Kid Dynamite

First episode of the new Black Mirror was shite and put me off the rest. Tried the second episode last night and it was much better (although the twist was easy to spot)

They've released a new FAQ about how ticket ballots will work for members . You can apply with a load of friends to get tickets seated together, but it only goes down as one number in the draw. Not clear if you could all do that (and what would happen if more than one of you was successful), or whether your membership number is only allowed one entry in the ballot. At least it will stop people logging on with 8 devices and bragging they got 12 tickets together (which I suspect is the plan)

He got a 3 year contract off Ashley when he knew the sale was agreed. £8mil golden handshake. He can fuck off making out like he did us any favours. He also referred to the Howe speculation as "the bloke who relegated Bournemouth", so I call bullshit on his claim he recommended him to the club

Hopefully Schar's injury isn't too bad. It's shown where the remainder of our transfer budget needs to go though. If it's a snapped hammy, then Lascelles is starting every game across 3 competitions until January. With our starting LB as his first reserve

Fair play to him. Not a bad way to see out your career. He might get decent game time if the Mbappe move doesn't happen too. He's also banging them in for the national team

Aye, the empty seats were a drop in the ocean for the club cash wise. Ashley sold up because he'd fluked getting promoted back to the PL twice. He knew the 3rd time might have ended up with us doing a Leeds and he was happy to get rid

Anderson, Longstaff and Miley must be 3 of the best academy prospects in more than a decade

Judging by the clobber the likes of Luke Edward's wear, sports journalism much pay fucking peanuts tbh

Aye, the Stack was ok tbf. Food, drink and a big telly/live music. I'm too young to drink in the bars on Grey street that don't play music, I'm too old to hang around the diamond strip, and I'm too stuck up to slum it on the Bigg Market. Ouseburn is canny, but not much a match day vibe going on!

Im flip flopping atm. What was your success rate last season out of interest?

I assume there will still be 5% or more that have to be held back for general sale every game?

Nah. Politics is in the gutter atm, but some of this stuff is cyclical. The Tories are out on theirs arse next year, and we just have to hope Labour have enough of a backbone to undo some of the damage, not just to the country, but the entire political discourse of the last few years.

I'm in Calpe atm for a cheap week away. Strikes me as being like Benidorm but with none of the Brits or English pubs

Although people logging in with 6 devices might be artificially inflating that number maybe?

I had this conversation over twitter this morning. I assumed the membership fee was to discourage touts at first. But then remembered that you need a membership number to get a ticket anyway and then they're non-transferable (unless it's to someone on your friends list), in which case it feels like a massive money grab from the club. 70,000 x £37 = £2.5mil, for what is essentially getting your name chucked in a hat every fortnight.

I mean that's just a longer version of what I said, but aye, I agree wholeheartedly Cognitive dissonance aplenty in some of our fans

70,000 now. Fuck that for a game of soldiers. I've got my membership attached to 3 mates season tickets so hopefully I'll get to a few games when they can't make it. Otherwise it's BeinSports for me!

They're unlimited aren't they?

Fuck knows. They did beam backs in years gone by for games that weren't shown live. And they show live video of the game inside the ground? Maybe it won't be possible, but Keith Downey has tweeted to say they will be showing games. He might just mean the matches that are already live though

Looks like they're just rebuilding the stack that was at the bottom of Northumberland street. If they can figure out some sort of licensing arrangement to show all of our matches on the big screen then that would be canny

I see the NatWest CEO has resigned over the Farage debacle. Likely due to breaching confidentiality when talking with a BBC journalist. But Farage and the Tories that backed him will no doubt champion this as a win over wokeism

Only tongue in cheek cos I got pelters on here at the time The fans were split over whether to boycott Ashley or to "support the team, not the regime". Similarly, we have fans now who refuse to attend games because we are owned by one of the worst countries on the planet. Fair play to them. My take is, you pretty much need to be a billionaire to own a PL club these days. And 99% of billionaires are cunts, albeit on a spectrum. I'm not sure I'd be putting Ashley above MBS on the spectrum tbh, but football does strange things to a fans moral compass. I reckon Miguel Delaney would snap your hand off to replace the Glazers with PIF atm. Likewise, the Mackems supporting Hendo going to the Saudi league. It's amazing how quickly your position on something can change when it involves the club you love. Anyway, if you have a bit of insight into that moral conundrum, you can make a conscious decision to disagree with the actions of your club owners, but still go to the games as you enjoy the football. I assume that's what a lot of NUFC fans are doing now. To criticise the fans that did the same under Ashley is surely hypocritical though?

I don't disagree with any of that, and fair play to you for walking away. But out of genuine interest, how do you align all of that with now being owned by PIF/MBS? From a moral perspective it's surely out of the frying pan and into a giant furnace?

What's the alternative though? A 100,000 seater stadium so anyone can come as and when they please? Demand massively outstrips capacity atm. It didn't 2 seasons ago when we were shit and fighting relegation. Aye, some of those stayed away because of Ashley. But there were 30,000 or so (at a guess) who were paying their money to watch us at our worst. Now they get the benefit of the good times. I've got zero animosity towards them for that. Even if we add another 10k on the capacity we are still going to have to same problem. What's the solution? Keep the extra 10k as general sale? Have a 1 season limit on any new season tickets?

Fwiw, I'm not casting aspersions on anyone on here. Most of the people who post on the board have followed the club through thick and thin. I don't know much about the "Trust" but they seem to be a bunch of twisty holes that are only happy when the ticketing arrangements suit them personally. Rather than actually being a proper representation of the fans as a whole