Howaythetoon

Exactly Papa. I honestly think he'd be a cracking signing. I remember match of the day a while back analysing him, showing his runs etc., perfectly demonstrated just why he'll always score goals because his movement is first-class. His finishing can be a bit off and he's not the chase down anything that moves type like Bellamy but he's a real finisher and in the air, for his size he has a great leap on him. I rate him quite highly.

Papa, a few weeks back, they were touting him for 3m. Can't remember the team but Robson even commented on it. He has Ellington, Horsefield has just signed a new 2 year deal, kanu, Campbell and someone else who I can't name. If we offered 2m for him tomorrow, we could get him. But he ain't a big enough name and the fans would probably go mental.

Well we were meant to be talking to him and his advisers today. I wouldn't read too much into it even if it was true.

I can only imagine you mean Robert Earnshaw?? You serious??? 18759[/snapback] And why not? 2m he would be a great signing. I don't get the snobbery of some fans me. I bet half those who sneer at the likes of Earnshaw haven't even seen him play or would cream themselves if we were linked with some Serie C Italian Under-21 international. He's very quick, very good in the air, 22 so can improve, has a goals to games ratio as good as anyone, now at all levels of the game bar Europe (club level) and the Conference. Every step he has had to make, he's adapated. So he has poor control and isn't the best at leading the line. You would be hard pressed to find a natuarl goalscorer with lightning pace at 2m who has proved he can make it in the Premiership. The reason he's not wanted at WBA is because Robson doesn't like the small, pacey striker, he likes his target men, big powerful forwards. They paid 2.5m but after a number of games and goals it rises to 3.5. They'd take 2m and he'd crawl to Newcastle on broken glass. He's score more goals than Bellamy did. I'd be delighted if we announced his signing tomorrow even for 3m.

Yep, two million and he'd be ours too. Scored 14 goals last season, would be a better option than both Shola and Shearer (as much as it pains me to say Al).

Too late, you Souness sympathiser you.

I voted the fat man. Under his control I just can't see newcastle ever fulfiling our true potential. We may win a Cup, we may finish 4th or even 2nd and may have one or two tasty European nights whether it be in the UEFA Cup or the Champions League but our 'success' would be short lived and it would soon all crash down around us due to mismanagement and lack of investment in the right areas at the right times. Basically, as far as I'm concerned now, finishing 14th is no different to finishing 5th - it's still massive failure for a club of our size, expectations and resources. We need change right at the top before we can see a sustained change out on the pitch in my opinion.

You can only have one to go, who would you choose if you could, out of Shepherd or Souness, to go? If you could fell that axe, who's head would it land on? Souness Vs Shepherd Souness or Shepherd? Just trying to get people's opinions on who they think is the most damaging individual at the club.

My nephew's just joined a local football side, and we were talking about Newcastle the other day. One of his mates, must only be 10 or 11 or something said he hopes we get a tanning off Bolton and Man Utd. I said why and the response was that it would speed up Souness' departure. I was quite shocked like. Bairns wanting the club to lose. I asked my nephew for his opinion and he said the same. Lucky he didn't get a clip for his cheek. Is that how bad things are though? Are we now wanting the lads to lose? I don't, I could never ever wish the team to fail, regardless. I might contemplate it prior to the match but once that whistle goes, no way. It hurts too much, feels dirty and stomach churning. That's just me though. I know some hope we get beaten and I can understand where they are coming from because a defeat here and there has often worked in our favour. 1999, St. James' Park, a certain 2-1 scoreline? Enter Sir Bobby and 5 pretty decent seasons, certainly the penultimate 2. Anyhow, so who wants us to get beat on Sunday, then? This isn't one of those "I'm a bigger fan than you are" bollocks thread so please don't let it descend into that, I'm sure everyone deep down has the club's best interests at heart regardless. Each to their own and all that. I'm just interested in people's thoughts on this because the more I speak to people, it would seem many would forego a few Toon wins if it brought change. A question for the older generation, Ugly Mackems, Leazes Mag, Rob W et al perhaps, have fans in the past, in the dark old days, wished for the Toon to lose a game or two like some are doing now?

At the match on Sunday, what will be your reaction to a goal against, a defeat, a poor performance, a lack of efforty, a lack of heart? Will you let your feelings be known? Who will you direct your anger towards (if any)? The players? Those who played poorly? The manager? The Chairman? The Referee? Fellow fans? Everything and everyone? I think we'd all love to be cheering at the final whistle but even the most optimistic of us, which I am one, will be fearing the worst at St. James' Park so it could get ugly. Will this be the day where we all say enough is enough? Spookily I'm listening to "Won't be fooled again" by The Who as I write. Aye reet!

It's a game. They want him but don't want to pay anything above what they sold him for, a loan deal will be a better option for them. We know this so we offer Real Madrid a record fee and this then forces them to say to Liverpool; "NUFC will give us this, you must match or beat it". It also forces them to say; "Whay would we loan him to you Rafa, NUFC will give us cash" Liverpool have said OK, we wait. They now hope we go away and spend our money on someone else with the takes away Madrid's 'NUFC will give us this, you must match or beat it'. If we do that, Madrid either loan Owen to them or accept LFC's 7-8m bid. Liverpool are in the driving seat because: A: Owen wants to go to them B: They can take or leave Owen, they are not slashing their wrists at the lack of strikers in their ranks like we are. C: Owen would be prepared to take a wage cut and would take hours to say yes to Liverppol, a deal could be struck hours before the deadline closes. Madrid just want his wages off the books and their money back. Obviosuly they want our money because we are crazy enough to give them 15m plus, despite the player having an initial value of 10-11m. Liverpool will be prepared to go all the way until a few hours before the deadline closes to get their man because they know it would only take a few ours to get the signature of a player who would walk back to Anfield if he could. Are we prepared to go all the way til deadline day with no guarantees that he will join becuase that's what we will have to do? Do you as a fan, want us to sit it out and roll the dice a few more times for Owen? I bloody well don't. I say tell Owen and Real to fuck off, get on the blower to Fenerbache and to Deportivo, and spend 20m on Luque and Anelka. Or spend 20m on a left-back, Boa Morte and one of Anelka or Luque.

So you actuallt think we'll buy Owen and some more players as well? We must have tons of money. ....... If we have all this money, why didn't we buy Anelka and Boa Morte? I'd rather have those two than just Owen on his todd. 18533[/snapback] And I'd rather have Beckham, Ronaldo, Ronaldinho (spelling???), Rooney (little twat), Mourinho as manager and a 14inch diddler but it aint gonna happen. 18539[/snapback] And neither is Owen. But that wasn't my point. My point is, if we have all this money, then why didn't we pay the extra few million to sign Anelka and Boa Morte? Yet we are prepared to give Real Madrid a massive profit on a player who has told us he does not want to join us. Tell a lie, he does, but only on loan. In which case then why the fuck did we make a record bid for him? If we weren't prepared to be taken for mugs with Anelka and Boa Morte, then why are we prepared to be taken for mugs with Owen? More questions than answers with this one. Instead of wasting time and money on a player who doesn't want to join, we should give Fenerbache the 10m they want for Anelka and give Fulham the 6m they want for Boa Morte. If we offered that, those two players would sign. But no, the idiots running our club don't think like that. And why should they with the sheep mentality around. Owen, England centre-forward, record bid, just like signing Shearer. Unlike then, we don't have Ginola on the left, Sir Les and Beardsley in attack with Gillespie and Asprilla in reserve. This club has had 8 months to sign the players we need. 6 days before the transfer window closes we offer a record bid for a player who said he would only join on loan. You couldn't make it up. Crazy!

So you actuallt think we'll buy Owen and some more players as well? We must have tons of money. And I'd swap the word pessimistic for the word "realist". I'm probably more optimistic about this season than most on here but for me, I'd prefer 3 players in 3 positions than putting all our eggs in one basket on a player who doesn't even want to join us, a player who could cost upwards of 25m in a transfer fee and wages. A player with a history of hamstring problems, a player who having lost a yard of pace needs service as much as the next man. A player who cares more about playing for England than club football. A player who if we did sign with no-one else coming in, we would still struggle regardless. Especially if Owen picked up an injury. But I'm not questioning the target of a world-class goalscorer here, no, I'm questioning the club's decision making here and their lack of planning and foresight. If we have all this money, why didn't we buy Anelka and Boa Morte? I'd rather have those two than just Owen on his todd.

Chayton wouldn't have a chance, he'd break his ankles on those high heels of his, though the handbag could do some damage.

Thank fuck for that. Maybe that money set aside for a player who doesn't want to join us can now be spent on the three players we do need. Maybe then our team and squad will take shape and give us the platform to kick on. If Owen was to be our only signing, we'd still be screwed because he needs service too and he needs more than a past it 35-year old to play alongiside. Many seem to have forgotten, Owen isn't the player he once was, he can't create chances out of nothing like he used to do, he needs service just as much as Shearer. And if he ever got an injury... Massive gamble from Newcastle and systematic of the sheer lack of foresight or planning that infests our club from top to bottom. We should have bought a player of Owen's goalscoring ability when we finished 3rd, or last season. Not a few days before the transfer window shuts and not for 25m in transfer fee and wages either, especially when their are other holes needing filled in a squad that has been neglected and decimated. They must think we're stupid. Oh wait...

Aye quite a lot has happened behind the scenes that not a lot of people will be aware of, now do you really want to open that can of worms up again because I am quite certain, I will not come out of this looking any worse or anything like that, unlike your goodself. I suggest you follow Alex's advice or if not, actually speak to me via PM face to face like a man, like I did when I sent you that PM, instead of whinging like a tart on here, like you are doing now and have done since day one. Stop being a fanny for once and get over it whatever you have the hump with. I have nothing to hide or be ashamed of either so stop insinuating that I do. If anyone wants a copy of the PM I sent Chayton, PM me and I'll pass it on.

Cheers lads, some top notch posts there, good to read about those days from someone who wasn't even born back then so top stuff. It would appear the history books have painted Lee in a worse picture than they should do then which is a shame because that's where people like me who didn't experience those days, get a feel for those days from. Interesting about Supermac's injury, didn't he retire not long after leaving Newcastle?

Not one bit. It was either merge or no Howaythetoon or Toon-Chat for either of us. HTT was a great forum but the site was shite and now, as Newcastle-Online it is much better, forum and site. I wouldn't swap SMF (the forum software), the Gallery, the new site, the writers, the mods, for the old HTT site. That had problems too, far more than what we're having now. When I started that, I was off-line for a few months and couldn't even access the damn thing because they cut the phone off, I spent and lost thousands on that site overall. The problems suffered with that were all personal, today it's all technical server, software or programming problems. That's the nature of the web though. If you work with the web, you'll have those problems. We would have had them on HTT. In fact we did, it went down a few times. Plus all the hacks, all the changes. Nah, it was a nightmare that site. Well shot of it. The forum, the community, I was sad to see that go and of course it would be good to have that back but you can't look back, you have to move on and that's what we've done or are trying to do.

Howay, it's always down Nah, it's not so much down, it's broke or gone. http://www.newcastle-online.com/nufcforum/ Just a white blank screen.

There is no divide. But there is or was antagonism and a few bad words said and a few things I dare say you known naff all about which have caused a lot of this so you really aren't in a position to say anything, unless you're a mind reader. But that's water under the Tyne now. I've had my say and others have had theirs and I respect Jimbo's wish to move on. So no divide, no people Vs people. No forum Vs forum. Any problems that do exist, exist between certain individuals and not directed towards any forum or members of that forum, both forums - and that's it. In future I suspect, or hope, that people can deal with problems via PM or e-mail and if people do have something to say, they'll be man enough and good enough for the benefit of both boards who I'm sure couldn't give a stuff one way or another, to say those things to people's face and not behind their back. And I do hope you yourself Shearer Gol, refrain from commenting on issues that have nothing to do with you or issues that you don't know the full story behind - it just makes you look like a shit stirrer when you aren't really one. Anyway, it's all sorted now, hopefuly once and for all and we can now move on. I apologise to anyone for my behaviour last night, especially to the likes of Peasepud, Jimbo, Alreetlike and Scottish Mag - people who I really respect. People can carry on posting screenshots of any PHP Errors or whatever on here, that I do not mind. But the bitching, the petty, bitter, malacious two-facedness - has to stop. Because we have tried to move on, after the original truce. We hold no ill feeling towards this board or anyone who runs it, not even the individual who I think is an arsehole and told that individual as much so. I don't know anyone on here in real life and as a rule I don't judge people by their internet persona and I and I'm sure anyone connected with wor site, wish this one all the best. We haven't once even mentioned this site or anyone connected with it on our board since that truce, never even gave it a second thought until recently. Ask yourself why. We've moved on, now you's need to move on. For the boards' sake and those that use them.

We don't really know Sammy. One minute we were all on it, posting and reading away and the it just went crazy, people couldn't view posts or read their own replys, all the profiles went mad. I initially thought it was being hacked or we had been hacked as I remember from the Nufc.nu days when that got hacked that it just went crazy but what happened tonight, I've never encountered before. Anyway we posted some stuff on the support forum and Phil seemed to be getting some answers then it all went blank. He did say some stuff about PHP and that but it all goes over my head so he'll look at it in the morning and we'll see what damage has or hasn't been done. I'm fearing a reinstall and a loss of threads but fingers crossed. The Gallery also went down which indicates it could be a PHP problem as the Gallery is also written in PHP 4 or something. Been a right piss on this programming lark. That's why there are tons of "coming soon" pages on the new site. We spent months on a brilliant CMS and had to dump it and find a new one because we couldn't figure it out. We had lots of problems with the board too. Instead of using a standard theme I rewrote the lot as it's all HTML and CSS. Then we had trouble with the prediction league (which is still knacked) and the gallery which is fine now and works like a dream. The site was a doddle to do in comparison. Anyone into programming, I don't envy you. You can keep it.

Gordon Lee, Keegan and Bobby Robson are the only managers at NUFC to finish in the top 5 in nearly 50 years mate. 13440[/snapback] LM, you'll be able to help me and I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this. Speaking to a few mates who were around in those days, it seems opinion is or was split on Lee. There are those who hate him and those who rated him. I know you rate him but general wise, was Lee initially hated amongst the fans? Were the fans behind him from the off or was it a gradual thing, once they seen the side take shape and the results started coming in? The reason I ask is could history repeat itself with Souness? If you look through our history, there are uncanny parallels betwen almost all of our managers. For Ruud Gullit read Doug Livingstone. Both fell out with the No.9 Geordie heroes. Doug fell out with Wor jackie and never recovered, despite winning the FA Cup (in which he dropped Wor Jackie only to have his decision undermined by the board, and he didn't last much longer. Gullit as we know fell out with Shearer and never recovered. For KK read Sir Bobby. Both seen as the saviour, both enjoying such incredible highs and taking the club to new heights, and both were treat disgracefuly in the end and pretty much forced out. For Ozzie, read Dinnis, just too soft, too nice. A pushover. Lee sells Supermac and other stars. Souness sells Bellamy and other stars. Neither were liked (or so it seems). Being a bit of a history buff it seems this club has two dimensions to it that side by side are almost identicle as touched on. I was astounded to learn about Dougie Livingstone, swap the names and it could have been Gullit and Shearer. In fact it was. Quite spooky in a way. For Hughie Gallacher read Sir Les. Both sold behind their back, both treat like pieces of meat by the club. Both No.9s and loved by the fans. For Andy Cole, read Jack Smith, nobody knew why they were sold other than the manager. They both scored goals, were at the top of their game, and puff, sold out of the blue. Both sold to Manchester United too for record fees. Could, in your opinion, Souness do a Lee and turn things around? Maybe finish 6th or win a Cup? I know, that neither should be deemed as success for a club of our size and resources but for Souness, it would be a success given the current playing field if you like. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this, and other fans who were around in Lee's day.

Or maybe Souness is just worried about more of wor lot being tapped up while on international duty and he'd have a good reason to given the number of players that have been tapped up while supposedly on duty for their Country. Wayne Rooney and Gerrard were both tapped up while on international duty over in Portugal 2004. Happens all the time, you just have to read books about the game at that level from former pros and managers. Brazilians get capped just to add a few quid to their value. There was an article in World Soccer a year or so back where Pele was calling on the FCB to clamp down on handing out caps like confetti because it was destroying the Brazilian game. Players weren't working hard to get a cap like they once had to. That's pretty much the same with England. Look at Zat Knight. I'm sure Sven gets bungs to pick certain players, maybe to add value to their price tag or to give agents better bartering power. "But Mr. Chairman, he's an England International now" International football, it's overrated. The Champions League is more exciting than the World Cup and of a much higher standard. The only great team in the world is Brazil, the rest, every top club side would beat them.

This is a joke this! No, seriously, I am joking this time Sorry.

To whoever changed my badge thing.