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Chris Gray on NUFC under Ashley


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Reading the various blogs linked to the local papers (this one included) might make you think that Newcastle had had a bad season and face a horrendous future. All we hear from supporters - who, if their comments are anything to go by, are a pretty brainless lot – is that Ashley is the devil incarnate and is to blame for everything. I am no Ashley apologist, but this will just not do – not least because it only serves to undermine and damage the club we all supposedly love.

 

Look at the facts, you blind, knee-jerking idiots (sorry, nothing personal intended).

 

Newcastle United have just finished in a better premiership position than when Ashley took over. Fact.

True, we’ve been down and come up again but I’m with those who claim that was a good thing (although it didn’t feel like it at the time).

 

The finances at Newcastle are immeasurably better than they were then. Football clubs have to get their financial house in order first – then they might have a chance of moving forward on a firm footing. Fact.

 

Ashley now has his own man in the job – like him or loathe him, Pardew is Ashley’s choice and there is a chance he will get funds to spend. The predecessors were either inherited (Allardyce), short-term (Kinnear and, initially, Hughton) or foisted on him (Keegan, Shearer). For the first time, he has his own man in post. Fact.

 

Some (not all) of Wise’s young recruits are now coming through. We Newcastle supporters have never been prepared to be patient – we want it all now – but it will be worth waiting for the likes of Vuckic, Kadar etc (I exclude Ranger, although I expect he’ll do very well wherever he goes). Fact (more or less).

 

Gone are the days when we become the laughing-stock of everyone else by paying crazy money (transfer fees and wages) for dreadful players. The successful clubs in the future will be those who are sensible, prudent and build gradually. (OK, freak situations like Man City might threaten that – but we still await their real success, and will it last?) Fact (in my opinion).

 

And – I’m not sure quite how the Ashley-haters deal with this one – Mike Ashley has pumped over £100 million of his own money into the club. It may be a loan, but without it no-one seems quite sure where we’d have been. Fact.

 

And finally, whether we like it or not, Mr Ashley has bought us. It’s a free country, governed largely by property and ownership and money – and Ashley owns the whole thing from Jose Enrique down to the light switch in the gents toilet. Fact.

 

Now for the controversial bit. I was born in Elswick and Albert Bennett, Gordon Marshall and Dave Elliott were playing in the first game I ever saw. I was at Hillsborough, Wembley etc and was even one of the 7,000 at the Norwich game at the end of the pre-Keegan relegation season. I am black and white, North East through and through. But … the trouble with us is that we don’t live in the real world. Our culture up here is one of dependency – it’s someone else’s fault. I know it’s not pc to say it, but we are the antithesis of entrepreneurial flair. Ask anyone who tries to stir up business activity in this region. They won’t say it publicly but they’ll admit it in private. We know nothing, or so it seems, of economic reality. Football clubs cannot just throw away huge contracts – it makes absolute sense to do what we’ve done with Barton and – allegedly – Nolan. Footballers get far too much money and the game can’t afford them. Ashley isn’t being greedy by seeing that – he’s being a good businessman. That’s what Newcastle United have needed since the days of Stan Seymour, Lord Westwood, Gordon McKeag. Arsenal have been unlucky not to have won a trophy in the last few years but they’ve won plenty over the years under Wenger. Arsenal are the soundest club in the country – the only club in the top four who are virtually certain to be still there in ten years time. Wenger and his board will not spend unless they absolutely have to – they have spent a lot less than Newcastle since Wenger took over but have developed from within and bought young, hungry players at prices often well below £1m. (Vieira, for example, at £350k). When from time to time they’ve bought big, the player has almost always been a great success.

 

That’s the model to follow. All you Ashley-bashers really haven’t a clue.

;) ;)

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Reminds me of the infamous 'FACT' press release the cretins released a while back.

 

Aye we're sounder financially, but the club is still run like a circus.

 

You'd think decka had better Things to do with his time.

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More 'I'm right, you're wrong' shite.

 

None of us know how things will pan out. We can guess, surmise, pontificate all we want, but we just don't know. It may all come good - and, unless one is a complete moron, we all hope it does; nothing would make us happier than to see NUFC challenging for the top, in europe and winning cups. Doing all that under the current financial set-up would be even better. However, I just don't THINK it will.

 

Thanks, Mr soopafan Chris Gray - I bet there are no other supporters who were at all those games/places you mentioned from by-gone days who disagree with you. If they do, they, of course, are wrong.

 

'Ashley has ploughed all that money in. Fact.' HE FUCKIN' HAD TO - FACT - TO PROTECT HIS STUPID INVESTMENT.

 

'Wise's players are coming through' - I don't feel I have the necessary vocab to comment on this. Fact.

 

'Keegan was foisted on Ashley.' I feel a shit coming on.

 

 

A bright, sunny morning (I had a nice shag about thirty minutes ago also ;)) has been somewhat tainted by reading that tosh.

 

Is 'Elswick and Albert Bennett' on Tyneside ??

Edited by snakehips
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More 'I'm right, you're wrong' shite.

 

None of us know how things will pan out. We can guess, surmise, pontificate all we want, but we just don't know. It may all come good - and, unless one is a complete moron, we all hope it does; nothing would make us happier than to see NUFC challenging for the top, in europe and winning cups. Doing all that under the current financial set-up would be even better. However, I just don't THINK it will.

 

Thanks, Mr soopafan Chris Gray - I bet there are no other supporters who were at all those games/places you mentioned from by-gone days who disagree with you. If they do, they, of course, are wrong.

 

'Ashley has ploughed all that money in. Fact.' HE FUCKIN' HAD TO - FACT - TO PROTECT HIS STUPID INVESTMENT.

 

'Wise's players are coming through' - I don't feel I have the necessary vocab to comment on this. Fact.

 

'Keegan was foisted on Ashley.' I feel a shit coming on.

 

 

A bright, sunny morning (I had a nice shag about thirty minutes ago also ;)) has been somewhat tainted by reading that tosh.

 

Is 'Elswick and Albert Bennett' on Tyneside ??

 

And if he hadn't, or wasn't rich enough to ?????

 

Why was it a "stupid investment" ??

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he may be around the same age as me, but he's still been brainwashed.

 

He sounds like a right prick and if he's your age he should know better.

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he may be around the same age as me, but he's still been brainwashed.

 

He sounds like a right prick and if he's your age he should know better.

 

Experience suggests they don't ;)

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he may be around the same age as me, but he's still been brainwashed.

 

He sounds like a right prick and if he's your age he should know better.

 

He's a prick alright.

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More 'I'm right, you're wrong' shite.

 

None of us know how things will pan out. We can guess, surmise, pontificate all we want, but we just don't know. It may all come good - and, unless one is a complete moron, we all hope it does; nothing would make us happier than to see NUFC challenging for the top, in europe and winning cups. Doing all that under the current financial set-up would be even better. However, I just don't THINK it will.

 

Thanks, Mr soopafan Chris Gray - I bet there are no other supporters who were at all those games/places you mentioned from by-gone days who disagree with you. If they do, they, of course, are wrong.

 

'Ashley has ploughed all that money in. Fact.' HE FUCKIN' HAD TO - FACT - TO PROTECT HIS STUPID INVESTMENT.

 

'Wise's players are coming through' - I don't feel I have the necessary vocab to comment on this. Fact.

 

'Keegan was foisted on Ashley.' I feel a shit coming on.

 

 

A bright, sunny morning (I had a nice shag about thirty minutes ago also ;)) has been somewhat tainted by reading that tosh.

 

Is 'Elswick and Albert Bennett' on Tyneside ??

 

And if he hadn't, or wasn't rich enough to ?????

 

Why was it a "stupid investment" ??

 

are you "Chris Gray" ?

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looking for who this kid is, expecting some sort of self-appointed spokesman in the Wraith-esque self-promotion mould.

 

Seemingly he's just some kid that posts in sky comments, chron type stuff i think.

 

More with the Mickylove here

 

"Children want it all now, now, now. Just like Newcastle supporters." (shut up you hairy purple teat. FACT)

 

http://www.nufcviews.com/

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