Toonpack

Unlikely, if they don't get CH/League, Arry's been told "sell to buy". Not saying he wont end up there but Bale could well be off.

C&P from NO No real gossip from the Nolan talk in, other than he really, really doesn't like Dowie. Quick summarY; Worst trainer: Ranger - Nolan has offered to stay behind with him at training and work on finishing etc. Nile always says no. Best trainer: Coloccini - Nolan adores him. Shearer: Had too many preconceived ideas, biggest mistake was brining in Dowie. Dowie: Was "just a crap manager" - did a funny as f*** impression of him. None of the squad knew what Dowie was saying most of the time. Leyton Orient meeting: Everybody knows about this now, was led by Nolan & Smith. Those who they wanted rid of, Smith/Nolan etc used their own agents to shift them out to speed things up. Who Nolan would sign if he was manager: Connor Whickham & Matt Jarvis - expects there to be 4-6 new players in the summer. 5-1: Best day of his life (except his kids being born) Allardyce: Still friends with him, feels big Sam was a little bit unlucky with the timing of coming up here (new owner, some people i nthe dressing room) Pardew or Hughton: Pardew because he is better equipped to take us forward Carroll: Carroll didn't want to go. Nolan only did piece for Liverpool TV because it was a mate of his who works there. The Chicken dance (the quack): His mate dances like that...acknowledged that chickens don't quack. Newcastle: Loves the place to bits, in the middle of negotiating a new contract to stay here longer. Asked Gary Speed's advice before joining. Speed predicted our relegation at the time. Rivals: Wants Blackpool, WBA and Wigan to go down. Blackpool & WBA to show well we've done and Wigan as obviously a rival from the Bolton days. Liverpool: Would never sign for them as he loves it here too much. Doesn't consider himself a Liverpool fan anymore. Barton: A lot of little jokes about Barton being the best midfielder in the world. "He's a nutter, but a good nutter." Nowt else of note really, probably forgot some stuff but I think that's the bulk of it.

Hoping to go later in the year (September time) my Chicago mate is a "high roller" so we'll get a king-suite,limo from airport etc. all gratis from the Casino (Sams Town) he frequents, wanted to go for years but the Mrs has never fancied it !! This years our 30th Wedding anniversary though so she's weakening, going to arrange to renew our vows with "Elvis" if the trip comes off BTW when I say high roller, he's not minted by any stretch, it's just he's gone to Vegas twice a year for donkeys years taking around a $2000 stake every time, in that time he's turned over several million dollars, usually comes home skint (although he came back with $17,000 superbowl weekend!!) but it's the turnover that counts evidently. Be interested to hear how you find the tiredness effect of the direct flight, I dunno whether to go there first then up to Chicago/Wisconsin (to visit family) or other way round and come back home from Vegas.

Player with 1 year left on his deal, be nice to cover all the bases (for a change) would be a good buy as back up to enrique. more than likely his replacement though, don't you reckon? Probably, have thought that for months tbh. Reckon he'll go abroad though.

Player with 1 year left on his deal, be nice to cover all the bases (for a change)

That may be true in US law, but in the UK, you sue for what you believe you should be awarded and you have to be able to justify that amount. I had to do it once (breach of contract) with QC's etc involved, not for a Keeganesque sum but it was for 6 figures. I had to justify the claim to my brief and my QC had to defend/represent it in court. I won an all, twats liquidated about 6 months thereafter and I ended up with about 20% of what I should have got in the end though

Presumably because neither party had been recording the previous discussions/debates/ arguments? "Although we heard a considerable amount of evidence as to events which took place in the months which followed Mr Keegan’s appointment, in view of our conclusions, we can proceed at once to the events which culminated in Mr Keegan’s resignation on 4 September 2008” What do you think these conclusions were and how did they arrive at them? There conclusions were that everything prior to Gonzalez was irrelevant. i.e. there was no valid reason for Keegan to leave. They do actually go back to mention Keegan was aware that Wise would be appointed as DoF before he took on the job, but say this has no bearing on who has final say. You appear to have read the document, but have no understanding of the fact the whole thing is centred around Gonzalez. Did you read the unedited PDF or a summary on a blog - such as nufc.com? http://www.premierleague.com/staticFiles/c...6~147392,00.pdf I read the pdf, and I'm not unfamiliar with legal speak. The Gonzalez transfer was the knockout blow to the head, but to assume this means there weren’t a number of body shots is simplistic and unrealistic. Actually to say anything other than it was all about Gonzalez is a lie. Which is why I pointed out someone quoting the Keegan camps fabrication as the tribunal as wholey incorrect. Please reread the introduction, its in plain English - no legal speak. "In these proceedings, Kevin Keegan claims damages for what he says was his constructive dismissal by Newcastle United Football Club Ltd (the Club) in early September 2008. He contends that when he was appointed as the Manager of the Club on 16 January 2008 (until 30 June 2011) it was a term of his Contract or otherwise agreed that he would have the final say as to transfers of players into the Club (“the final say”). He says that on 31 August 2008, the Club breached that term by signing a Uruguayan player, Ignacio Gonzalez, expressly against his wishes, that this breach amounted to a repudiation of his Contract and that he was therefore entitled to resign which he did on 4 September 2008." The club wasn't on a vendetta or smear campaign as the Keegan camp alluded to. Wake up and smell the coffee. Keegan didn't like working with Wise and wanted out, almost every person on this board have decisions at work they don't like. Which is fine, Keegan can walk if he doesn't like how things are being run, but to sue us for 25 million using a loop hole is shameful and pathetic. And the stupid people who misquote the Keegan camp need it pointing out it was all about Gonzalez. There'll be some intense comeback on that one !! That said, if you think about it, you would put your strongest "gripe" into the case and if indeed as it appears that's Gonzales it's pretty much like winning on a technicality. Gonna read that PDF methinks. and Gloom, I'll come back to your "hate" list when I have time.

Laughable i think your defence of ashley is laughable. in fact, i'm wondering whether you really are a toon fan or a WUM given i've never met a single supporter that shares your view. we've got the shittest billionaire ever to run a football club. Bold bit. You could be right, but my whole opinion is based on the premis that, thank God we have a billionaire, thick/shit or not. It's sad really, to be honest the real majority "hate" for Ashley stems not from his percieved "lack of ambition" (which we'll see for real this summer, or not) it's all because he fucked off "the Messiah" and if people where honest with themsleves, they'd admit it. (I don't include LM in that BTW, he's in firmly the "lack of ambition/trust" camp and is too grown up for the worship). The fact he has had to "cut the cloth" (or has chosen to) is just another stick to beat him with because "he upset Kevin". The reality is he's ploughed a HUGE amount of his own money in, yet it's still not enough Thats bollocks or at least it is in my case. I hate him because in almost everything he does I can see the motive, the selling of players at the last minute to avoid buying replacements. The renaming of the club to SD as a "favour" to showcase the NUFC brand. The lies and the requirement for our chairman to spout on about how the great Mike has saved us time and time again. The dragging of our club down to his tacky level, chairman running naked over the pitch for a bet. More importantly though, I hate him and his cronies for turning us into the laughing stock of the premiership, if not the country. Without someone of his ilk (wealth) we were screwed. Laughing stock?, for Kinnear I suppose, we've been there before (worse IMO), with fake Sheiks. Boycoutts and the Cockney Mafia stuff was far more cringeworthy on a national basis IMO. He's not good by any stretch, but he's not as bad as painted (as yet) and despite his empire of evil, if he'd chucked in another £20 mill in a year all would have been forgiven !!!

Laughable i think your defence of ashley is laughable. in fact, i'm wondering whether you really are a toon fan or a WUM given i've never met a single supporter that shares your view. we've got the shittest billionaire ever to run a football club. Bold bit. You could be right, but my whole opinion is based on the premis that, thank God we have a billionaire, thick/shit or not. It's sad really, to be honest the real majority "hate" for Ashley stems not from his percieved "lack of ambition" (which we'll see for real this summer, or not) it's all because he fucked off "the Messiah" and if people where honest with themsleves, they'd admit it. (I don't include LM in that BTW, he's in firmly the "lack of ambition/trust" camp and is too grown up for the worship). The fact he has had to "cut the cloth" (or has chosen to) is just another stick to beat him with because "he upset Kevin". The reality is he's ploughed a HUGE amount of his own money in, yet it's still not enough I've been on here since June 2006, and I can safely say that is in the 5 wankest most clueless posts I've seen in my time here. You should stick to writing racist posts about muslims mate. The Keegan thing is just one, in a absolute Pandora's Box of decisions some of which are so bad, are almost based on contempt. Even the L7 thing has majorly pissed me off, and we ALL know the reasons why he's done it. You are clueless mate, I wish you didn't post here. When do I do that ??? Why would that be ?? Oh because he gets abuse, well I'd do the same, in fact if I was him, I'd have pissed off long ago and written it off as a bad job. The Keegan "thing" was the start and everything has been a "conspiracy of evil" ever since, it's pathetic man. No-one thinks he's wonderfull, least of all me, BUT I can at least understand what's been going on.

Laughable i think your defence of ashley is laughable. in fact, i'm wondering whether you really are a toon fan or a WUM given i've never met a single supporter that shares your view. we've got the shittest billionaire ever to run a football club. Bold bit. You could be right, but my whole opinion is based on the premis that, thank God we have a billionaire, thick/shit or not. It's sad really, to be honest the real majority "hate" for Ashley stems not from his percieved "lack of ambition" (which we'll see for real this summer, or not) it's all because he fucked off "the Messiah" and if people where honest with themsleves, they'd admit it. (I don't include LM in that BTW, he's in firmly the "lack of ambition/trust" camp and is too grown up for the worship). The fact he has had to "cut the cloth" (or has chosen to) is just another stick to beat him with because "he upset Kevin". The reality is he's ploughed a HUGE amount of his own money in, yet it's still not enough

Laughable

I agree, it'd have only been about £200-220 Mill ish I don't view the money he paid to purchase the club as "putting it into the club". I'm not going to thank him for buying it in the first place, that was his own decision. Anything he's paid over to fund the club's losses, that's what he's "put in" imo. Which I imagine is quite a lot of money, so well done him. However I don't know what he expected - I'd have thought most clubs lose money in an accounting sense. Which would have been obvious if he'd done his research or due diligence instead of buying the toon on a whim, as seems to be the case. I suppose it depends whether you view football clubs as business investments. I don't really, I think they're more like public institutions. The economics of football clubs seem to be completely fucked anyway. I don't give a shit about the balance sheet, I just want to see the team progress on the pitch and I don't understand why fans act like financial controllers at times. As long as we're not going into liquidation, I find debating what we can and can't afford to spend quite tedious actually. I can fully understand why Ashley won't put his hand in his pocket to fund losses and buy players, but then I wonder why he owns the club at all. If I bought a stately home, and let it fall into disrepair because I couldn't fund repairs from visitors receipts, would anyone be sympathetic to me? If Ashley doesn't like it, he should sell up for a realistic price and accept he made a bad investment. imo. Quite like the stately home analogy, I would expand it thus: You’ve bought your stately home, and being an idiot, and in a hurry, you didn’t have a survey done as you had the ready cash to get it for an apparently, good price, it being on of the biggest stately homes in the country, it got lots of visitors and seemed like a great way to massage your ego and possibly make some money, besides you love visiting stately homes and always secretly wanted one for yourself to play with. Once you became owner and started to look around you found it had dry rot and woodworm and you had no choice but to get that fixed if you didn’t want it to fall down and you’d lose all the money you’d put into it. So you embarked on the costly work needed to sort that out. The main attraction at the home was the art collection that came with it, to help fund the restoration work you traded some of the artwork, that hacked off the head art director and he left, sadly a good proportion of your regular visitors and art critics loved the old bloke and from that moment on you were despised by a good portion of your “customers”. You compounded that by appointing a succession of new art directors who basically just weren’t up to the job and your popularity continued to plummet, as did the popularity of your home, to the point where it dropped from the “A” list of Stately Homes to the “B” list. Despite that you ploughed on with the restoration (which has cost you more than necessary because of your mistakes). But you’ve managed to get the home back onto the “A” list. On top of that the restoration is finished and the home is looking like turning a profit year on year so you can close your wallet. As an added bonus one of the artworks in the collection became very sought after and you sold it for a huge sum, there’s another one that people are after as well. You are now at the point where you have a decision to make, the house is self sufficient and you have a surplus of cash, what do you do?? There’s two possible routes to take, firstly you could just leave the house ticking over and try and recoup some of the money you’ve put in to a point where the house is saleable again. Secondly you could spend all the surplus cash on new artwork (and its maintenance) to try and improve the house’s status. Sadly the since you entered the Stately Home game, the Royal Family have opened the doors of their castles to the public and it’s unlikely you can compete with them, so the best you can hope for in reality is a steady growth and maybe you may get more visitors than Balmoral (like that Jewish stately home just did). Unfortunately overtaking Buck Palace or Windsor Castle is not on. Although, there are some new EEC rules on stately homes which may help. At the end of this visitor season you will show, without doubt, which way you are going to go. and whatever happened to those who built up the "stately home" when its foundations were crumbling, nobody came to visit anymore, local business didn't want to invest in it, and the bulldozers were ready to move in ? They were despised for wasting money on the reconstruction of the building, and all those valuable art paintings that they filled it with which attracted massive increases in the clicking of the turnstiles and commercial exposure every time it opened ? We agreed not to do this anymore It wasn't that badly crumbling, as some state, when they took it over. They were lauded for the stately home's extension work and some of its artwork (past more than present), sadly they'd taken out a 110% mortgage and the property market collapsed.

Very well summarised and simply put, it sums everything up nicely. Anyone that disagrees with HMHM's sentence is a mug, and I would say it to their faces. agreed. i'm shocked by some of phil and toonpack's comments. i honestly didn't think there were any nufc fans out there that didn't despise the twat that runs the club. some of the anti-keegan sentiment is a bit off too. Which one's please and I'll explain, feel free to paraphrase (acurately). There's LOTS, many don't like the bloke (like me) but understand the position we were in, we're not now. On Keegan, he's as open to valid criticism as anyone.

Agreed, not sure the roofs fallen in yet mind, it did shake abit though. BTW I left out the bit about the piece of prize artwork you had, you know that French painting, that some twat scribbled on with a crayon, it's been away getting restored all year and you don't know if it will be quite the same when it comes back. It could have made a difference as well.

If you sign up for ten years

I agree, it'd have only been about £200-220 Mill ish I don't view the money he paid to purchase the club as "putting it into the club". I'm not going to thank him for buying it in the first place, that was his own decision. Anything he's paid over to fund the club's losses, that's what he's "put in" imo. Which I imagine is quite a lot of money, so well done him. However I don't know what he expected - I'd have thought most clubs lose money in an accounting sense. Which would have been obvious if he'd done his research or due diligence instead of buying the toon on a whim, as seems to be the case. I suppose it depends whether you view football clubs as business investments. I don't really, I think they're more like public institutions. The economics of football clubs seem to be completely fucked anyway. I don't give a shit about the balance sheet, I just want to see the team progress on the pitch and I don't understand why fans act like financial controllers at times. As long as we're not going into liquidation, I find debating what we can and can't afford to spend quite tedious actually. I can fully understand why Ashley won't put his hand in his pocket to fund losses and buy players, but then I wonder why he owns the club at all. If I bought a stately home, and let it fall into disrepair because I couldn't fund repairs from visitors receipts, would anyone be sympathetic to me? If Ashley doesn't like it, he should sell up for a realistic price and accept he made a bad investment. imo. Quite like the stately home analogy, I would expand it thus: You’ve bought your stately home, and being an idiot, and in a hurry, you didn’t have a survey done as you had the ready cash to get it for an apparently, good price, it being on of the biggest stately homes in the country, it got lots of visitors and seemed like a great way to massage your ego and possibly make some money, besides you love visiting stately homes and always secretly wanted one for yourself to play with. Once you became owner and started to look around you found it had dry rot and woodworm and you had no choice but to get that fixed if you didn’t want it to fall down and you’d lose all the money you’d put into it. So you embarked on the costly work needed to sort that out. The main attraction at the home was the art collection that came with it, to help fund the restoration work you traded some of the artwork, that hacked off the head art director and he left, sadly a good proportion of your regular visitors and art critics loved the old bloke and from that moment on you were despised by a good portion of your “customers”. You compounded that by appointing a succession of new art directors who basically just weren’t up to the job and your popularity continued to plummet, as did the popularity of your home, to the point where it dropped from the “A” list of Stately Homes to the “B” list. Despite that you ploughed on with the restoration (which has cost you more than necessary because of your mistakes). But you’ve managed to get the home back onto the “A” list. On top of that the restoration is finished and the home is looking like turning a profit year on year so you can close your wallet. As an added bonus one of the artworks in the collection became very sought after and you sold it for a huge sum, there’s another one that people are after as well. You are now at the point where you have a decision to make, the house is self sufficient and you have a surplus of cash, what do you do?? There’s two possible routes to take, firstly you could just leave the house ticking over and try and recoup some of the money you’ve put in to a point where the house is saleable again. Secondly you could spend all the surplus cash on new artwork (and its maintenance) to try and improve the house’s status. Sadly the since you entered the Stately Home game, the Royal Family have opened the doors of their castles to the public and it’s unlikely you can compete with them, so the best you can hope for in reality is a steady growth and maybe you may get more visitors than Balmoral (like that Jewish stately home just did). Unfortunately overtaking Buck Palace or Windsor Castle is not on. Although, there are some new EEC rules on stately homes which may help. At the end of this visitor season you will show, without doubt, which way you are going to go.

That's all we've ever had since 1969 tbh and with the way the game is, at the summit, that's all there's likely to be for some time yet, unless Platini's stuff works.

I agree, it'd have only been about £200-220 Mill ish

And whys that? Here's a clue: 5.2 The Club admitted to the Tribunal that it repeatedly and intentionally misled the press, public and the fans of Newcastle United. I know all that man. So yes he/they lied (well boo hoo hoo) so what. Get over it. It's not clever to hack off your customers and he is definitely his own worst enemy. Bottom line though, I can't abide the bloke BUT despite all his faults (and lies) he has put £250 Million of his own money into this club and yes he has deserved stick, absolutely. That said, it's so out of proportion to his "crimes" it's ridiculous.

Me ??? Edit - my posts in this thread have been "on topic", nee diversion at all. Bad choice of word to use with Gloom is all.

what are you on about? where did i say he was wonderful? cretin You didn't, I was paraphrasing "showed ambition, only gave a shit about the club/fans" and the fact you'd have him back, that bit.

Course he could. To get to Tottenham's level, which is almost competing in a sustainable way, would take £150m worth of investment, and a comparative drop in the ocean to him. He'll be dead soon anyway with cholesterol related health problems. Why have all that money and do nothing with it? So around 50% of his total wealth, in total, you expect him to put in. How many other owners have done that ?? He's worth £1.1b. All of his assets. £150m is loose change to him. If I had £300m I'd give the toon £280m tbh. I'd buy a 6 bedroom hoose at Heddon or Wylam, one in London, one in Cyprus and one in Thailand, build a horse stable, buy some top horses, that would leave me £10m and I COULD live off the interest for the rest of my life. He's a joker. He could do wonders with that club with his money. The £150 Mill on top of what's already been thrown in is significantly more than loose change. The second para is because NUFC is your main thing, no-one with that sort of cash would do what you propose you would. Multi millionaires are strange people, it's not about "Oh! I can quit and live off the interest quite comfortably" job done I've retired. They are strangely driven people. I used to work for one (I reported directly to him) in a new start up company he'd set up, he was self made, worth double figure millions, and he worked every hour god sent at his new venture, he used to have panic attacks and was near collapse at times. He was a lovely bloke an all, I used to think WTF are you doing this for, your family is sorted for generations. They are weird people, I'm guessing the billionaires are even worse.

ambition is a choice, not a right to demand, Ashley made his choice ages ago and people such as yourself took the ambition for granted. Sorry like, but that is the truth. eh? no i didn't. what are you on about now? you tell me. You appear to have performed a massive u-turn. Whenever I've said what you are saying now, you've massively disagreed with me. no i haven't. you must have me mixed up with someone else. your problem is you see everything in black and white. everyone is either in the shepherd or ashley camp and that makes them either right or wrong in your eyes. i wanted shepherd out. i blame his stupid decision making on us not kicking on after SBR re-established us as a top side. shepherd's time in charge had come to an end. it was time for a change at the top. but at least you can say he had ambition that our current owner lacks and he gave a shit about the club and the fans. who could have predicted we would have ended up with the worst chairman of a football club in the country? i don't want shepherd and i don't want ashley. but of the two, ashley is so bad that you'd take shepherd back just to be rid of him. Only if you're barking mad If he's so "wonderfull" with just the fans and the club to care about, why doesn't he buy it back ?? I'll tell you why, for exactly the same reason he/they sold it, because it would take their own money to do it (which is academic anyway as they aint rich enough).

Course he could. To get to Tottenham's level, which is almost competing in a sustainable way, would take £150m worth of investment, and a comparative drop in the ocean to him. He'll be dead soon anyway with cholesterol related health problems. Why have all that money and do nothing with it? So around 50% of his total wealth, in total, you expect him to put in. How many other owners have done that ??

Agree wholeheartedly, I haven't pissed myself either mind.