Is their anything we can realistically do?.

We have to face the facts... Ashley will not go until he has his pound of fatty flesh back from the club. Pardew will not go until Ashley has his pound of fatty flesh back and he has sold the club and the new owner sacks the useless cockney twat.. Pardew has no shame and will shame himself till the end of time in front of fans and press if it keeps him in a job. Us, the fans, will keep going to games because we love the club, whatever our relationship with the heirachy. I don't think other fans of other teams will ever understand this club and it's importance to the region.

 

I'll still go. I just can't stop as it's like a drug.
I think I'll just get more pissed before the match now to help numb the pain a bit.

 

Could all club together and get Pardew a one way ticket to Syria....

 

I don't know I already think this is going to be another anything can happen season, Stoke only having under 27% possession yet beating the current champions says it all along with MU having an absolute mare of a start, Arsenal being held by Leicester and so on, I am optomistic by nature so can't get into the doom mode so many have and have enough real problems in my life to add more, beating Sunderland this season would be good though.

 

May I suggest a Pardew lead scouting trip to Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, Iceland (near the volcano) and any place Ebola has been reported.

Either he won't come back or he'll find a gem that's that willing to play for pennies (just desperate to move away). Either way we win!!

 

I actually think we will see him cowering in the dug out during the Hull game. He's public enemy number 1 at the minute.

 

Personally we cannot change Ashley, impossible. He's unmovable, uncaring. We have to accept all we can change is the figurehead. Pushing Pardew out is the only chance for change, but as has been rightfully pointed out, there's very little guarantee we'll upgrade.

 

I'm also not in the doom and gloom camp. Deadline day was disappointing but we don't know how things will play out yet. We can't tell after three games how the new signings will turn out and we don't know how ready the youngsters are to step up (thinking CB more than anything). Mr T might yet be right and we could be miles adrift at the bottom, but equally there is still a possibility that things wont be as bad as most seem to fear. I know that takes a big dose of optimism to imagine, but I'm an optimist.

 

I'm not in the doom and gloom camp either. I think it achieves **** all. I think we'll struggle but I think we will stay up. Obviously that is not exciting and not what anyone would want but I've kind of just accepted nothing will be changing in the forseeable future regardless whether fans go, don't go, protest etc etc.

The fans want Pardew out in the main. I honestly believe this will achieve jack ****. He'll be replaced by someone of similar ilk. To change the club, there is simply only one solution. Change the owner. Nothing the fans do can achieve this. There will those who say "well if we took that stance, women would never have got the vote blah blah". Get real, this is a football club, not some huge cultural change. The owner is thick skinned and the fans will never unite as one to force change. This has talked about for 7 years or so, people just have to accept the fanbase is too diverse and has too many different standpoints to unite. I'll quite openly admit I cringe at a lot of our fans on match day when things are not quite right. The young thickos chanting HBA etc or moaning non stop, its a bit embarrassing support at times.

 

Agree that that was a completely unrealistic comparison. When there are ills in society then the population has no option but to accept injustice or stand up to it and force change. They can't leave this world and join a new planet. Whether we like it or not (and I don't) football is now a business and Mike Ashley owns ours. There is a choice though now. For those who no longer support Newcastle United because of the owner they can choose to take their support to another established club (never understood how anyone can ever change allegiance like that) or if they feel that this club is no longer the club they began supporting they can start a new one and fight their way up through the leagues like FC United of Manchester are trying to do. What I don't understand anyone doing though is continuing to 'support' this club and hoping we lose and that we are not successful just to make a point. I know the vast majority of people unhappy with Ashley and Pardew are not wanting us to lose to make life difficult for the owner but some are and I cannot understand how anyone can want their team to lose.

 

Exactly it is your team or it isn't. the rest of it has nothing to do with fans. We don't buy players, we don't appoint managers and so on. Of course in a utopia the custodians of the club are in tune with the majority of the support. To me there is no logic at all to supporting a club but hoping it to lose. that is not support at all. It is almost like a desire to piss and moan.

 

Now hang on a cotton pickin' minute here, chaps - let me put it to you like this; since Pardew's appointment, have Newcastle United for the most part had a better or worse squad than the following:

Stoke City
Birmingham City*
Cardiff City
Swansea*
Bradford
Sunderland
Hull
Wigan Athletic*

You'd be hard pressed to argue that with all the opinions around the owner and all the failings of our transfer policy, we have by and large had a better pool of players than the above teams.

Why the above teams? They have all featured in a League or FA Cup Final since Pardew came to Toon. The one's with a * have all WON the competitions they were in, Wigan most notably the FA Cup and the other two the League Cup. I'm sure there's going to be opinions as to why this all happened - no-ones likely to suggest Alex McLeish is a top manager, but all I mean to highlight is the owner has put in place enough of a squad to challenge for a trophy. Are the fans not right to want the useless tool who's barely managed a 1st round victory to exit the club in the long run?

Perhaps you're right, perhaps there's no place for kind of social politics. But for me, I think the club can achieve more with a better manager in charge. I don't agree with the thought of Toon fans' wages continuing to supplement his lifestyle, I don't think he is good for the club in the long run, so whilst not necessarily praying for a defeat, I can see why so many would subscribe to the theory of 2 x defeats = Pardew out.

For me, accepting it, embracing apathy, is against the entire point of football. Whether its a sport or merely showbiz is open to debate, but either way entertainment is a fairly significant part of what I, as a fan, want and expect. That and trust, faith or belief in the bloke in the dugout and the players on the pitch, so that when they step out to represent me and that part of my life, I can feel pride somehow whatever the result. I should be able to believe in what the leader of that team is trying to do, that he is trying to represent the values I grew up with. I get I can't pick him, but when he is so categorically wrong and so fundamentally against the values I uphold, as a fan of this football club, then I want him gone at all costs. I also propose that relegation is possible with him at the helm, I don't want to see that, so if two defeats reduce that chance, I'll take it.

 

I am not sure where this idea has crept in that football is an entertainment, it is a sporting contest not a choice of what to watch at the multiplex, I don't go to a rugby match or cricket match for the purpose of entertainment I go to watch a contest between 2 sides, certainly wasn't an entertainment on a freezing wet saturday in the 70's when it was mostly played in a mud bath and with the physicality of a punch up down the pub, even rugby today is cleaner than then.

 

Football is all of these things surely. A contest, entertainment and more than ever a business. It seems our fanbase like a many others, struggle to come to terms with the latter part taking precedence these days. It is a shame in a lot of ways. Like or not though, this is where we are as a sport.

I can't help think its a bit like Gladiator. "Are you not entertained?" We seem to have developed this devine right to entertainment. I most certainly do want to be entertained, I do wish for us to play a lovely attacking brand of football. But supporting a team surely runs much deeper than that? There are so many other thing to consider. Otherwise how do the sides lower down the leagues fans keep turning out week in week out when they are languishing in mid table of league 2? Surely they would just have no fans whatsoever?

For me we have been spoilt in the none too distant past and it affects everything that happens today. We now expect. An expectant fanbase has advantages and disadvantages. It can will a team on and motivate an owner if they are of a certain type. However when they are not or the team is struggling, it really can be a barrier.

 

Again I look at it as what it is, a competition, it's about winning, points, table position, the FA Cup is a competition as is the league cup, you don't get points for flowing play, there aint no panel of judges with score cards deciding the outcome of a game, triple axle with a step over, Sky have sold this idea of entertainment cause that's the money shot, the pot of gold. If you asked Mourinho would he say better to entertain or better to win.

 

Yes its really simple but not everyone will do the same so we all take it up the arse for eternity.

 

So what is it that we could all do to stop Mike Ashley raking in millions from the Sky TV money and getting his Sports Direct brand getting free advertising worldwide on televised football? Genuinely interested.

 

Its true but as a fan I don't think they have be mutually exclusive. So utopia from a fan viewpoint will always be winning and being entertained. It invokes that feel good factor we all love. I'd certainly rather watch a team finish 10th entertaining, rather than a team humping it and finishing 10th. These are all personal preferences, it just so happens there is an ethos embedded within our club (which should be commended) of entertaining football. My point is more than when that isn't the case and everything isn't rosy in the garden, I don't suddenly want my team to lose to make a point. I think personally supporters take the rough with the smooth. Maybe a fan is more of a temporary thing where there are certain stipulations attached to their support. I just think though like LHTN says, surely if you are deeply unhappy, rather than keep maintaining the involvement with the side but wishing defeats, you'd be better off taking your "support" to a club who fits what you're looking for. I've seen bad, good, excellent, awful and a variety of other things supporting Newcastle. I just roll with the punches.

 

**** sake. I don't log on for 12 hours and we have some kind of socialist revolution taking place on the board...

Settle down Enjolras... I mean DMW

 

We do have a right to see our players at least look like they give a **** though. At times some of our lot look like they simply don't care anymore. That's all I want, effort and some dignity from our club. Sadly whilst Pardew's tongue is firmly cleaning out fatties colon there's no chance of that I'm afraid.