Article: NUFC – An official fan's statement | Football, Newcastle

This is my first post on not606, although I did on few occasions submit articles to the BBC forum in the few years before its demise.
So a big hello to everyone and well done for making the Newcastle section clearly the most active and passionate – only to be expected though wasn't it?

However, in response to the fact many of these threads could exist on Twitter with a wealth of characters left to spare, I thought I'd try and start something more substantial to read! In the process I may well have broken the record for the longest post ever, so I hope you're sitting comfortably…

Rather than peddle the same rants of disappointment about the lack of meaningful investment on a new and exciting striker for NUFC this week, I thought I'd respond to the official statement from the club today by making a wider point about the approach of our board. Yes I too was amongst the many who still held hopes that fanciful promises would be kept and we'd get some imaginative and inspiring signing through the doors, and I was dismayed it never happened. We're mostly angry though because the money banked on outgoings versus the player expenditure shows that the owner fails to demonstrate the kind of passion shown by the punters. I don' t think we care too much for marquee signings that flatter to deceive anymore, we've been there and worn the shirt… literally. Nor do I think settling for targets that compromise the kind of player we originally wanted to bring in, or merely bolstering the squad with desperate journeymen is a good transfer policy.
Some of the supposed names we (allegedly) tried to snatch were completely out of the blue, and for many of us to feel gutted we didn't pinch Bryan Ruiz (who has a great ratio in Holland but few of us will actually know) or Liam Ridgewell smacks of something more worrying about English football. Not just English football for that matter, but also our society at large.

Spending for success, fast-tracking achievement without graft, signing a player and getting bodies in regardless of their real value to the squad. These symbolic gestures only last as long as we what end up with on the pitch, and we know damn well that there's a lot of expensive dross to get saddled with going down this route. I'm not defending Mike Ashley or the regime, for reasons I'll explain, but he has at least shown a defiance against the Billionaire Sugar daddy approach popularised by Chelsea or Man City. Personally I don't like what these clubs are doing either – for me there's a very hollow victory in buying titles, despite my desperation for Newcastle to lift even just the Carling Cup. Man City will probably win big this year, but buying all the best players to ensure success is like putting chips on every number of the roulette wheel. You know your number will come up but you don't feel like much of a winner when it does.

So what's the alternative? Surely in that case I should be delighted by this lot and the more 'organic' approach to developing a squad?

Well my grievance with this board is more about the attitude and motivation behind the way they operate. For those of us lucky enough to have Newcastle United in the blood, however testing that can be, we know this club is uniquely special because of the fervent support. It's phenomenal, and those inside the game regardless of allegiance ALL recognise that fact and it is no coincidence. We are still a massive club because of that very point, with history and geography also undoubtedly on our side. Having a 52,000 capacity stadium in a one club city does have implied advantages, but so what? Yeah, yeah it's been thousands of years since we won a trophy but luckily most of us appreciate football we can identify with and be proud of while the winning of titles is secondary. We like to be entertained and even the agonising drama of daring to triumph and ultimately falling short. That poetic injustice, the roller-coaster, the sporadic triumphs against adversity are all what makes us emotionally closer to this club – but ultimately everything comes back to the fans.
What infuriates me most of all about Ashely and the board is that they don't show any desire to engage with what is easily the best asset they have in and around St. James' Park. They don't want to talk even to communicate news we don't want to hear, they desecrate the stadium with tacky signage, and make embarrassingly public footballing decisions that seem almost designed to hurt supporters. Our natural assumption becomes a perception that they have utter contempt for us because they don't bother to explain it otherwise.

All I can say is that, as a football fan, if I was an owner or chairman of NUFC or any club for that matter it would be embracing these things that I would be most excited by. Talking to fellow fans, being interested in doing whatever I could to incorporate their vision for the team, albeit within certain confines for not endangering the survival of the club. Organising and attending local events and representing the club at independent NUFC charitable matches or dinners in a hands-on capacity are all opportunities to converse. Newcastle United is so important to the surrounding community, you couldn't help but be drawn in and inspired if you had that common footballing bond. Mike Ashley probably does support Tottenham Hotspur for all I care, but if he really loved football and not just the business interests attached to it he would handle things very differently. Surely even as a cynical money-grabber you'd at least attempt some PR, however phoney, to strengthen the ties between customer and product. Just keep the suckers on side and milk it. The current board is so arrogant to the fact we'll always come back no matter what that they don't even need to do this!

Ultimately though, anyone can spend money to show they care and Mike Ashley's unwillingness to do so isn't his crime. However to undervalue and trash the very things that still make NUFC so rich within an increasingly impoverished footballing world certainly is.

 

Longest. First post. Ever.


Good one though, especially the last few paragraphs

 

Hear hear

Welcome to the forum

 

Welcome to the forum and well done for your first post.

 

Firstly welcome, secondly, I enjoyed that very much sir, especially after a 6pack and a spliff! Some good points and reflection. If only fatty read this site!

There is no denying we have made some great singings but what he doesn't realise is that one extra forward would have won him a few more fans, prick. Will never trust them again, about anything!

 

Last check in of the evening and I read every word, well written and sound logical points ..

I agree that it is indeed a strange situation that the businessman in Ashley cannot employ simple business principles of communication .. doesn't even need to have seen a pigskin for that ..

 

Indeed welcome to the forum!

Great first post, i have to say, that was probably the most fluent and well worded article i've seen on this site

 

You sir do not have a monomoob.

Great first post and I look forward to reading further articles.

Welcome to the board.

 

Thanks everybody, glad you liked the sentiments of the article and hopefully it represented the way many of us feel...

Cheers!

 

Great post.

Can't think of anything to add to that, I agree with every word.

 

Now if I can just distill that essay down into one snappy and coherent question...

http://tinyurl.com/43tdru9

They still wouldn't answer it anyway!