Toonpack

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.

Yep IF he capitalises on the "surplus" this summer.

Can't have helped, those that did due dilligence ran away. The subsidy is down to the fact we were literally brassic. he's a billionaire man; it's not like he's short of a bob or two is it? if he really wanted us to be succesful on the field, he'd put more money into player recruitment, whether that's his own, or the profits he's made from player sales. Which may happen in the summer (or not) because that's the first time the "profits" aren't just reducing losses. Aye he's a billionaire, how much more should he have put in over and above the £250 million ?? In your opinion.

Can't have helped, those that did due dilligence ran away. The subsidy is down to the fact we were literally brassic.

No. Ashley knew about the debt (and lack of future income) and it was taken into account in the purchase price. He knew the debt was there, but I'm not sure he realised that the loans and overdraft etc had to be repaid on change of ownership mind.

Link/evidence please, he's putting in (or has been) not taking out. That "will" change in the summer (one way or the other). ashley's shafting us by receiving big money for players and not reinvesting it in the squad. isn't that obvious? do you honestly expect to see the 50m net profit he's made from player sales reinvested? i don't. i don't even expect him to invest the kind of cash most us us would be happy with - the going amount needed to assemble a half decent squad in other words. he hasn't done it so far, why would he change all of a sudden? It's not obvious no. Far from it. If he'd spent the transfer surplus before now, he'd just have had to cover it out of his pocket on top of the circa £20 mill he's been putting in a year to cover the existing operational costs (even with the surplus coming in). This summer (because of the Carroll surplus) we can spend (for the first time) without him dipping further into his own cash, that's a BIG difference. Whether he will or not remains to be seen. Someone lending circa £20 mill a year at zero interest is hardly "shafting". If we were running at a loss and he was a net "taker" as opposed to a "giver", that's shafting. fuck me. you sound almost happy with the way he's running the club. you make it sound like we should be grateful for him bailing us out. he's only got himself to blame that he didn't do due due diligence he's a billionaire man. the fact that he hasn't dipped into his own cash at all to help fund our transfers tells you everything you need to know about his ambitions for the club. Name any owners/benefactors that do, or have, without charging high interest (outside the Russian or the Sheik and Al Fayed, who's in for £207 Mill (interest free) at Fulham but "only" £83 Mill of that is not secured against assetts). He's put circa 25% of his wealth in (interest free), to keep us a going concern (and yes I know it'd probably have been about 20% if he wasn't such an eejit). Really, why should he put in more ??. It would be nice, admittedly, but why should he, especially seeing crap he gets.

Link/evidence please, he's putting in (or has been) not taking out. That "will" change in the summer (one way or the other). ashley's shafting us by receiving big money for players and not reinvesting it in the squad. isn't that obvious? do you honestly expect to see the 50m net profit he's made from player sales reinvested? i don't. i don't even expect him to invest the kind of cash most us us would be happy with - the going amount needed to assemble a half decent squad in other words. he hasn't done it so far, why would he change all of a sudden? It's not obvious no. Far from it. If he'd spent the transfer surplus before now, he'd just have had to cover it out of his pocket on top of the circa £20 mill he's been putting in a year to cover the existing operational costs (even with the surplus coming in). He may change "all of a sudden" because - This summer (because of the Carroll surplus) we can spend (for the first time) without him dipping further into his own cash, that's a BIG difference. Whether he will or not remains to be seen. Someone lending circa £20 mill a year at zero interest is hardly "shafting". If we were running at a loss and he was a net "taker" as opposed to a "giver", that's shafting.

Link/evidence please, he's putting in (or has been) not taking out. That "will" change in the summer (one way or the other). Villa, Have circa £100 Mill debt, of which just over £84 Mill has been lent to them by Lerner (via the 5 "holding" companies that wash his/Villa's money) he charges LIBOR +2% on the loans, he takes out sums equal to 15% of their turnover each year in interest, all his loans that haven't been to cover operating costs, have been invested on the field though, nothing on the ground or training facilities etc. Spurs - circa £60 Mill net debt, £15 Mill revolving loan with HSBC, £30 Mill with BoS plus £25 Mill of loan notes at 7.29%, but they had £11 mill cash at bank (at the time of those figures), debt was incurred to develop their training facilities (and that's what the loan cash is secured on). By and large they operate within their means. Liverpool - Debt HUGE but they turn a profit and can service it (so far) their "net" spend of late (January) was zero. The new top man says: "We've always spent money we've generated rather than deficit-spending and that will be the case in Liverpool,'' BTW their wages/turnover ratio (as far as I can find) is circa 56%, which is pretty low for the Prem.

Hd a leaflet through the door at home about a street party, methinks I'll be stopping up in Aberdeen that weekend.

No Pud, no more last chances. This is it, the defining moment - well the summer is, the club now has money that it could spend and it now needs to. If the club doesn't spend heavily and he reduces the debt instead, then his "strategy" is to position the club for a sale by reducing his debt over time and gamble on staying in the Prem. We'll see. Going to be interesting how much "net" Liverpool spend this summer as well, especially if they miss Europe. (and Spurs for that matter). The Platini rules clock starts ticking on 1st June.

I'm not really disagreeing with your fundamental underlying point here but let's not make out that their owners went and spent £57m of their own money. They reinvested the £50m they made by selling Torres and then paid a little extra. They got another £8 mill or so for that dutch (I think) winger/striker who's name escapes me.

QFT I might as well save us all the hassle and code this into the forum. Anytime someone posts a transfer related thread, post this as the answer and close thread. Job Done. That may be true, but to borrow a verdict from Scottish Law, it's not proven. Could be in the summer though (or not). i will happily do a merry dance in fenwicks' window with my arse hanging out if you are right. everything we have seen so far suggests we will see a small net spend, if anything. this cunt is bleeding us for every pound he can get. he isn't going to blow £50m net all of a sudden - let alone a more modest figure that most of us would accept. obvioulsy i would love to be proved wrong but there is nothing to suggest he's going to do cuch a radical u turn on previous transfer windows is there? we just need to accept where we are until someone buys this cunt out and hope for best. he actually got lucky after relegation by stumbling across hughton and unearthing a couple of bargain buys. he's done his best to fuck things up since like by sacking hughton and making mroe net profits in transfer windows and that luck won't last for ever. for every tiote at 3.5m out there, there's an amdy faye. Well he's doing a crap job at that so far (amongst his other failings). He's been transfusing "in" not "out", thus far anyway. I'll see your Amdy Faye and raise you an Albert Luque or an EMO even.

QFT I might as well save us all the hassle and code this into the forum. Anytime someone posts a transfer related thread, post this as the answer and close thread. Job Done. That may be true, but to borrow a verdict from Scottish Law, it's not proven. Could be in the summer though (or not).