I'm not entirely sure what you want the geordies to apologise for?
we had an owner who was that hated he would only turn up at the club to watch his team once in a blue moon (excuse the pun) and then accompanied by a minder the size of a gable end of a house. he'd smirk in open contemp at the supporters of the club, the people of a city he was quite happy to stamp all over the heritage of. he treated club legends like keegan and shearer like shite, likewise a decent man in chris hughton. he treated jonas gutierrez like shite when he had testicular cancer. he ladened the club with debt to himself for his own fucks up in getting us relegated twice by employing a lunatic in joe kinnear (twice) and steve mcclaren, who was by then well down the road of failure.
he employed lee charnley as managing director, a former tea boy who pinned the reserve team sheets up in the changing rooms. other than that, he had two of his mates apparently NOT employed by the club, but never a fucking way from it, keith bishop a second rate pr guru in crisis management for 'c' list nobodies who would bizarrely sit in on pre match conferences and justin barnes an 'abrasive lawyer' who he had a history of falling out with, who somehow, despite having had no previous experience in football, was involved in transfer negotiations, which were usually none.
I'm genuinely not picking a fight with you here mate, on the contrary, I can appreciate your resentment towards the hateful eight. I already resent a couple of clubs who (allegedly) apparently lobbied the premier league very vocally to block newcastle's takeover because it threatened their position at the top table. I'm sure we would've heard more on this at our own CAT case had it ran its course.
but there's no way me as a geordie has any intention of apologising for anything a fat, narcissistic **** like mike ashley has done. or the fucking useless, sycophantic dross he surrounded himself with. :)
Fascinating stuff, Ashley was clearly everything they say he is and more, but fascinating as it might be, it's totally irrelevant to this discussion. Ashley didn't sign that letter coz he was an arsehole owner of Newcastle United, he signed it, just like Arsenal, Burnley, Chelsea, Leicester, Liverpool, Man Utd, Spurs and Wolves signed it, coz we were a threat to the existing order and they wanted us sent down for a "crime" we didn't commit. A crime they knew we hadn't committed, the same non-crime, perchance, that you happen to be committing now.
What crime you might ask?
Two really.
You've gone from dividend driven no-hoper, to forward looking inward investor, wiling to put off oodles of money now, for the greater riches growth through long term investment can bring. That's a slap in the face to the American cash cow model. Fortunately for the status quo you're hampered by FFP in a way we weren't in our early days, but only to the extent that it might take you longer to get where you want to be.
And two, the nature of bloodline crony capitalism in the Middle East means that soon you'll be swimming in Saudi sponsorship from companies owned by second cousins, brothers, dads and their uncle Ahmed. There's nothing particularly more wrong with that than most crony capitalism, except it ain't your "normal" western crony capitalism and it looks rigged in your favour coz it is.
So where does that leave us? Your fan base and our fan base? Precisely nowhere.
On the surface it looks like we have common cause, but we don't. There isn't even unanimity within our own fan base as to how to deal with all this shit, so agreement between our two sets of supporters is unlikely. Besides fans are not a homogeneous group, getting them to act as one is like herding cats, unless you're a cult like Liverpool. Getting two fan bases to agree is a complete non starter.
I shouldn't be disappointed by the way your fans, at least on social media, have dealt with your present circumstance, but unreasonably I am. And as for poor old Eddie Howe, he clearly has no clue, but I guess you'll all find your own way.
Notwithstanding, the ownership of our respective clubs don't have that much in common. Despite what our detractors might say, bearded Arab fellas don't have common cause based on their facial hair and ethnicity.
As for an apology from Newcastle fans for your club being a signatory to the letter of shame, you're right, you have no responsibility for the actions of your ownership, you were not complicit, and until recently the media were on 100% on your side in that regard, always singing the praises of the bare chested, put upon Toon Army.
All the pundits, sports media, everyone, went out of their way to present a clear dividing line between everyone's second favourite club, those lovable Geordies filling St. James' every week to watch dross in all weathers, and the greedy grasping ownership of Mike Ashley, whose actions were solely responsible for bleeding your once "great" club dry, a man, who through his wider actions, continues to bleed his workers dry in his tat shops and warehouses to this very day.
Ain't it funny that the same mainstream media holds you complicit for the wider actions of your ownership now?
