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Guest Howaythetoon

John Hall is a bellend aswell, he knew fine well what Ashley was about.

 

KK knew fine well too and Rafa?

 

The real people who know fine well what Ashley is about at the ducking idiots who after 12 years still pay to go and watch his brand of SD football. They are the bell ends.

 

SJH wasn’t to know how things would turn out, I mean at that point everyone of us was creaming over having a billionaire owner who if his SD business was anything to go off success is guaranteed.

 

One thing I will add, FS was a wiley old fox and is on record saying he didn’t trust Ashley and was sceptical from the off. SJH is too much of a gentleman, old school and more naive when it comes to street smarts and a man whose word and handshake is his oath and so is anyone who shakes on a deal and whose word is a bond.

 

It’s good to be cynical of others, but equally it’s not good to be cynical of everyone. We should be grateful SJH wasn’t cynical towards managers, players, fans, construction etc. We should all be angry Ashley is cynical of everything and everyone and not be too hard on SJH for not being cynical about him, his intentions, motives, plans and ownership of NUFC.

 

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but only if we can apply it whenever we like.

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Guest chopey

HTT I love your optimism towards Sir John but if you think he was a gentlemen then please think again, the Metro Center  was bought with church money with loads of local land owners fucked over (see Viv Graham) he even claimed at one point that the land was worthless because of flooding. FS was not a "Wiley Old Fox" he was a gangster that if he was still alive would have Ashley sold up in a shot.

 

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but in this case Newcastle is ran at an arms length from London and that is how it will stay

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HTT I love your optimism towards Sir John but if you think he was a gentlemen then please think again, the Metro Center  was bought with church money with loads of local land owners f***ed over (see Viv Graham) he even claimed at one point that the land was worthless because of flooding. FS was not a "Wiley Old Fox" he was a gangster that if he was still alive would have Ashley sold up in a shot.

 

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but in this case Newcastle is ran at an arms length from London and that is how it will stay

 

:icon_puke_r:

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Guest Howaythetoon

Fact check.........Sir John pissed loads of money away at Wynyard and was desperate for cash when he sold Newcastle, Freddy Shepard was in hospital and would never have sold if he wasn't so ill.

 

Fact check, show me the money SJH took out of the club, i.e. the club’s own money. He didn’t. I mean, when he sold NUFC to Ashley, it was his money he pocketed not money belonging to the club. Ashley is the pick pocket here!

 

Your absolutely correct Sir Johns end game was to make Newcastle as successful as possible and then either float or sell, Ashley wants money now and we give it to him 

 

There was no end game, he said from the start when fans refused to take over ownership of the club that if he’s to get involved, it’s a business venture which he will want a ROI from. That come in the shape of construction, employing members of his family and generally making sure he wouldn’t lose money of his own. The idea after promotion was to step down as chairman once the stadium work was completed and become some kind of President handing down power and control to the board with FS as chairman and DH deputy. He wanted to split his shares among Douglas, Freddy Shepherd and even Keegan so everyone had their own stake in the club which would require they ran things for him where he could be majority shareholder, but everyone else had an equal or significant share.

 

It was his son and Fletcher mainly who pushed for an IPO which he agreed with in order for the club to generate extra sources of funding and capital plus his shares enabled him to leverage equity from his stock and added to his net worth. On floatation he made less money than the bank, FS, his son and a good number of others and if he was in it for the money, he would have sold his shares there and then and would have used NUFC as a cash cow all manner of ways like Ashley has, but he is a rarity in business today, although not back then. He was a genuine entrepreneur who generates wealth by building or running things where any wealth maximised belongs to the business, investors, directors and of course staff and where a business is about growth, expansion, development and sustainability which a Sir Hall can hand over and move onto something else and start all over again.

 

The total opposite to Ashley and although he got a huge ROI when he sold his shares to Ashley, we all did. NUFC, the fans, everyone who worked their bollocks off for SJH and helped him turn the club around got a return and the club and the business of the club saw any wealth stay with the club and business and again SJH’s take home profit didn’t come out of the club, it come out of Ashley’s pockets not the business and effectively our pockets the fans.

 

 

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Guest chopey

Good post and everything you say is correct apart from the expense accounts that were ran through the Gibraltar offices.

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Guest Howaythetoon

HTT I love your optimism towards Sir John but if you think he was a gentlemen then please think again, the Metro Center  was bought with church money with loads of local land owners fucked over (see Viv Graham) he even claimed at one point that the land was worthless because of flooding. FS was not a "Wiley Old Fox" he was a gangster that if he was still alive would have Ashley sold up in a shot.

 

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but in this case Newcastle is ran at an arms length from London and that is how it will stay

 

I’m not you clued up about the whole Metro Centre stuff, but what I meant is that in business he was a gentleman to deal with in that if hands are shamed and words are spoken it’s as good as a legally binding contract, I’m going of what people have said about him, how highly people have spoke of him in business, in charitable work and in terms of his time as chairman at NUFC.

 

As for FS, he was indeed a gangster, but by Wiley old fox I didn’t mean he was some kind of savant, just that he was street smart and no walk over. Ashley isn't either, he just wouldn’t tell you to your face or take you on like FS would, he’s too much of a coward with issues of inadequacy when dealing with someone superior in intellect, authority, self confident and who knows their stuff. There is a reason he doesn’t like to speak in person to the likes of Rafa because he is skitzy about his own inadequacies.

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HTT I love your optimism towards Sir John but if you think he was a gentlemen then please think again, the Metro Center  was bought with church money with loads of local land owners f***ed over (see Viv Graham) he even claimed at one point that the land was worthless because of flooding. FS was not a "Wiley Old Fox" he was a gangster that if he was still alive would have Ashley sold up in a shot.

 

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but in this case Newcastle is ran at an arms length from London and that is how it will stay

 

I’m not you clued up about the whole Metro Centre stuff, but what I meant is that in business he was a gentleman to deal with in that if hands are shamed and words are spoken it’s as good as a legally binding contract, I’m going of what people have said about him, how highly people have spoke of him in business, in charitable work and in terms of his time as chairman at NUFC.

 

As for FS, he was indeed a gangster, but by Wiley old fox I didn’t mean he was some kind of savant, just that he was street smart and no walk over. Ashley isn't either, he just wouldn’t tell you to your face or take you on like FS would, he’s too much of a coward with issues of inadequacy when dealing with someone superior in intellect, authority, self confident and who knows their stuff. There is a reason he doesn’t like to speak in person to the likes of Rafa because he is skitzy about his own inadequacies.

 

 

 

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Guest Howaythetoon

Good post and everything you say is correct apart from the expense accounts that were ran through the Gibraltar offices.

 

That was the work of Douglas and to be fair, something like that is quite common and not always as dodgy as the imagination runs wild over.

 

There is a reason Freddy and not Douglas was chosen as chairman and who SJH gave some of his shares to equally because he didn’t condone or like how his sone conducted business or felt he could be trusted with the club’s money fearing he’d blow it all up his nose, on fanny and at the casino, or just as likely be robbed by some gangsters or conned over some property deal.

 

Freddy at least was a successful businessman in his own right and a self made man, unlike daddy’s boy Dougie.

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Guest chopey

Sir John and FS were Aresholes, but they were our Arseholes and I know for an absolute fact that at the heart of everything they did it was for the benefit of Newcastle United, they skimmed 1% off the top, Ashley takes the fucking lot. I only wish we had a couple like them now to get rid of Ashley cos I know for a fact we have enough muscle to put the pressure on.

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Guest Howaythetoon

Sir John and FS were Aresholes, but they were our Arseholes and I know for an absolute fact that at the heart of everything they did it was for the benefit of Newcastle United, they skimmed 1% off the top, Ashley takes the fucking lot. I only wish we had a couple like them now to get rid of Ashley cos I know for a fact we have enough muscle to put the pressure on.

 

?

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Sir John and FS were Aresholes, but they were our Arseholes and I know for an absolute fact that at the heart of everything they did it was for the benefit of Newcastle United, they skimmed 1% off the top, Ashley takes the f***ing lot. I only wish we had a couple like them now to get rid of Ashley cos I know for a fact we have enough muscle to put the pressure on.

 

Were you at Watford away when the away end was singing "we want Shepherd out?"

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Guest chopey

Sir John and FS were Aresholes, but they were our Arseholes and I know for an absolute fact that at the heart of everything they did it was for the benefit of Newcastle United, they skimmed 1% off the top, Ashley takes the f***ing lot. I only wish we had a couple like them now to get rid of Ashley cos I know for a fact we have enough muscle to put the pressure on.

 

Were you at Watford away when the away end was singing "we want Shepherd out?"

 

Like HTT says hindsight is a wonderful thing

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John Hall and FS may have been well rewarded but without them we faced possible extinction. There would have been no KK, no regular European trips and SJP would have remained a shithole. Whatever they took out, they wanted a competitive, successful NUFC.

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HTT I love your optimism towards Sir John but if you think he was a gentlemen then please think again, the Metro Center  was bought with church money with loads of local land owners fucked over (see Viv Graham) he even claimed at one point that the land was worthless because of flooding. FS was not a "Wiley Old Fox" he was a gangster that if he was still alive would have Ashley sold up in a shot.

Do we know that Ashley isn't a gangster ?

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https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/newcastle-awful-pre-seasons-summer-16584189

 

Newcastle have had some awful pre-seasons, but the summer of 2019 is right up there

Newcastle United are struggling to get themselves into shape for the new season

 

By John Gibson

05:00, 15 JUL 2019

 

Let us not pussyfoot around - this has been a summer slumped in the depths of hell.

 

A close season which has drained all hope and ripped to shreds the dreams of Geordies everywhere.

 

Consider it and weep – an owner Mike Ashley who has, for a dozen years, brought nought but two relegations, a top class manager Rafa Benitez who has left in abject frustration, club top goalscorer Ayoze Perez sold, and his sidekick Salomon Rondon allowed to depart when he was desperate to stay.

 

Has there ever been such a gut wrenching, demoralising summer of discontent? Surely not, the younger Toon foot soldiers will wail in their despair.

 

But, yes, alas there have been a few bruisers down the years.

 

Consider for a moment 1984 when hope abounded with the first coming of Kevin Keegan climaxing in a triumphant return to football’s top flight.

 

However just as now what we got was not team building but a mass clear out of the biggest and the best.

 

Manager Arthur Cox, sickened at Newcastle’s lack of financial backing, shot off to join Derby County, KK didn’t play a solitary game for the Mags in the old First Division preferring never to kick a football again and likewise a fellow European Cup winner with Liverpool Terry McDermott quit alongside him.

 

That was the manager, captain, and vice captain gone even before the bunting was taken down.

 

Oh, the shock reality of black and white life then and again now 35 years later.

 

In came a Geordie big in every way, World Cup winner Jack Charlton, but he took the Ashley approach – while the fans were demanding a busload of arrivals to meet the challenge United’s new boss was having none of it. Cox had said the Mags needed four signings, Keegan said five, Big Jack said none required right now. Not yet.

 

To the dismay of fans Charlton played with his two most inventive footballers, Peter Beardsley and Chris Waddle, out wide and a hammer thrower down the middle with the ball by-passing midfield to hit the target man as quickly as possible.

 

Beardsley hated the system and Waddle was sold to Spurs at the season’s end but in fairness United, who incredibly won their first three matches, were never in relegation danger finishing a respectable 14th.

 

However the fans were having none of it and when he and United were barracked during a pre-season friendly at SJP in front of a three quarters empty stadium Big Jack, who had worked without a contract, walked away.

 

There is no question that Charlton was a perceptive and innovative coach who could organise rigid tactics to produce results which were appreciated by the likes of Middlesbrough - who he piloted to the Second Division championship (Alan Foggon loved him) - but supporters of big clubs with mass followings demanded a more expansive style of football. Likewise when Jack went off to the Republic of Ireland he was hailed as a super hero producing great World Cup results but would never have cut it tactically organising England like that.

 

Maybe Charlton’s United didn’t suffer the ultimate humiliation of relegation but Richard Dinnis unerringly signposted the way to the big drop with his summer’s work of 1977 and his season’s start.

 

Dinnis, totally inexperienced, had been catapulted into the hot seat by player power after Gordon Lee did a runner to Everton but his inability to handle the transfer market close season became frighteningly clear. He had to call upon the Scottish contacts of chairman Lord Westwood to eventually help him break through by signing John Blackley from Hibernian in the October.

 

There’s a role reversal – a manager ASKING his chairman to sign over his head!

 

But then Dinnis was effectively a Darwen schoolteacher who had divided his time between georgraphy and PE and he eventually returned to that profession.

 

The outcome of all this was catastrophic – after an opening day 3-2 win over Leeds the Magpies somehow managed to lose 10 First Division games on the spin which plummeted them to bottom spot. During that time they also lost at home to Millwall in the League Cup and were kicked out of the UEFA Cup by Bastia. Exit Dickie D, relegation inevitable.

 

Oh, there have been other sorry close seasons... Charlie Mitten, as colourful as a peacock, took United down in 1960-61 having conceded 109 goals and after a summer with little sunshine was six months later lying 18th in League Two when with his ally William KcKeag in America Stan Seymour sacked the manager.

 

Yes with Newcastle United nought is new, nothing is a major surprise, but what is happening right now is potentially as bad as anything I’ve witnessed over 53 years of reporting on United and a lifetime supporting them. It feels that bad.

 

Whether relegation automatically follows or is thankfully avoided will eventually decide it’s position in history.

 

Frightening, isn’t it?

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I know it's probably been covered somewhere amongst the rage and chaos of this forum, but, the coverage arsenal fans are getting over their fans groups letter is truly spectacular.

 

Did NUFC receive similar coverage when our fans groups released their statement?

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Guest covmag

Love the match report on today's u23 game at Hibs on .com

 

"Wearing the new kit identical to the fairs cup win except the stripes shorts and sleeves "  :lol:

 

 

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