McFaul

I'd agree but it's been massively eroded by Mike Ashley, I'll do part two tomorrow and see if you can relate to some of the things I say. To be fair not just Ashley. I think Newcastle are like the polar ice caps, we're losing everything that makes us NUFC and every summer we seem to be melting.

Like pre-Solidarnosc Gdansk at times this place.

aye that's just part one.

You won't be surprised to learn I can't remember this bet, but there's NEE WAY Reading will get 30 points. They're shit.

This what I've done so far, it doesn't even make sense reading part one, without reading part two, but I'll write that tomorrow. Right. "Who else would write articles for the site???" Me! I'll be honest most of you who read my pish, know I'm as set in my ways about Mike Ashley as anyone, so it's likely to be predictable pish, for those who can be arsed to read. Supporting Newcastle for me was never about being good, it was always about being us. Growing up with me fatha, and me pals on the Gallowgate in the late 80's as a bairn, we'd get the occasional great result. If I remember rightly we beat Man Utd twice, I remember Roeder of all people getting a winner against them. We had some great days, I remember it pissing it down in a game near christmas against Tottenham (who had a really canny side) and Gazza playing one of his best games for the toon in a 2-0 win. I think that game as much as any, probably made him Venables top priority for the following season. These great days on the pitch were few and far between though. The fans are what made us special. Although it was before my time as I was 8 at the time, we went to White Hart Lane with 15,000 fans for a cup tie, no one else did that even then, so when these arseholes tell you Newcastle only had support after Keegan became manager, they're talking shit. In 1984 we were in the Second Division we averaged 30,000 people, the third highest in the country behind Liverpool and Man Utd. That 1983/84 season was probably the only one between Super Mac being sold and 1993 where we actually had anything like a team worthy of Newcastle United. When Keegan retired in May 1984, he actually said the job isn't half done and the promotion team still was no where near what we should have had. In the background was Stan Seymour, he loved Newcastle, but was often criticised for lack of investment. Gordon McKeag took over as chairman about 1986, and he was very much hated, he was blamed for everything, lack of ambition, financing the Milburn Stand with player sales, as a kid I remember "KILL MCKEAG" slogans right around Newcastle, and you just went along with the mob view that he was the anti-christ as far as Newcastle fans were concerned. The fact is we did sell Waddle, Beardsley and Gascoigne in that era. All of whom were world class players. In my view Waddle was the least talented of the three, and to think he's recognised as Marseille's second greatest player ever and came in the top three in the European Footballer of the Year poll in 1991, it shows you how good the other two were. The Milburn Stand cost £4m to build, we got £2m from the Beardsley deal, plus spent nearly £3m on Beasant, Thorn, Hendrie and John Robertson. So the sands of time forget these little important details. As a young kid the almost universal view was McKeag was a money grabbing twat, the evidence contradicts that in the cold light of day. He wasn't an astonishingly wealthy man, he was basically a posh geordie solicitor from Gosforth, hardly a billionaire or even a millionaire. I felt quite guilty at the abuse I gave him as a young kid, and the disdain I've held him in for all these years. When you look at the bear facts, NUFC spent as much as they could afford, he didn't have the wealth of people like Irving Scholar at Tottenham or even Ken Bates. Clubs who spent a lot less money than Newcastle won things. Wimbledon, Luton got a few finals, so while McKeag may have got the brunt of the criticism, maybe some of his biggest mistakes were not finding someone with vast funds to pump in (rare in those days), and poor managerial appointments. At the end of the day we as fans thought we deserved better, but we had 25,000 loyal fans, and irrespective of what anyone says we just didn't get the rub of the green. Other big clubs were shit. Arsenal were terrible for the majority of the 80's they averaged just 22,000 one of the years. In terms of player purchases, you'd probably say Newcastle were 6th or 7th. There was a recognised big 5 of Tottenham, Man Utd, Liverpool, Everton and Arsenal. We in everything but league position were just outside of it, but were passed by Nottingham Forest, Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday and Villa amongst others, in an era where football was pretty fair, illustrated by the fact Man Utd, the biggest club even then, came 13th in SAF's second full season. My point is McKeag did his best, it wasn't good enough. The back end of the McKeag years overlapped Sir John Hall's involvement in the club. From being a depressed club, all of a sudden Keegan was in, and the black and white tiger as people used to call it was off and running. They were the best days of all to be honest. SJH was a millionaire, McKeag wasn't, at the beginning Hall was a bit reluctant to spunk millions on players because he wasn't sure if he'd ever get it back. Keegan had clearly been sold the dream by The Magpie Group, and when he was only allowed to spend £200,000 on Brian Kilcline and Darron McDonough (he was total pony), he and Terry Mac left the club as they believed they'd been sold lies by Hall. They were talked back up the motorway, literally, with the understanding if they kept us from Division 3, there'd be substantial investment the following season, but should they fail then the very future of the club would be in grave danger. In the end we stopped up by 4 points. What summed the difference that summer made to the future of NUFC, could be seen in two games away at Derby County in less than four months. The first a 4-1 defeat (we had three players sent off) in April, and the second a 2-1 win in the August. We got four players in, they were absolutely class, and from being a club which was on its' knees, after 11 games we'd won the lot. 11 out of 11. It just got better and better, we added Robert Lee, Andy Cole came in a bit later, and for someone my age it was amazing, Newcastle felt like somebodies. We felt great. We were geordie owned. Our manager loved the club as much as any supporter, we felt like we could do anything. We kept growing at a rate that no other English club has in such a short space of time. Our turnover in 1992 was £4m, six years later it was £49m, we were the FIFTH richest club in Europe at that time. People find it staggering to see that but that's where we were in 1998. We had such self esteem as a club, other fans used to say we were getting cocky, but I loved it because we had something to be cocky about. You had players like Hristo Stoichkov coming out with statements like "I would love to play for a club like Newcastle." From a position where big donkeys like Ian Ormondroyd from Bradford City were turning us down in the early 90s, we had all time world greats saying they'd love to play for us! Berbatov is a Newcastle fan from childhood, I remember reading an interview by him saying everyone in his part of Bulgaria loved Newcastle because the people were the same, and the team had the same spirit. I don't even know what that means, but what it shows me is how well Hall, Freddie Fletcher and Freddie Shepherd did for the club in the 1990s, that some shithole know one has ever heard of in Bulgaria had people walking the streets wearing Newcastle tops. They got the message out there, and with that our ticket prices went up, everything went up, but you didn't mind because we were growing as a club. Even the Gullit and Dalglish eras showed me the club weren't going to settle for second best. Dalglish was sacked after a 1-1 draw at Chelsea! Sir Bobby Robson did wonders for the club, and although many people have nothing but bad to say about Shepherd the club was making significant profits right up to 2004. In fact you often used to hear "Shepherd is a good businessman" to that point. He lost it a bit with Souness, and it's a shame FFS is thought of as a disaster because apart from the "geordie women are dogs" comment he did well for NUFC up to the point of Souness. He never reigned the fans aspirations in, he never said we were far behind Man Utd and Arsenal, the truth is when we came 3rd in 2003, we were equally as wealthy as Chelsea and Liverpool, with the aspirations to kick on further. Mike Ashley came in and we all thought we'd hit the jackpot. Here was our English Abramovic.....

Well I touch on that. I'm not even half way through, what I've written so far is leading uo to Mike Ashley's time. I want these to confirm they'll publish articles and I'll paste the first half, if not I'll give it to someone else. It's basically just me rambling about the shit McKeag, Shepherd got, and what good they did, as well as the esteem we gained as a club from the 80's to mid 90's down to Hall, Fletcher, Shepherd and Keegan.

LeazesMag has mentioned articles for the site. I've half written one about the lack of self esteem NUFC have a club now, but are we actually having published articles on here on newsnow, or was it just Leazes crack. What I've done so far, is poorly written waffle so far without getting to my main point, but I'm slowly getting there. I'll write more tomorrow.

Aye it would explain why Scottish people are how they are from an early age as well.

214lbs of professional geordie these days my midriff laden amigo.

I'm surprised eventually even came in to it.

I tell you something else, this is true this. I had a row on here, or a constructive debate with Chez about something a few months ago, and I can't even remember what it was about.

See this thread is relevant I think because no one is entertaining the idea we'll be relegated. Look at this though 2012/2013 P17 Pts17 Aveppg 1.00 2008/2009 P26 Pts28 Aveppg 1.14 I know it's a meaningless stat but we're average less points than we were when we were relegated. We have Man Utd, Arsenal and Everton in our next four games, that could even be P21 Pts18. If that fat bastard doesn't spend £15m in January, people who continue to support him deserve a kicking.

I only drink 12 pints a week max, many weeks I don't even exceed the recommended weekly drinking limit. I'd end up the size of Stan Flashman if I ever drank like I did in my 20s again. As far as I know my memory might be better than most it's all relative to you. I'm going to try the stuff suggested. I would never encourage kids to do e like it really does have an impact. I'd forget to close doors, forget Newcastle were playing all sorts, at my worst usage points.

Aye I think there's a pool table there now.

If that's the case I'll still be making more interesting posts than you.

Where do you get this like? Holland and Barretts? I need to try something because if I keep going like this I'll be a window licker in 20 years time.

I was nee Mick Jagger, but I did "indulge". edit: FFS I chose Mick Jagger because it's taken me 5 minutes to remember Shaun Ryder's name! I know you're right though, but I've had fuck all since 2002 really. The odd herbal joint, the odd line of toot. It's just recently my memory has started to go pretty shite. How can I remember Derek Dorkins the Torquay centre half shitting himself in 1990 against Tottenham on the pitch, but I can't remember what I did on Wednesday and Thursday night.

I'll try and make it to the trent, I've made other arrangements though so I'll see. I've always wanted to be in the TP you see. Keep your eyes peeled for me, big lad who looks about 27/28.

Another example right, me mates uncle is a steward at the match, does us loads of match related good turns, shared many beers with him, been at loads of non league games with him, he's a good bloke. Me card wasn't working on Saturday, so he had to let me in the other entrance and I went "thanks ermm...aye cheers for this ye knaa, you're a good lad...you are." In the space of 20 seconds could I fuck remember the cunts name, met him so many times. I even text me mate, "heart of gold you're uncle", still unable to remember his name. Then out of the blue I'm eating some food about 9pm, "Davie!! That's the cunts name" 8 hours later.

I'll give that a go Sammy thanks.

Mebeez LM suffers the same thing?

I don't think it applies on this occasion. The amount of times people have said to me "a naa man, ye telt iz last week", it's funny but it isn't. Hopefully it's a short term thing, but it's like amnesia.

My memory is shite. It used to be OK, for some things absolutely brilliant, but I don't know why but my memory has gaping gaps in it. I know its often linked to stress but I'm not stressed about anything really, I'm quite happy and content, but my short term memory is fucked up. It used to be like this years ago when I did speed and e regularly, and it's not as frustrating as it was then, there's nee depression, it's just my brain is working like I'm a spanner. I had 4 pints before the game and one at half time on Saturday, and I walked to Gotham Town for a few pints with me mates and lads I sit next to after the game, and I couldn't tell you how we got there, what we talked about or anything. I know it sounds like nothing about a completely unimportant point, but I should be able to remember how I fuckin got to the pub. It was only yesterday. My lass is noticing it too, surely mid 30's is too early to go senile. How can I remember Gavin Peacock's hattrick against Oxford 21 years ago but I can't remember something that happened yesterday. Does anyone else have a shite memory. I appreciate I sound like some sort of spanner writing this, but I'm genuinely starting to think it's an issue.

This thread always reminds me of this. We're famous. World champs of swearing eh? Nicest thing anyone has ever said about us. http://www.hibs.net/showthread.php?198998-Chris-Hughton-sacked&p=2655812&viewfull=1#post2655812