This break for the world cup will kill their momentum, also the top clubs are being badly effected with this bloody winter world cup and players with more than half an eye on it. Think they will get top 6.
Heading to Newcastle next season, very highly rated.
Not sure if mentioned elsewhere.
Newcastle operating & football management will have observed CITY'S m o and under the guidance of Amanda will be building steadily from a solid foundation.Got to say I am impressed at the job Howe and those responsible for the running of the club are doing. I can only imagine that Everton fans are watching on in envy at a club which has an Evertonian (Howe) as manager and one which has spent sensibly in the market. Hopefully the Geordies will continue this upward trajectory and prove to all other clubs that it is possible to break the old ‘big/top four’ with sensible footballing decisions and a little bit of investment.
Ta for the long (but could have been longer!) postA while ago I said that I would write a post about our time under Ashley, here goes.
The rot at Newcastle started towards the end of Freddie Shepherd’ time as Chairman. Newcastle were poor starters to the season under Sir bobby Robson but we always did OK over the length of the season.
Our last 3 seasons under Bobby all started slow, during 2002/03 we started the season with one win, one draw and three defeats but still finished 3rd top of the league and went out of the Champions League in the second group stage.
During 2003/04 we started the season with no wins, 3 draws and 2 defeats and still finished the season in 5th top of the league and reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup.
During 2004/05 we started the season with 2 draws and 2 defeats with illness in the squad before sacking Sir Bobby and appointed the woeful Graeme Souness who was one of only two (I think) managers below Robson in the league at that time. Robson had been constantly undermined by Shepherd and Co who were massively out of their depth at that time and were going from scandal to scandal after being caught out by a News of the World sting where Shepherd and Douglas Hall were calling women dogs, taking the piss out of Shearer and taking the piss out of the fans who were buying the clubs shirts. Newcastle finished the season in 14th under Souness.
Souness was sacked during 2006/07 when he had us 15th in the league, funnily enough he was sacked after we were beaten 3-0 by Man City, we went on to finish the season in 7th position in the league under caretaker Glenn Roeder who was given the manager’s job permanently when it was clear that he wouldn’t be up to the job. Roeder was sacked during the next season and was replaced by Fat Sam, Shepherd simply couldn’t appoint the right manager, he was shite and the fans were glad when he was bought out by Ashley who was seen as a good businessman who would surely know how to run a football club.
Ashley appointed Chris Mort as Chairman and Chris started off really well and sacked Fat Sam who was horrendous, the football was absolutely shit under him, Derby got 4 of their 9 points off us under Allardyce and things were so bad that we spent 90 minutes away to Derby on a Monday night playing with a beachball because of the standard of football, we lost 0-1 and I knew Allardyce was on his was out after that.
Allardyce was sacked and Keegan came back in to manage us for a second time and everything looked OK until Mort didn’t have his contract renewed as Chairman, he was on loan from his company for 12 months at a cost of £1 million and Ashley wasn’t going to pay that again, the tight bastard. In came in Derek Llambias as MD, Tony Gimenez and Dennis bastard Wise who all undermined Keegan who rightly resigned. Keegan was given final say on all transfers and I know that for a fact and I was part of the case that Keegan brough against the club for constructive dismissal. He was shit on from a great height and from that moment onwards, Ashley and Llambias were hated with a passion. I knew Llambias and he was a proper cockney spiv. He bragged about running a casino and going out to the Middle-East and putting pressure on people who owed money through gambling debts. I used to laugh at him to his face and he probably thought that I was laughing at what he was saying, I was laughing at the though of that midget thinking he could put pressure on anybody, he bragged that he could be a ‘nasty bastard’ and I think that was little man syndrome, I doubt he could knock the skin off a rice pudding.
Anyway, Ashley’s time at the club was effectively over as soon as he treated a club legend like shite. Keegan did so much for the club both as a player and manager that he would always have our loyalty and support.
Under Ashley we went from being a club that tried to win things. I know we failed but we’d always tried to be the best that we could and that was enough for most people, even though we failed.
I don’t really want to dwell on our time under Ashley except to say that it was shite. I hear fans of other clubs say that we have no right to complain as they’ve had it worse than we have and they are probably right that being in the Premiership for most of the time is better than playing in the third and fourth tier but that’s not the point. They would have a point if we were in the Premiership and trying to be the best that we could be, even if we were failing but we weren’t.
The club existed to exist and provide Ashley with free advertising. I could count over 100 Shit Direct adverts from my seat which were rarely paid for and we got nothing for renaming the stadium. We owned land around the ground which we had bought to allow us to expand, Ashley sold the land and pocketed the money from the sale, we didn’t get anything from the sale.
We used to hear that we should thank Ashley for putting his own money into the club. The only time he had to put his own money in was when he bought the club and he also had to pay off a loan to the club which was taken out to expand the ground from 36,000 to 52,000 and again when we were relegated under him. He gave the club loans twice after relegation, which his actions caused and he got the money back as soon as we were promoted again so it cost him only the interest that he would have made if he’d invested his money somewhere.
Ashley paid in the region of £136 million to buy the club and then had to pay off a £57 million loan for the expansion so £193 million in total and sold the club for a profit of more than £100 million on top of the money he trousered from the land sale plus his company gained years of free advertising. I’m sure that the club actually had to pay for the honour of the free advertising as a negative sum was shown in the club accounts for advertising, work that one out if you can. I can’t remember what we paid for, it may have been the Shit Direct sign on the Gallowgate roof and the sign on the front of the East Stand.
Long story short, in my opinion, Ashley was a shite owner and a bastard parasite, I’m glad that he’s gone and I've just lost the will to live typing this. I could have gone into more detail but it would probably be far too long to read.
A while ago I said that I would write a post about our time under Ashley, here goes.
The rot at Newcastle started towards the end of Freddie Shepherd’ time as Chairman. Newcastle were poor starters to the season under Sir bobby Robson but we always did OK over the length of the season.
Our last 3 seasons under Bobby all started slow, during 2002/03 we started the season with one win, one draw and three defeats but still finished 3rd top of the league and went out of the Champions League in the second group stage.
During 2003/04 we started the season with no wins, 3 draws and 2 defeats and still finished the season in 5th top of the league and reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup.
During 2004/05 we started the season with 2 draws and 2 defeats with illness in the squad before sacking Sir Bobby and appointed the woeful Graeme Souness who was one of only two (I think) managers below Robson in the league at that time. Robson had been constantly undermined by Shepherd and Co who were massively out of their depth at that time and were going from scandal to scandal after being caught out by a News of the World sting where Shepherd and Douglas Hall were calling women dogs, taking the piss out of Shearer and taking the piss out of the fans who were buying the clubs shirts. Newcastle finished the season in 14th under Souness.
Souness was sacked during 2006/07 when he had us 15th in the league, funnily enough he was sacked after we were beaten 3-0 by Man City, we went on to finish the season in 7th position in the league under caretaker Glenn Roeder who was given the manager’s job permanently when it was clear that he wouldn’t be up to the job. Roeder was sacked during the next season and was replaced by Fat Sam, Shepherd simply couldn’t appoint the right manager, he was shite and the fans were glad when he was bought out by Ashley who was seen as a good businessman who would surely know how to run a football club.
Ashley appointed Chris Mort as Chairman and Chris started off really well and sacked Fat Sam who was horrendous, the football was absolutely shit under him, Derby got 4 of their 9 points off us under Allardyce and things were so bad that we spent 90 minutes away to Derby on a Monday night playing with a beachball because of the standard of football, we lost 0-1 and I knew Allardyce was on his was out after that.
Allardyce was sacked and Keegan came back in to manage us for a second time and everything looked OK until Mort didn’t have his contract renewed as Chairman, he was on loan from his company for 12 months at a cost of £1 million and Ashley wasn’t going to pay that again, the tight bastard. In came in Derek Llambias as MD, Tony Gimenez and Dennis bastard Wise who all undermined Keegan who rightly resigned. Keegan was given final say on all transfers and I know that for a fact and I was part of the case that Keegan brough against the club for constructive dismissal. He was shit on from a great height and from that moment onwards, Ashley and Llambias were hated with a passion. I knew Llambias and he was a proper cockney spiv. He bragged about running a casino and going out to the Middle-East and putting pressure on people who owed money through gambling debts. I used to laugh at him to his face and he probably thought that I was laughing at what he was saying, I was laughing at the though of that midget thinking he could put pressure on anybody, he bragged that he could be a ‘nasty bastard’ and I think that was little man syndrome, I doubt he could knock the skin off a rice pudding.
Anyway, Ashley’s time at the club was effectively over as soon as he treated a club legend like shite. Keegan did so much for the club both as a player and manager that he would always have our loyalty and support.
Under Ashley we went from being a club that tried to win things. I know we failed but we’d always tried to be the best that we could and that was enough for most people, even though we failed.
I don’t really want to dwell on our time under Ashley except to say that it was shite. I hear fans of other clubs say that we have no right to complain as they’ve had it worse than we have and they are probably right that being in the Premiership for most of the time is better than playing in the third and fourth tier but that’s not the point. They would have a point if we were in the Premiership and trying to be the best that we could be, even if we were failing but we weren’t.
The club existed to exist and provide Ashley with free advertising. I could count over 100 Shit Direct adverts from my seat which were rarely paid for and we got nothing for renaming the stadium. We owned land around the ground which we had bought to allow us to expand, Ashley sold the land and pocketed the money from the sale, we didn’t get anything from the sale.
We used to hear that we should thank Ashley for putting his own money into the club. The only time he had to put his own money in was when he bought the club and he also had to pay off a loan to the club which was taken out to expand the ground from 36,000 to 52,000 and again when we were relegated under him. He gave the club loans twice after relegation, which his actions caused and he got the money back as soon as we were promoted again so it cost him only the interest that he would have made if he’d invested his money somewhere.
Ashley paid in the region of £136 million to buy the club and then had to pay off a £57 million loan for the expansion so £193 million in total and sold the club for a profit of more than £100 million on top of the money he trousered from the land sale plus his company gained years of free advertising. I’m sure that the club actually had to pay for the honour of the free advertising as a negative sum was shown in the club accounts for advertising, work that one out if you can. I can’t remember what we paid for, it may have been the Shit Direct sign on the Gallowgate roof and the sign on the front of the East Stand.
Long story short, in my opinion, Ashley was a shite owner and a bastard parasite, I’m glad that he’s gone and I've just lost the will to live typing this. I could have gone into more detail but it would probably be far too long to read.