A word. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Duper Branko Strupar Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 1 minute ago, Mike said: Hans! Fucking get in. It's just building up to the big one now. Who else could we expect to return? @Tooj? @Bowie? Sure there's loads. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
thomas Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 3 minutes ago, Mike said: Hans! Fucking get in. full on frodo waking up in rivendell scene, this. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 1 minute ago, Super Duper Branko Strupar said: It's just building up to the big one now. Who else could we expect to return? @Tooj? @Bowie? Sure there's loads. I was precariously close to being the biggest pervert on here but #1 is locked now. champ_is_here.mp3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 5 minutes ago, The Bonk said: Mostly piss taking the Mackems from what I recall, sprinkled with some “we’ve got a billionaire now” lifting craic. Took one season to realize it was going backwards for those with any intelligence towards football. Necking the pint was endearing, showing up in an Alan Smuth top was nice, but should have been a clue. It was a gradual realization until Keegan, iirc. Not sure if the penny dropped prior to that. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cclay Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 (edited) 28 minutes ago, Miggys First Goal said: What were the early days like when Ashley first took over? People were quite excited because he had some money and what had been going on prior to it (after Hall checked out) was equally depressing. The choices were erratic and often stupid ... boring, pig headed managers ... expensive, past it trophy signings etc. The warning sign was Ashley's reclusive reputation (and, of course, he'd built a buisness ripping people off for tat). Edited October 10, 2021 by Cclay Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackie Broon Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 6 minutes ago, Mike said: Necking the pint was endearing, showing up in an Alan Smuth top was nice, but should have been a clue. It was a gradual realization until Keegan, iirc. Not sure if the penny dropped prior to that. I don't think the penny dropped until Keegan walked. Even though the writing was on the wall before that I think most gave him the benefit of the doubt. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sima Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 (edited) 24 minutes ago, Mike said: Hans! Fucking get in. Edited October 10, 2021 by Sima Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andy Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 24 minutes ago, Miggys First Goal said: What were the early days like when Ashley first took over? Sincere apologies to various people for this Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 Optimistic Nut Posted November 11, 2007 The bloke surely deserves his name sang at matches now. He definitely got that in the end. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Numbers Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 Imagine going back to this kind of feels. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billy Pilgrim Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 I wrote this https://thepeoplesfriend.substack.com/p/on-mohammed-bin-salman-and-bread Quote A Bond villain has bought Newcastle United, and the internet has thrust responsibility for happenings in the Middle East into the hands of the fans. You would struggle to find as many spiritually desperate people under the roof of a single building anywhere else in the world. For while Wahabbi Islam and desert nomad culture dominate the Arabian peninsula, on the banks of the Tyne, and rippling for miles upon miles through into County Durham and Northumberland, the only thing that approximates such a religious experience is the codependent relationship between Newcastle United and its fans. Almost every football club in the country can lay claim to romantic devotion between itself and its fans, but there are factors that, to the distaste of many fans of other English football clubs, developed Newcastle United a different beast. The only real analogue to the Geordie experience is that of Sunderland, and so the clubs have carried their fear and loathing of each other since the Congo belonged to Leopold of Belgium. The american civil war ended less than 30 years before the clubs were born, both sides laying respectable claims to ancient hegemony, commanding exclusive attention of the ordinary working people before the germans marched through Belgium and instigated a war thar serves as a fork in the timelines of what might have been, and what was. For the heady hegemony enjoyed by both north eastern one club cities was never to return. Despite the travails of a centuries' failures and false dawns, for the people of Newcastle and Sunderland the experience of being catapulted from a land of horse and carts to the age of twitter has been married with an intensifying obsession with football. The division between Geordie and Mackem is more important to the collective and personal identity than anything religious, or political. Two former giants, lingering in the dark, ensnaring the souls of generation after generation, passing from mother to son and from father to daughter like venereal disease. There have been successes for both clubs since their fall from their early pedestals in English football and both have threatened to come good again, but time after time, their cycle of rising and falling has been cut short, promise fizzling to nothing. Now English football is a giant. The international attention commanded by top flight English football is only matched by Hollywood and pop music. Having exited a dark age of hooliganism, fan murder in stadiums and financial ruin, English football has risen to unprecedented heights. Compared to the premier league, the Olympics is a curiosity. And so it has also become the playground of the opulent. Just as the super rich were once at each other’s throats over the ownership of special horses, English football clubs are now yardsticks by which the wealthiest and most powerful individuals in the world gauge their self esteem, jousting with each other, launching proxy wars and pouring unlimited money in an unquenchable thirst for a curated and pruned prestige. Just as the masters of Rome displaced the negative impact of their oligarchy and despotism with games, sovereign wealth funds and national treasuries have saturated English football, because it is a guaranteed magnet for the evil eye of the world. The purchase of Newcastle United by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, a vehicle for the autocratic mission of the crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman and his 2030 vision is a deal with the devil. There is no good argument for Saudi ownership of the club beyond the promise of success for the club in future. It is a lifetime supply of internet opiates. Newcastle fans around the world have been main lining positive news for what feels like an era. Before that, there was only glorious failure. The memories of Newcastle league championships passed with the last soldiers who fought at the Somme. PIF have correctly identified that of all the clubs in the premier league who could carry forward to global prominence, Newcastle United fans are both desperate enough and romantic enough to roll out the red carpet and carry them to the stadium. The mood is, or was, so very low that it is truly hard to calculate how objectionable or unsuitable a party would have to be for the geordies to reject them in favour of the status quo. For many Newcastle fans, the news of a takeover was genuinely one of the happiest days of their lives. Football shouldn’t matter that much, but it does. There will be people who, upon receiving this news, have decided that suddenly life is worth living. But what of the cost? It is hard to begrudge fans of other football clubs, many of whom are now inescapably doomed to long term mediocrity, from passing the heinous crimes of the Saudi state to Geordie nobodies. They are right. It is unavoidable. There have been bad actors in English football before, but the scale of the cruelty of Saudi Arabia is ineffable. Any attempt to draw moral equivalence between the Saudis and the west (especially Britain and the US), or to the ethical disaster of Russian oligarchy, or Chinese gambling money, is doomed to failure. The argument is simply unwinnable, the Saudis that bad. Many will wonder how such a liberal and socialist skewing city as Newcastle can reconcile rebirth and renewal at the cost of dancing with the devil. They look at the cringeworthy behaviour of fans of other super rich state owned clubs and very easily imagine Newcastle fans morphing into the same sort of creatures. They know as well as we do that we are spiritually broken and mentally bereft. They laughed when the fans tried and failed to eject Mike Ashley and have no sympathy for a club they regard as a mediocrity. They point to the hollow, soulless experience of Manchester City and Chelsea, crowds borderline satisfactory and riddled with day trippers, the milquetoast tyranny of social media and new signing Tik toks. While some, like Daniel levy, are undoubtedly driven in their opposition by existential dread, many disenchanted fans of other clubs are aghast that the city of Newcastle would have a party of the scale normally reserved for eminent moments of glory in order to welcome a criminal gang of bigots and murderers. But here is the truth. We are that desperate, and it matters that much to us. Our hands will be dirty, and we know it. I sincerely hope that as events play out, Newcastle United will not be dragged to the heart of geopolitics and the social engineering project of Vision 2030. I do not plan to celebrate or glorify people I instinctively loathe. But we all need a reason to carry on, something to lift us in a crowd, to feel among others, and this is my outlet, and so it is for countless numbers for miles upon miles around me. Nobody expects you to understand why good people are prepared to compromise so much for the sake of football, just as I always wondered what it was that compelled people to go to church. Morality has left the building. Romance is all we have left. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yassassin Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 28 minutes ago, Andy said: Sincere apologies to various people for this I mean many of us thought that he would keep us competitive and that wasn’t so outrageous a view given that he was a real life billionaire but he turned out to be a small-minded shit. We were desperate though; Abramovic had taken over at Chelsea, the Thai guy had taken over at City or was about to and the perennials of Arsenal (never won the league after this) and Man U (well funded) as well as Liverpool were still around. Difficult times as the reality of not having recently won anything and being just a little too far north bit Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
arnonel Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 4 minutes ago, Billy Pilgrim said: I wrote this https://thepeoplesfriend.substack.com/p/on-mohammed-bin-salman-and-bread Amazing writing Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dokko Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 5 minutes ago, Billy Pilgrim said: I wrote this https://thepeoplesfriend.substack.com/p/on-mohammed-bin-salman-and-bread Really good read. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicane Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 49 minutes ago, Andy said: Sincere apologies to various people for this Quote Posted November 11, 2007 Mike Ashley is a gift from god to all of us long-suffering fans.. Oof Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mattoon Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 Just now, Chicane said: Oof Me looking for my name in that thread: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizza Posted October 10, 2021 Share Posted October 10, 2021 The warning signs were there all along Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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