The Board etc. etc.

[Taylor Swift]

Here's my brief take to get things started again..

Our aim: win trophies

Result: no trophies in the last 30 odd years

Conclusion: FAILURE

 

The board over the last 30 years : FAILURE

Yes, NE5, that includes Fat Fred as well. It also includes SJH because we never won a fucking trophy with him! Yes, he helped the club and brought it back but we still have won shite!! We don't have a divine right to win, I know. But that should always be our aim... And since we didn't achieve it, we failed (or 'they' did).

[Guest The Fox]

A friend of mine sent me the following:

For the record Premiership league positions under Keegan/Sir John Hall:

3rd, 6th, 2nd, 2nd.

13th in the season Keegan left.

 

Under Shepherd/Managers

13th, 11th,11th, 4th, 3rd, 5th, 14th, 7th.

 

Keegan left in 97.

 

Shepherd responsible for appointing:

Gullit, Robson, Souness and Roeder. Involvement in appointing Dalglish.

 

How do you go from finishing 2nd two years running to 13th,11th, 11th.

Certainly there was a recovery under Robson that was not maintained.

 

I said I would ask the experts.

[Guest JPFIN]

Its the same arguments for each side all over again. This has been going on

for at least six months now. HTL and NE5, why you give a **** if some people

wont change their opinions about this matter? You go on like crusaders ffs.

 

I think way too much effort is put in this. For once it would be nice to hear HTL' and NE5's opinions

on some other stuff on the board. Now its limited to this, and the odd

Luque is crap comments. I'm sure you'd both have a lot more to contribute. :roll:

[Guest The Fox]

Its the same arguments for each side all over again. This has been going on

for at least six months now. HTL and NE5, why you give a **** if some people

wont change their opinions about this matter? You go on like crusaders ffs.

 

I think way too much effort is put in this. For once it would be nice to hear your opinions

on some other stuff on the board. Now its limited to this, and the odd

Luque is crap comments. I'm sure you'd have a lot more to contribute. :roll:

 

What are you on about. I was sent the email and I put it on the board for sensible comment, obviously beyond you. Nobody forces you to post a reply.

As for opinions to other stuff on the board, you obviously have difficulty reading as I have posted on most topics.

I would also ask you to quote where I said the words Luque is crap.

Do you actually put your glasses on before you read the board.

You go on like an idiot FFS.

[Guest JPFIN]

Its the same arguments for each side all over again. This has been going on

for at least six months now. HTL and NE5, why you give a **** if some people

wont change their opinions about this matter? You go on like crusaders ffs.

 

I think way too much effort is put in this. For once it would be nice to hear your opinions

on some other stuff on the board. Now its limited to this, and the odd

Luque is crap comments. I'm sure you'd have a lot more to contribute. :roll:

 

What are you on about. I was sent the email and I put it on the board for sensible comment, obviously beyond you. Nobody forces you to post a reply.

As for opinions to other stuff on the board, you obviously have difficulty reading as I have posted on most topics.

I would also ask you to quote where I said the words Luque is crap.

Do you actually put your glasses on before you read the board.

You go on like an idiot FFS.

 

Sorry mate, the post above was not directed at you at all. I guess its a bit

unclear so i'll edit it a bit. My bad.

[Guest Gemmill]

JPfin, it was perfectly clear who your post was directed at.  I would suggest it's The Fox that needs to "put his glasses on" before coming on here in future.  Or at least read what someone's written before throwing a misguided hissy fit.  tongue.gif

[Guest The Fox]

Just read it very quickly and assumed it was directed at me and not at Gemmill.

Apologies to JPfin.

Gemmill, Foxes dont wear glasses mate.

[Guest Gemmill]

It wasn't directed at me either, you blind old giffer.

[macbeth]

Unless you're claiming it is just an opinion of mine that players such as McDermott, Kennedy, Beardsley, Waddle and Gazza all left the club because the Board didn't have the same level of ambition to succeed as those individuals did? Are you really saying you have an interest in the history of the club and that this information is just an opinion?

 

 

Now you're doing it too, I thought it was only NE5 !!

 

A fact is something like "Newcastle won the FA Cup in 1932". An opinion would be something like (as NE5 puts it ) "Luque is crap".

 

It is easy to see which is which.

 

Now stating that those players left the club because "all left the club because the Board didn't have the same level of ambition to succeed as those individuals did" is not a fact, it is an opinion. It is a subjective view taken from reading what others have said. It may well be an opinion repeated hundreds and thousands of times which may well make it look like a fact, but it really is just an opinion.

I do believe most of those players did leave because they saw more chances of winning things elsewhere, but it is only an opinion I have on the matter, it is not a fact. If I met them all and asked them all personally why they left and heard them say it was so, then I'd have an even stronger belief in my opinion.

 

 

 

When we see a double figure number of players leaving the club during the tenure of a certain Board, all reported as slagging the club off for a lack of ambition, I take that as pretty solid information. I know why you don't, however.

 

I do say that I believe it too, (in bold above) cos I do think it it why many of them left. I understand why you ignore that comment of mine, however.  :winking:

 

You obviously believe in coincidence and also in fairies. There were too many similar reports in the media, made by too many different players over that particular time period for it not to be fact. Your tactic of deflection is pretty weak, trying to turn the discussion away from the point to one of discussing the difference between a fact and an opinion is a bit of a refuge, mate.

 

No, it just highlights that the things we often quote as facts are just other peoples opinions repeated many times. For example anyone reading only NE5 comments on here would genuinely belive that it was a fact that Newcastle were the "5th best side in the Premiership over the last decade". If he was our only source of information and he has repeated it so many times that it is now a fact in his eyes. That it is based on a dubious statistical analysis is ignored completely. Similarly if another poster had posted continuously that we have an average position of 8th or 9th, or whatever it is, also views that repeated bit of info as an opposing fact.

I have no time for the board form the 70s or 80s, and you will find nowhere where I have supported them. I may well have pointed out that they occasionally did something postive, but that doesn't mean I backed them. I have also pointed out that the fhinancing of the ground development in 1999 was superbly done, or that we had the 2nd best wages policy in the Premiership up to 2003. That doesn't mean that I support everything the current board has done.

 

As I've just said to the biscuit man, in conclusion, if people want to discuss only things that are proven to be from the inside of the club then the forum may as well close down. We can discuss nothing. 

I agree absolutely. My 'problem' comes from when I was creating my web site. It was easy to create, anyone can make a web-site. I had access to the financial figures published by the club so that was easy too. The huge problem was trying to take opinion out of it. I was contacted by a guy who said I didn't recognise how much the current board had put in, how they had saved the club, how the current board were great in everything they did. There was also a veiled threat at the end of the email, suggesting if I wasn't careful my site would be closed down. I replied to the guy saying I was more than happy to publish anything he had which gave the board's position as long as it was factual, and not just hearsay. He never replied. (I had tens of emails from people who accused the board of financial misdemeanours but not of them could be backed up either, so weren't published).

I know you think there are still opinions in the site but it took ages to get it refined to the stage it is now.

What the exercise did for me was teach me how to recognise what was fact and what was opinion. The site has no quotes from people, so nothing from Freddie or Douglas that I could have used to make cheap shots at. I received so many emails from people suggesting the Boumsong deal was corrupt that it must be true. No one had any facts though, it was just repeated wisdom, or repeated urban myth.

I will always be boring and fall back to the clubs published financial position as that is a stated fact, most other things are opinion, and should always be recognised as such .

 

 

Not that any of us have any way of knowing if somebody here is or was involved in some capacity with the club. Macca was though. Perhaps he might shed some light on the thoughts of people such as Irving Nattrass, who left for the nappy rippers to 'win the league'. 

Did you not read the Mag interview with Nattrass ? It nearly made me cry. He so regretted leaving. He was my hero, the only challenger to Woodgate as a great defender in black and white. (Opinion !!)

 

I suppose the straight question for you is do you think today's Board is performing better than all Board's of the club before 1992 going back to at least the end of the War? Here's where you'll immediately start thinking about finances.

 

I have no idea how the clubs finances were then. I can see the current ones, so it is unfair to compare.

 

Well here's a tip. Look at the league tables, because the league performance is the overall measure. Look at the players who departed and those who arrived and where they arrived from, because that shows you the quality that wanted to leave and the level of ambition we had for improving the team with the players we brought in. Look at the attendances, because that shows you how the people of Newcastle viewed the ambitions of the club to succeed.

 

Yes that's a convincing argument I suppose.  :winking: But that logic makes Murray a great chairman for sunderland too.

My concern is financial. At the end of the McKeag regime we were close to bankruptcy. Unfortunately at the time we had no means of seeing the books to know that was how it was. Now we do. Now we have the opportunity to see how the custodians of the club are doing, to highlight how things are. You seem to have fallen for NE5's view that 'ambition' is the key factor in a board, and that spending bucketloads of borrowed money shows ambition. I want to pass my team on to my son, if the current board's borrowing policy which gets sold to us as 'ambition' is allowed to continue then he won't have that opportunity.

There are many ways to view the financial mess the club is in. The key one for me is the dividend policy. £35m has been given away by the club in dividends, and share buybacks. We are now borrowing money  to pay for that giveaway. We now have no money for our current manager to spend because of that giveaway.

I have no doubt that the Halls and Shepherds are Newcastle supporters, but their prime concern is their own bank balances, not being supporters. They view it as being preferable for them to have had that £35m and the club to currently have a £17m overdraft. I cannot accept, and never will, that that can be viewed as being the right sort of attitude to have. The future of the club matters to me more than their personal wealth.

 

Since 1991 we have had better league positions and played in Europe more than ever in my life. I am a person who reads everything about the club, is a boring statto on past players. I do know where we have been, and where we are in comparison. I still shake my head in disbelief at our ground and that it is full. Having the sense of history means I am always nervous of returning to how it was. In the 5 seasons since 2000 and the ground extension I have seen no progress on the previous five years. We have had an advantage due to our ground size, and we seem not have used it while we had it. I believe that the current board has lost its way, and that their current policies are threatening the future, while making the present seem exciting with the occasional expensive signing financed on borrowed money.

 

[macbeth]

A friend of mine sent me the following:

For the record Premiership league positions under Keegan/Sir John Hall:

3rd, 6th, 2nd, 2nd.  was 3rd, 6th, 2nd Keeegan left at Xmas time with us top 6

13th in the season Keegan left. - a season out

Dalglish took over in January and we finshed 2nd at the end of that season then 13th the next then ...

 

Under Shepherd/Managers

13th, 11th,11th, 4th, 3rd, 5th, 14th, 7th.

 

Keegan left in 97.

 

Shepherd responsible for appointing:

Gullit, Robson, Souness and Roeder. Involvement in appointing Dalglish.

 

How do you go from finishing 2nd two years running to 13th,11th, 11th.

 

Initially Dalglish wanted to create his own side to win the league. He demolished the Keegan side he inherited and brought in his won players. This churn meant we dropped to 13th. He was then replaced by Gullit who also wanted to build his own side and we maintained the middle table mediocrity. Robson had no money as the previous pair had spent it all. He had to build his side slowly.

 

Certainly there was a recovery under Robson that was not maintained.

His replalcement wanted to build his own side and again there was huge churn and loss of some good players. His successor will have no money to spend so could either struggle, or may just be forced to build a side slowly.

 

 

I said I would ask the experts.

League positions are facts, reasons why are opinions !

[Guest Knightrider]

Exactly Macbeth - it's an opinion that previous board's didn't back their managers nowhere near as much as today's board - according to some. Yet the facts suggest otherwise, that previous board's did back their managers and in some cases more so than today and overall, just as much.

[Guest The Fox]

You've only got to look at the players Keegan brought in and compare them to todays squad.

Players you would travel miles to see, top quality.

IMO Hardly one exciting top quality player in the current squad (Duff may be the exception).

 

[Guest Knightrider]

Today's ambition is misguided. We don't sign players to win trophies, to win league titles like we did under SJH and KK, we sign players to put bums on seats, to draw the fanfare of the media and to blind the sheep, and you have to say, it works a treat every time.

[Howaythelads]

Here's my brief take to get things started again..

Our aim: win trophies

Result: no trophies in the last 30 odd years

Conclusion: FAILURE

 

The board over the last 30 years : FAILURE

Yes, NE5, that includes Fat Fred as well. It also includes SJH because we never won a fucking trophy with him! Yes, he helped the club and brought it back but we still have won shite!! We don't have a divine right to win, I know. But that should always be our aim... And since we didn't achieve it, we failed (or 'they' did).

 

In fact we did win a trophy when SJH was here. Your book must be the same as grass's.

[Howaythelads]

Its the same arguments for each side all over again. This has been going on

for at least six months now. HTL and NE5, why you give a **** if some people

wont change their opinions about this matter? You go on like crusaders ffs.

 

I think way too much effort is put in this. For once it would be nice to hear HTL' and NE5's opinions

on some other stuff on the board. Now its limited to this, and the odd

Luque is crap comments. I'm sure you'd both have a lot more to contribute. :roll:

 

Err aye.

 

Q. Why aren't you directing your question to the people who claim the Board is crap? I've never yet started the subject off, it's always in reply to someone else making a false claim.

[Howaythelads]

Unless you're claiming it is just an opinion of mine that players such as McDermott, Kennedy, Beardsley, Waddle and Gazza all left the club because the Board didn't have the same level of ambition to succeed as those individuals did? Are you really saying you have an interest in the history of the club and that this information is just an opinion?

 

 

Now you're doing it too, I thought it was only NE5 !!

 

A fact is something like "Newcastle won the FA Cup in 1932". An opinion would be something like (as NE5 puts it ) "Luque is crap".

 

It is easy to see which is which.

 

Now stating that those players left the club because "all left the club because the Board didn't have the same level of ambition to succeed as those individuals did" is not a fact, it is an opinion. It is a subjective view taken from reading what others have said. It may well be an opinion repeated hundreds and thousands of times which may well make it look like a fact, but it really is just an opinion.

I do believe most of those players did leave because they saw more chances of winning things elsewhere, but it is only an opinion I have on the matter, it is not a fact. If I met them all and asked them all personally why they left and heard them say it was so, then I'd have an even stronger belief in my opinion.

 

 

 

When we see a double figure number of players leaving the club during the tenure of a certain Board, all reported as slagging the club off for a lack of ambition, I take that as pretty solid information. I know why you don't, however.

 

I do say that I believe it too, (in bold above) cos I do think it it why many of them left. I understand why you ignore that comment of mine, however.  :winking:

 

You obviously believe in coincidence and also in fairies. There were too many similar reports in the media, made by too many different players over that particular time period for it not to be fact. Your tactic of deflection is pretty weak, trying to turn the discussion away from the point to one of discussing the difference between a fact and an opinion is a bit of a refuge, mate.

 

No, it just highlights that the things we often quote as facts are just other peoples opinions repeated many times. For example anyone reading only NE5 comments on here would genuinely belive that it was a fact that Newcastle were the "5th best side in the Premiership over the last decade". If he was our only source of information and he has repeated it so many times that it is now a fact in his eyes. That it is based on a dubious statistical analysis is ignored completely. Similarly if another poster had posted continuously that we have an average position of 8th or 9th, or whatever it is, also views that repeated bit of info as an opposing fact.

I have no time for the board form the 70s or 80s, and you will find nowhere where I have supported them. I may well have pointed out that they occasionally did something postive, but that doesn't mean I backed them. I have also pointed out that the fhinancing of the ground development in 1999 was superbly done, or that we had the 2nd best wages policy in the Premiership up to 2003. That doesn't mean that I support everything the current board has done.

 

As I've just said to the biscuit man, in conclusion, if people want to discuss only things that are proven to be from the inside of the club then the forum may as well close down. We can discuss nothing. 

I agree absolutely. My 'problem' comes from when I was creating my web site. It was easy to create, anyone can make a web-site. I had access to the financial figures published by the club so that was easy too. The huge problem was trying to take opinion out of it. I was contacted by a guy who said I didn't recognise how much the current board had put in, how they had saved the club, how the current board were great in everything they did. There was also a veiled threat at the end of the email, suggesting if I wasn't careful my site would be closed down. I replied to the guy saying I was more than happy to publish anything he had which gave the board's position as long as it was factual, and not just hearsay. He never replied. (I had tens of emails from people who accused the board of financial misdemeanours but not of them could be backed up either, so weren't published).

I know you think there are still opinions in the site but it took ages to get it refined to the stage it is now.

What the exercise did for me was teach me how to recognise what was fact and what was opinion. The site has no quotes from people, so nothing from Freddie or Douglas that I could have used to make cheap shots at. I received so many emails from people suggesting the Boumsong deal was corrupt that it must be true. No one had any facts though, it was just repeated wisdom, or repeated urban myth.

I will always be boring and fall back to the clubs published financial position as that is a stated fact, most other things are opinion, and should always be recognised as such .

 

 

Not that any of us have any way of knowing if somebody here is or was involved in some capacity with the club. Macca was though. Perhaps he might shed some light on the thoughts of people such as Irving Nattrass, who left for the nappy rippers to 'win the league'. 

Did you not read the Mag interview with Nattrass ? It nearly made me cry. He so regretted leaving. He was my hero, the only challenger to Woodgate as a great defender in black and white. (Opinion !!)

 

I suppose the straight question for you is do you think today's Board is performing better than all Board's of the club before 1992 going back to at least the end of the War? Here's where you'll immediately start thinking about finances.

 

I have no idea how the clubs finances were then. I can see the current ones, so it is unfair to compare.

 

Well here's a tip. Look at the league tables, because the league performance is the overall measure. Look at the players who departed and those who arrived and where they arrived from, because that shows you the quality that wanted to leave and the level of ambition we had for improving the team with the players we brought in. Look at the attendances, because that shows you how the people of Newcastle viewed the ambitions of the club to succeed.

 

Yes that's a convincing argument I suppose.  :winking: But that logic makes Murray a great chairman for sunderland too.

My concern is financial. At the end of the McKeag regime we were close to bankruptcy. Unfortunately at the time we had no means of seeing the books to know that was how it was. Now we do. Now we have the opportunity to see how the custodians of the club are doing, to highlight how things are. You seem to have fallen for NE5's view that 'ambition' is the key factor in a board, and that spending bucketloads of borrowed money shows ambition. I want to pass my team on to my son, if the current board's borrowing policy which gets sold to us as 'ambition' is allowed to continue then he won't have that opportunity.

There are many ways to view the financial mess the club is in. The key one for me is the dividend policy. £35m has been given away by the club in dividends, and share buybacks. We are now borrowing money  to pay for that giveaway. We now have no money for our current manager to spend because of that giveaway.

I have no doubt that the Halls and Shepherds are Newcastle supporters, but their prime concern is their own bank balances, not being supporters. They view it as being preferable for them to have had that £35m and the club to currently have a £17m overdraft. I cannot accept, and never will, that that can be viewed as being the right sort of attitude to have. The future of the club matters to me more than their personal wealth.

 

Since 1991 we have had better league positions and played in Europe more than ever in my life. I am a person who reads everything about the club, is a boring statto on past players. I do know where we have been, and where we are in comparison. I still shake my head in disbelief at our ground and that it is full. Having the sense of history means I am always nervous of returning to how it was. In the 5 seasons since 2000 and the ground extension I have seen no progress on the previous five years. We have had an advantage due to our ground size, and we seem not have used it while we had it. I believe that the current board has lost its way, and that their current policies are threatening the future, while making the present seem exciting with the occasional expensive signing financed on borrowed money.

 

 

A few points.

 

I've never examined your website, mate. I couldn't really care less whether you put opinions or facts on there, just do what you claim and that's good enough, isn't it?

 

My description does not make Bob Murray look like a top Chairman. Makes him look pretty shite in fact.

 

Taking as a fact that many, many players left the club while firing the shot of 'lack of ambition' at the club is not the same as one person repeating ONE thing over and over, eg that Newcastle are 5th best over the last decade, or Newcastle are 8th or 9th best or whatever someone said.  What I'm on about is a lot of different people making the same claim about the club over a period of time, results, performances and transfers supporting that accusation to the hilt. 

 

An open question to anybody....

How would you feel if after we were promoted and finished 3rd, that instead of signing players as we did our top 3 players all demanded transfers and left claiming the club has no ambition? Those players then subsequently being replaced by older and inferior players? Would you believe the board to be unambitious and so slag them off for being shit? Just your opinion will do.

[Guest JPFIN]

Its the same arguments for each side all over again. This has been going on

for at least six months now. HTL and NE5, why you give a **** if some people

wont change their opinions about this matter? You go on like crusaders ffs.

 

I think way too much effort is put in this. For once it would be nice to hear HTL' and NE5's opinions

on some other stuff on the board. Now its limited to this, and the odd

Luque is crap comments. I'm sure you'd both have a lot more to contribute. :roll:

 

Err aye.

 

Q. Why aren't you directing your question to the people who claim the Board is crap? I've never yet started the subject off, it's always in reply to someone else making a false claim.

 

Well, you're right, it should be also directed to HTT, Mick, Macbeth et al, but at least for them this is just a small part of what they write, whereas for you and NE5 this seems to be all you ever write about.

 

I'm not trying to tell you what to write and what not to write. Suit yourself. Just my observation for what its worth. bluecool.gif

[macbeth]

An open question to anybody....

How would you feel if after we were promoted and finished 3rd, that instead of signing players as we did our top 3 players all demanded transfers and left claiming the club has no ambition? Those players then subsequently being replaced by older and inferior players? Would you believe the board to be unambitious and so slag them off for being shit? Just your opinion will do.

 

I'd be horrified.

 

But I was horrified at us selling two Young Players of the Year too. The PR spin was better at the club with both Bellamy and Jenas so that we viewed it as being justifiable.

 

At teh time I was also horrified at the sale of Robbie Elliot

[Guest Knightrider]

In my time supporting the club we've sold all of the following:

 

Clark

Elliott

Watson

 

(3 Geordies with potential at the time)

 

Big Dunc

Speed

Cole

Sir Les

Tino

Ginola

Woodgate

Bellamy (former PFA young player of the year)

Robert

Jenas (former PFA young player of the year)

Viana (former European young player of the year)

 

Compared to Waddle, Beardsley and Gazza, that's a lot of players, top players.

 

Conclusion? Clubs sell players, to balance the books, to ship out unhappy players, players get tapped up, players prove too hot to handle, life is a cycle.

 

Get over it, move on.

 

[Mick]

The sales of Gazza and Beardsley brought in British transfer records, it's a long time since we did that.

[Wullie]

The sales of Gazza and Beardsley brought in British transfer records, it's a long time since we did that.

 

Andy Cole.

[Guest Knightrider]

The sales of Gazza and Beardsley brought in British transfer records, it's a long time since we did that.

 

From the Chelsea's of their day too... It would be interesting to see whether for example we could keep a hold of N'Zogbia if Arsenal or Chelsea were to show an interest. I doubt it. We couldn't keep a hold of Woodgate when Real come knocking, although in hindsight that was a great deal.

 

Anyway, IIRC neither Gazza nor Beardsley wanted out, or handed a transfer request in, Gazza didn't even know he was leaving until it was all done, his agent took him away from us and we nor he could turn down the money, he even says in his book had he stayed maybe fortunes would have been different for him and NUFC. Not exactly sure what happened to Beardsley, I think with him once Liverpool showed up there was no going back, trophies on a plate, but it's not as if he courted a move or handed in a transfer request. Again, I'd like to see us keep a hold of N'Zogbia if Arsenal or Chelsea came in for him.

 

Waddle, not so sure, never liked him anyway, always thought him to be a bit of a snide and people who've met him say he's a false Geordie, i.e. when it suits him, bit like Steve Bruce.

 

I bet those slagging the old board for selling Gazza et al weren't slagging them when we signed KK, the equivalent of an 8m signing today, and we were a second division club back then. How many 1st Division sides signed the then England Captain? He turned down Man Utd for us and we paid him mega wages at the time. Is that not ambition?

[Mick]

The sales of Gazza and Beardsley brought in British transfer records, it's a long time since we did that.

 

Andy Cole.

 

Yes I know, it was a while ago like I said.

 

We would sell any of our current players if we were offered a British record.

 

Would that make us a selling club?

 

What defines a selling club?

[Wullie]

The sales of Gazza and Beardsley brought in British transfer records, it's a long time since we did that.

 

Andy Cole.

 

Yes I know, it was a while ago like I said.

 

We would sell any of our current players if we were offered a British record.

 

Would that make us a selling club?

 

What defines a selling club?

 

It'll take more than £30m to prize Amady Faye away, make no mistake.

[Guest Knightrider]

A selling club for me is a club that has a history of being a feeder clubs for others throughout their existence, West Ham, Ipswich etc. We on the otherhand have always been big players in the transfer market, from Jock Peddie to Michael Owen, we have always splashed out and have over the years broken many records and will continue always to do so long as their are fans willing to pay good money to follow their club.