Makom

Better to get it right first time, or at least do the best job that could have been done with the information and resources available (which I maintain wasn't this). When you already know you're fighting apathy, when you already know how infrequently you will get a national audience, then you really shouldn't be approaching this as if you have all that many practice runs available. I've just read on the match thread, posters were actually being given to people entering the ground. What's that about? The poster had on it a message 'strength in unity' - 52,000 empty seats etc. You would never in a million years get such a mixed message in a half way decent strategy meeting. This is what you get if you knock something together in two weeks, in the hope you're going to get another chance to get it right. It remains to be seen, all things being equal, if another boycott would have more success. I can't see why it would be. But I couldn't agree more on Carragher/message media angle, as I've already yesterday.

Read the proposal. It's noting like that.

If this was South America, Ashley would at this very minute be tied to a chair a locked room on a trading estate stripped to his Y-Fronts with matches under his toe nails, with a contract for sale being placed in his left hand and a pen in his right.

Who has a time-verified picture of the Gallowgate? Because I don't trust that picture based on what I've seen from time-verified pictures of the rest of the ground.

Renton, fair play to you for saying why you went. It makes absolutely no sense to me though, on several levels.

There's facts, and then there's interpretation of facts. You're engaged in the latter. The longer people keep deluding themselves with notions that go against the facts in the hope that their desires will eventually become a reality, the less likely it is that a successful strategy will emerge from the AshelyOut bunker. The facts in this case are quite clear: A boycott that doesn't empty a stadium, or at least produce one that is visibly empty on TV to the casual observer, is a failure if the stated aim was to show an empty stadium on TV as a result of a call for unity and strength. Media attention is nice, but it is usually fleeting in terms of a 'conversation', and it certainly has no effect on Ashley (I never understood the N-O logic which says that because Ashley felt threatened by prior protests, and thus, as it appears, gave up on us as a hobby and went into full business mode, that this was somehow a success). And there was media attention before the boycott in the national media, that was already hitting all the key messages AshleyOut is trying to push (as I had pointed out on N-O). And there will be after. Media attention of the sort the boycott produced is only really going to be useful to the campaign if they have something to say as a call to arms or other specific message to pass on (like stay the fuck out of the stadium for every game until he's gone) - they're eventually going to just get bored with saying 'NUFC fans are unhappy, but there's fuck all that can be done about it because Ashley doesn't give a rat's ass'. As Niall Quinn said, it's not like AshleyOut is pointing to an owner waiting in the wings or any other viable alternative. This is why all my proposed campaign ideas provided clear messages that the media could be used to carry to a specified target audience (the fans not yet on board, or sponsors, or the FA, or a prospective owner, etc). An example - obviously one goal of this boycott should have been to highlight the extraordinary step it is for NUFC fans not to enter the stadium precisely because we are normally extraordinarily loyal. Yet this message was only briefly touched upon by Niaill, and only really because he's already knowledgeable about us. From what I can see, there was no appreciation of the value of that specific message by anyone in the campaign - it could have been included on the tatty A4 sheets - therefore it wasn't really picked up by the coverage, and therefore isn't really going to be appreciated by people who read the headline figure - "boycott success! Just 30,000 fans turn up to the game".

'tracksuit manager' a.k.a manager of tracksuits

Hey Fish, don't compare me to the knackers who went to the game. I supported the boycott by....not going to the game. Is that not the primary purpose of a boycott? And it's not clear to me how anything else I've done could have possibly contributed to its failure. Care to elaborate? All I did was tell people a few things about how it should go if it was to succeed, and why it would probably not succeed if they weren't done, and I was largely proven right. I'll freely admit I underestimated the media friendly reaction, which is a small positive to outweigh the huge negative of a stadium which on TV at least, came across as largely full.

LOL. A thesaurus is your friend SMB. wimpstar alarmiststar babystar caitiffstar chickenstar cravenstar curstar dastardstar deserterstar funkstar invertebratestar jellyfishstar malingererstar mousestar pessimiststar poltroonstar quitterstar rabbitstar recreantstar shirkerstar skulkerstar sneakstar weaklingstar yellowstar chicken heartstar chicken liverstar faint-of-heartstar faintheartstar fraidy-catstar gutlessstar lily liverstar scaredy catstar shirkstar white liverstar

He lives in my neck of the woods actually. Or at least he used to a year ago, not sure if the pay increase he got for becoming manager means he can afford a nice place up the road near all the players. I'm not ashamed to say if I ever bumped into him I'd probably be as nice as pie - no need to give the man grief in his personal life. I've seen him once, but that was only from a distance and he was leaving the place. He was still a coach then, so was still pretty under the radar (or about as under it as you can get living in the city and being connected to the club). It's actually been quite annoying this manager business - it's daft but since he is technically 'one of me' I really wish I could go back to the blissful ignorance of thinking he was clued up about football and had the good fortune to get a job at his home club, but just had the misfortune of having an idiot for a manager/owner.

The difference between you and I is that when I make an error, it doesn't effect the overall point I was making, and I own up to it. Reading back I notice I did get the score wrong, but that was obviously a simple mistake - however it doesn't quite fit your narrative that the reason I got it wrong was because I rushed here before the end of the match. Your loose relationship with the facts is designed solely to paint a picture to discredit the person who disagrees with you. It's the same with your claim I never supported a boycott and don't want the campaign to succeed. Yet I doubt I will hear a peep out of you on that here (unless it's to simply repeat the lie). Scale up that self-delusion, and you have N-O. Are you a member? I can't view, but I'd imagine right about now they're in full flow, blaming the failure of the boycott on the media, or the Chronicle, or making up some other reason that doesn't fit the facts. If there is anyone like me on there now saying the things I did before the boycott, or pointing out for example that the media, including the Chronicle, gave this boycott the maximum exposure and hitting all the key messages of the campaign, beyond what it evidently deserved, no doubt they are being ripped to shreds and abused as a "mackem troll".

The question is more correctly posed as follows: If the fans sued Mike Ashley for the injury caused by his reign, how much damages would the High Court deem he owed the club and the city? Then, if he paid that amount, sold the club, then spent the next month in Fenwicks window living in a pig sty fed only on pig swill, and was then frog-marched to the nearest TV station to announce to the nation he's leaving Newcastle forever, and begged for forgiveness after reading out a prepared statement detailing every bastard thing he's done wrong..... Then would you say, I forgive you Mike, go in peace and live your life I'm on the fence really. I think I'd still tell him to fuck off.

You know what I meant.

Any minute now he's going to stop telling people what his job is, and start actually bloody doing it. Fucking idiot is delusional - says he's 100% sure everyone who defies the boycott will be behind the team - cue 90 minutes of silence, with booing at half time and full time. Of course he's got the job, he's Pardew 2.0.

And we can count ourselves lucky that they didn't highlight too much the disconnect (Niall Quinn buzzword bingo!) between what was visible in the stands, and the strategy of showing a united and strong front. They were actually quite good to us - spending a lot of time talking about the things we are upset at, and largely getting the messages right, without pointing out how many in the ground apparently didn't care enough about it to not turn up. Indeed, was Quinn perhaps even taking the piss talking about how it must be really serious if NUFC fans aren't turning up to a game, against a backdrop of a crowd of people behind him sitting in their seats enjoying a half-time pie?

What direction? Impact was minimal. It showed the media that we are not happy with Ashley, but not so unhappy that we would unite in a show of strength. And the media weren't exactly unaware that we are unhappy. They duly trailed the protest, complete with all the polls suggesting it would get wide support, which of course has now backfired spectacularly. To their credit, and I include even the Chron, they put all the messages out there about how this was not intended as a fickle post-derby reaction, that it was a serious protest against the transfer policy and lack of interest in the cups. It even benefited from the timing of the financial news - which the media combined to give the strong message that Ashley is just sitting on pots of cash and not spending it. The media did their part, it's the fans who have royally failed to capitalise on that opportunity by showing that they don't are enough about any of those things to actually stay away from one single game. I predicted all of that on N-O, and got crucified. And the Sunderland idea is only one of 5, which I freely admitted was pretty insane. I only suggested it because it's so dramatic, so extreme, that it wouldn't fail to get widespread coverage. As the boycott showed - the only ideas likely to succeed are the ones which only require a small amount of highly motivated fans to do something, to acheive the goal. I would freely admit here I'd join that group if it went ahead, but of course some wag here would only suggest I'd be there anyway sitting in my usual seat.

Most empty seats in the upper tier, which of course is not shown on TV except the odd shot of the away section. It needed to be less than 35,000 to make any real visible impact for anyone watching on TV, especially those viewers not particularly paying attention to the world of NUFC and deliberately looking for gaps. I said that on N-O. Got mullered for it. Stupid mackem that I am. I also said that if a boycott was to be successful, it shouldn't be just one game, and it shouldn't really be announced with very little notice (although it got more than enough coverage) or at a time in the season when fans who don't go could be labelled as putting the club in danger of relegation. Does the twitter feed say anything about future boycotts? Did the A4 posters? No, because it clearly wasn't even considered as a strategy. The plan was to get the boycott noticed on Sky. It largely failed, unless you count TV pictures of pretty full stands alongside A4 posters calling for a show of strength and unity. Post-match, Niall Quinn departed from his up to then quite balanced view (balanced seemed to be his buzzword of the day), to sign off with the sentiment that maybe fans should leave off the protests for the next few games until we are safe. Which is of course exactly the wrong thing to be doing, but it yet again feeds into the myth that boycotting fans are somehow disloyal or harming the club. This is a total canard, but it's also something which the A4 posters did nothing to educate the fans or the media about

"your own", obviously

So, here's the thing. If not supporting the boycott me a Mackem (which is our own invented propaganda - I supported one, just one that was well organised and had a chance of success), then what does that make the 40? 45? thousand in the ground today?

Not possible. It was mentioned this past week multiple times in the Crhron, the BBC local news, the BBC football website, a bunch of national newspapers, Talksport (and surprisingly not even in a trollish way) and I believe even on MOTD/Focus, but I can't be certain on that. It got loads of coverage both on its own, and alongside the Blackpool mess, and of course because of the financials being posted too.

What happened to my 'why did they go' thread? Isn't anyone here interested in why anyone would actually go into the stadium today, if they weren't going to either support the team or make any audible protest against Ashley? Because it's confusing the hell out of me.

Actually, the cowards didn't specify any reason. I just assumed that because many of the posters were abusing me for being a Mackem (including one little cock-nozzle who would actually have to leave his little village in North Tyneside and get a bus into the City of Newcastle if he wanted to say that to my face), they must have just caved into the peer pressure.

The precise figure doesn't matter. The entire purpose was to send a visible message - and quite clearly if you have to actually look quite hard at the stands to see how many empty seats there are, it cannot in any way be considered a success. I've seen bigger gaps for League Cup games to be honest.

And what makes you a cunt is that I didn't want it to fail. Go onto N-O and check what I actually said about the subject of boycotts, and how a successful one should be attempted And yes, I want this campaign to fail so much, I posted a comprehensive list of campaign ideas that would actually work.

This is what boils my piss. I knew the boycott wouldn't work, but I had assumed that was because people actually wanted to support the team and so would rather enter the stadium than be 'disployal'. What I absolute cannot get my head around, is that all they appear to have done for 90 minutes, is sit on their hands and say fuck all. There was no cheering, or indeed any atmosphere at all, bar 17 mins of course - for most of the game you could hear the Spurs fans crystal clear. There wasn't even any audible protest against Ashley. All there was, was some pathetically meek booing at the end of half time. It's almost like people are going to the match to feel miserable, and to simply await the inevitable first goal, which will be scored against us. There wasn't even really any perceptible change in atmosphere when we equalised. So, if you know one of these people, ask them why they went, and post it here. The only person I know who went basically said not going wouldn't help the team, but I'm not sure what 90 minutes of silence does either, really.