Christmas Tree

Not sure what a christmas nobby is but this might keep you going. (great restraint has been shown)

The richer he gets the better for us. It has absolutely no relevance for the well-being of the club tbh. I'd rather see him going bancrupt and to be forced to sell the club. Ofcourse it will. When he bought us he had something like 1.5 billion wealth. Think that then dropped circa 2008 down to about 700 million. Its basic instinct that most of us feel better about spending more when we feel richer / better off, expecially with the world economy gradually picking up (at SD anyway)

Why trust a story where the journalist hasn't done the most basic fact checking? He's made a £20m+ profit on the transfer market It's basically an Ashley propaganda piece. Same line as 2 years ago.... “Just print that we paid £250 Million for the club”. Is that true? I understood that having paid off monies owed on the likes of Luque etc, that wasnt the case. That's what the books say.... Not doubting "the book", but I would like to see those figures in two columns ins and outs and see if they really include the transfer fees outstanding from Shepherd time that Ashley paid off.

Lee Ryder

http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/sport/874...gpies_hot_seat/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12006472 The richer he gets the better for us.

So a waste of time watching the past 7 or 8 weeks and the "contestants" taking part. this role they've been offered, if its entrepeneurial chris would do better. old concorde would just bore me to death. i think the winner will be chris as everyones a little bit more onside with him and stella seems to cold and withdrawn. she can hold her own but we havent seen either present in front of hundreds yet as they will do on sunday. I honestly cant recall anything entrepeneurial he's done. FFS he's being on the losing team nearly every week AND dragged into the boardroom each time. The only thing you may class as entrepeneurial was the bus task where, when it worked out, he claimed that offering the percentage on everything they sold had been a shrewd move, rather than the cock up it plainly was.

Why trust a story where the journalist hasn't done the most basic fact checking? He's made a £20m+ profit on the transfer market It's basically an Ashley propaganda piece. Same line as 2 years ago.... “Just print that we paid £250 Million for the club”. Is that true? I understood that having paid off monies owed on the likes of Luque etc, that wasnt the case.

Unfortunately, that doesnt make any sense. You cant expect the club not to go bust and be in debt. Aren't all the other PL clubs in debt though (and loss making too)? They aren't about to go bust unless their benefactors put them under, are they? It's totally obvious Ashley is subsidising the club and without his support it would go under, I get that. But so what? There can't be many clubs that make profits and the situation must have been obvious when he bought the club. I know the Shepherd and the Halls left a financial mess when he bought the club, again he should have known this. My frustration is that he seems to be applying financial strictures to the club that no-one else is adopting. That might be prudent business, we might be ahead of the curve and other clubs may have to fall into line, or whatever. However I can see that with more investment, we would do significantly better. I want more ambition - I say that as a fan, not their financial director. Chez, I understand the economics don't make sense, but in my view, if he couldn't afford to put the money in, he shouldn't have bought the club in the first place. My view isn't driven by business logic or analysis, I'm just a fan who wants the club to do well. I really haven't bothered to go into the detail of the finances, so I'm talking from the heart not the head. There are some clubs who have spent loads and have either gone bust or are now seriously reigning in the spend and there are a raft of clubs who are about to. Bolton being a good example of what is coming, we arent much different to anyone else in terms of spending power. When you add in our spend in January and the summer and set it against other clubs in the prem we arent the 3rd bottom spenders any more. I doubt many will spend in January but i reckon we will do another £5m, which would take us to about £15m in 12 months. My view is that apart from lacking investment (no more than £10m would be realistic) in 08/09 he hasnt done much wrong financially. Its not this which is the problem with Ashley. The year he took over our revenue was £99m but our spend was £107m, to balance that year out, spend has to be £91m the following year if revenue stays the same. As revenue dropped £13m he had to find £21m in savings to sort out the problem. We sold £23m worth of players. The debt/loss thing is just like the debt/deficit issue for countries. Debt is not the problem, its the deficit (loss) that affects your ability to raise finance. If you have a huge loss, no-one will lend as you are a risk. If you have a huge debt but break even, people will lend to you. Our finances were about as bad as it can get when he took over as we were at the end of our credit line. Whether a plan was in place to re-finance in June 2007 or not is irrelevant because by 2008 the world of 'finance' had changed forever. Me knowing what happened next makes me think that we would have been fucked. Shepherd cant be held to blame for not fore-seeing the crisis either, i want to be clear on that. Anyway, my point is one of optimism (where i came in on this) because once the rules change, we have to break even or limit losses anyway. My hope is that we are getting the financial side sorted out in preparation for this. Being 8th when no-one dared to hope for more than 17th whilst doing this, lets me see the glass half full. I'm not trying to defend him, the facts are the club was not healthy financially when he came in, £45m of debt had to be paid off there and then, the banks would not lend NUFC a penny more with him as the new owner and the club was stuffed with overpaid, poor footballer taking up more wages than was viable. It got worse from there because of his idiocy but it could have been a lot worse as finance basically disappeared. Good post. I think the problem is that many fans, myself included, expected a rich man coming in to finance the club from his own pocket. Ashley encouraged this image, saying he just wanted to have a bit of fun and the appointment of Keegan etc did nothing to dispel that myth. Then all of a sudden the shutters came down, Said it before and I'll say it again. Ashley gets far more stick than he deserves. His biggest mistake was the lack of due dilligence. Even so he backed Allardyce and but a good chairman in place who started to do some good stuff behind the scenes. Even after Mort had left (start of the problems for me), Ashley, not being immersed in day to day running, probably thought he was putting a fairly decent structure in place to take the club forward on lots of different levels. He was also still investing money. Keegan quitting left him in the position of either backing Keegan or The rest of the management team he had in place, including his most trusted aide, LLambias. Keegan was never going to win, despite meetings in London to try and resolve it. We are now in Late 2008, The world economy stops, Boycotts and protests at St. James, a management plan in tatters, the black hole in the finances and a club losing money. This to me is when the investment really stopped. Hughton then JFK then Shearer. Ashley didnt want to trust any of these caretakers with transfer millions and hoped they had enough quality to whether the storm. We did have enough quality, just not enough back bone. For me, his actions since relegation have been in the interests of turning the club around his way. We now sit 8th so I at this point in time, the proof is in the pudding. We had the window we needed last January and the window we needed last summer and again I think we will again move forward this January. I also expect a top half finish and with this team and spirit, there is absolutely no reason why we cant chase a european spot. No matter how much we liked Hughton, the people who deal with him on a day to day basis thought him to light weight for the road ahead. I have no idea why they think Pardew is the man, but what matters is they think that so will back him, more than they would Chris. Ashley will always have a good deal of haters but for me it started out well, went tits up and is now recovering. In hindsight I dont put that down to malice, just a series off bad choices in very difficult circumstances. I hope he stays and continues this gradual build for years to come because I dread the thought of the club falling into the hands of Arabs, chinese or Indian chicken farmers. Long term substainibility is better than short term boom and bust.

So a waste of time watching the past 7 or 8 weeks and the "contestants" taking part.

Lazy foruming tbf Mods http://www.toontastic.net/board/index.php?showtopic=28999

That's all we need a foreign committee. Better the devil you know at the moment.

Scandalous result letting chris through to the final. Sent people home who won week after week instead of someone who has lost week after week. Not that I like the little shit but the reason for Stuarts departure over the license technicality was very unfair. Stellas to lose.

not sticking my head up my arse at all. And while I don't particularly care for the thought that other fans see us dismissing being 8th in the table, there is a long way to go yet, this season. I just don't think Mike Ashley will ever harbour any serious ambitions at this football club, a few results [defeats or wins] is neither here nor there. On the other hand, I didn't care when other fans supposedly "laughed" at us, so why give a toss if they think we are "arrogant" ? [ presume that is what you are getting at here CG ] I don't think I'm either anyway, I'm just aware we are one of the biggest clubs in the country, and I'll counter that by also admitting that we have never had the success to justify that to other supporters - hence the reason they aren't aware of how big this club should be. Good post. There is a long way to go and it was only a few weeks back i was brimming with optimism just to come crashing back down to earth when we looked shit again. Yes i do think we might look a bit arrogant by saying we are struggling because others wont look at it the way we do. They dont have the gnawing feeling at the pit of their stomach that things will go to fucking shit without warning (that all too recognisable feeling we all felt last monday) and they havent watched us all season and seen that along with the potential to play well, there is also a team of shite just waiting to dribble out the back of 11 pairs of shorts at a moment's notice. They just see the geordies are in 8th, arent they doing well. The proximity in points to 17th place is rarely mentioned. As for the ambition question, the only thing i can say is that with the new financial rules coming in, business margins and large home crowds will give us an edge over oil men and chicken farmers if expenditure is limited by turnover. A decent manager is the crux of the issue though, so who knows what Pardew will bring to that. I'm not going to disagree about large home crowds. They have to be attracted to the club though, it's not automatic, they are there but only if we can get them to come. So to that extent, your comment about "others seeing the Geordies in 8th position aren't they doing well", in my opinion that is part of my point ie others don't realise that for us, 8th position is not good enough. Thats not to say we should be booing them, just that we should be aware it's not good enough and trying to do better. Liverpool for instance are in crisis if they are not in europe. We should also be seen in this light. A decent manager, with backing, is the essence of every successful club. You need both. A good manager will leave for a club with more backing. Owen Coyle will get a bigger job than Bolton, no disrespect to Bolton. Contrary to what others insinuate I say - and I have corrected them on occasions - I don't want the club to spend tons of money and bankrupt itself, but we should be among the top speculative clubs, all the time, to tap the fanbase which is potentially even bigger than 52,000. The Keegan years showed this. What a load of shite you talk at times Leazes. There is absolutely no comparison with Liverpools success over the last 40 years to our lack of it. Liverpool used to wine everything not so long ago, we have to go back to the 50's ffs. We were in the right place at the right time under KK but still won fuck all. It was a nice ride but you seem to think that those few years in the last 50 give us all sort of stature rights. Your just plain daft at times. Read the post CT, read the post. Potential, is the word you are looking for. I said we "should be" and we should. It's a fact Liverpool won everything going during a magnificent 4 decades for them, but you tell me any reason why we would not be more than capable of doing the same, when we have bigger support ? Nope, its the word you should have used.

Doing a degree in Divinity http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/foo...icle4036277.ece

Spurs already have a manager. He's not circumcised enough, according to my sources. I think they said circumspect.

Moving swiftly on from the girl hands, I got rid of mine when KK left.

How many times have you tried to give up? Come on you soft shite just take the withdrawal symptoms and do it maaaaaan! Loving the new picture

Wages will be about 60%...about what it was the season before Ashley took over. Don't blame Ashley totally for the high wages when he took over. I want to make that clear. I blame FSA partly. In that first period he could have had little clue what was going on with silly wages for Collo, Smith and the like. Not to mention Geremi and Viduka who were paid the gdp of a small banana republic. All signed by fat fucking sam. Fairy nuff with Geremi, Smith and Viduka. He was sanctioning moves without having done his due diligence....idiotic, but he'd have been mullered if his first move was to say "we aren't signing anyone". Collo came in a year after Ashley though, so if he didn't know the wage issues by then he really wasn't paying enough attention. He can't blame Shepherd for ANY of the players not having relegation clauses either....cos he signed every player that showed for us in the championship. EDIT: That's a mistake in the article where they say "The cut might have been deeper if the club had inserted relegation clauses into the players’ contracts, but apparently the previous owners did not consider this a possibility." The previous owners couldn't put clauses in contracts for the current owner. Who wernt the players who got us relegated..... How do you work that out, CT? There were some 'bad apples' who left in the summer after we went down but at the same time there were plenty of those signed by Ashley who were culpable in the relegation season. misread tbh

Wages will be about 60%...about what it was the season before Ashley took over. Don't blame Ashley totally for the high wages when he took over. I want to make that clear. I blame FSA partly. In that first period he could have had little clue what was going on with silly wages for Collo, Smith and the like. Not to mention Geremi and Viduka who were paid the gdp of a small banana republic. All signed by fat fucking sam. Fairy nuff with Geremi, Smith and Viduka. He was sanctioning moves without having done his due diligence....idiotic, but he'd have been mullered if his first move was to say "we aren't signing anyone". Collo came in a year after Ashley though, so if he didn't know the wage issues by then he really wasn't paying enough attention. He can't blame Shepherd for ANY of the players not having relegation clauses either....cos he signed every player that showed for us in the championship. EDIT: That's a mistake in the article where they say "The cut might have been deeper if the club had inserted relegation clauses into the players’ contracts, but apparently the previous owners did not consider this a possibility." The previous owners couldn't put clauses in contracts for the current owner. Who wernt the players who got us relegated.....

What would you buy for your fellow posters. Whacky --- Shoes Leazes mag --- Music Manc Toon --- Poster Kevin

CT, Berb has taken over your PC man! Ok then... Knock knock. Who's there? Dave. Dave who? Dave holds back tears as he realizes his mother's Alzheimers is getting worse.

And my favourite.... I went to the butchers the other day and I bet him 50 quid that he couldn't reach the meat off the top shelf. He said, "No, the steaks are too high." :lol:

I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn't find any.

A guy walks into the psychiatrist wearing only Clingfilm for shorts. The shrink says, "Well, I can clearly see you're nuts."