Rayvin

Ah. Some night time reading then

I've honestly not seen that much push back from other fans, at least on their forums. A decent number even seem to think we deserve some success after a long period in the wilderness. Mackems and journalists, yes, hate. The guardian will loathe us forever. Everyone else? Not that arsed.

I'm up for giving Wykiki a shot tbf

A very good friend of mine is a Derby fan. After years of listening to me go on about Ashley, he's now petrified. I suppose at least he'll get them promoted. They'll have a year or two of pretending to be a real football club before endless 15-17th finishes in the PL - guess they should enjoy that while it lasts.

China maybe? Hard to imagine it really since buying football clubs as a sportswashing thing is a bit smalltime for a nation state. But they're the only ones I could imagine being remotely possible.

Have another go at reading that post Almost feels like you read the first sentence and then stopped..

Any flag that is not the Union Jack, is an anti-British flag. Apparently. I suspect the actual issue is that the Saudi flag includes some text about Islam on it, and if you're in Sunderland then "Islamic" = "Anti-British".

Aye me too, but I really think this club could be so much more than that. If we're going to do anything, even if it only amounts to glorious failure, I'd like it to have a touch of the 90s to it.

Keegan going back would be the stuff of dreams. Not as a manager or DoF, but as a way of joining pre-Ashley with post-Ashley. It'd be a huge moment to rally everyone around the club and really underline how, whatever happens from here, this isn't going to be the soulless march to success that City and PSG have embarked on.

I suspect this will pass once the press get their fill of it, which might only actually be a few days. Guardian aside, I've actually seen hardly any fans even of other clubs kicking off about this. No one seems bothered. And maybe that is an indictment of our society but then it's not the fans fault we ended up here as everyone keeps saying.

Yep, that's hard to look at. Then again, the Times is owned by Murdoch who, as i recall supported the Iraq war. 460,000 deaths followed that. It's very sad that our society permits this, but on the other hand, this is the society we choose to have. If there's blood on our hands, there's blood on everyone's. I vote against this shit every time I get the chance. Does Murdoch? Does he fuck.

Oh I think that might have been something along the lines of widespread relief and elation, Alex Whoppers.

Might pick up this year's edition of football manager and have a go at the January spending plan myself

That is completely true. And they'll hate every word of it.

Have a similar memory of a city fan coming in here and complaining that we beat them in the cup one year. See, most clubs have these raging knackers who I assume go from forum to forum making total arses of themselves by calling out other fans. We have The Fish who goes from forum to forum talking us down, managing expectations and telling them not to overestimate us. It's the uniqueness of the community that makes it special

I recall a TdanSmith who was around for a while but I thought he was an NUFC fan tbh. Maybe though. EDIT - suspect this is a reference that might pre-date my time on here now Been here for nearly 10 fucking years and still not up to speed with all the references. Gonna add for the memory of that Spurs fan as well... this may be full on wet dream stuff now, but I also vaguely recall that the loss to us cost them their CL spot that year which they lost to Arsenal...? It's like it was an omen for what's about to come, where we cost them CL spots in future. Except they'll lose them to us directly. And it'll be funnier.

Anyone recall around the start of the Rafa era, we had some numpty from Spurs come in here and give it the big 'un about how smalltime we were and how fucking amazing spurs were. I don't think I'm remembering this wrong but I'm pretty sure we went on to beat them 5-0 or something and he never returned. That guy has defined Spurs for me in every conceivable way, since that moment. I wonder how he's handling this

So there's quite a few of our lot falling on their swords in the guardian comment sections, 'can't support the club' etc, being roundly applauded by fans of other clubs who observe that they'd do the same thing if it were their club. This got me thinking a bit about where culpability ends here, in particular with respect of this 'damage to the brand' line. I would have thought that, with this being such a huge issue that transcends football etc etc, any other fan of any other club should be morally obligated to abandon the sport in protest. I mean if they pay their money to watch their team against us, they're as complicit in legitimising the regime as we are, no? Especially given that all of their clubs have just lined up to essentially point this out. The brand is being "damaged" by legitimising Saudi Arabia - therefore all principled fans should walk away from the entire sport. Maybe I'm clutching at straws here though.

Doesn't Saudi own the Independent at least to a degree? Miguel Delaney actively taking blood money, nothing to see there. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jul/23/evening-standard-and-independent-unable-to-rebut-concerns-over-saudi-ownership

What is it that they expect to achieve I wonder? Maybe it's entirely as they've said and they're outraged that they weren't involved in the decision making process this time around? Tbf they did appear to have a veto last time so this very much will be a slap in the face. They can't cancel it and bitching about it like toddlers isn't going to get them anything though, so it is a bit bemusing.

Pleasingly it seems its an impotent gesture anyway. What it will do however, is further convince the mackems that everyone will hate us and start loving them..!

"It is an absolute outrage that Newcastle have been permitted to become competitive, and the very idea that in this day and age there should be some modicum of challenge to the big 6 clubs strikes at the very heart of what football is all about - wealth and glory for an established elite!! Err, I mean, think of the brand!" "Moreover, the fact that we weren't given time to subvert the deal somehow really is a shocking dereliction of duty by the PL..!"

I think it's fair to say this is what the PL was running from.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/oct/08/angry-premier-league-clubs-demand-emergency-meeting-on-newcastle-deal All other clubs united against the deal

Honestly I think this is probably the end of the local rivalry in any real sense. I mean who on our side is even going to care anymore. They're nothing to us now.