Christmas Tree

You do, I agree however you dont get so used to it that you look forward to the down season in order to experience the rush of promotion. Thats akin to a junkie going cold turkey with the express view that when he does shoot up it'll be so much more exhilerating. No club has a divine right to being in the top flight however some clubs have the necessary levels of support to ensure enough turnover to keep them there. We are one of those clubs. Fuck off man, you know exactly what I was saying about relegation and promotion and the nailbiting "excitement" of both. And with regard to I dont see how we do. We were not self sufficient Under Shepherd last few years and havent been since. We couldnt afford it keep on raking up the debts trying to keep up. Thats why us and so many others are / were really fucked. It amazes me that some seemingly sensible people on this board think that crowd size and tv money is enough to compete with the big boys. It simply is untrue. You need a benefactor these days. Those who simply think we can go back to the spend spend spend days of Shepherd are fucking clueless. A different approach is needed and if and I agree its a fucking huge if, Ashley has learnt his lesson and is interested, then he could be our best long term route back to a serious contender. I dont think there are any quick fixes however if some of you have any you should spell them out, rather than just moaning about Ashley. He is a British Multi million / soon to be billionaire, his empire is growing again, his brand fits in well for world wide promotion. Hopefully he will get it right in the summer. If not the prospect of a sale to a Barry Mort type is truly horrific.

Fuck off Craig....In 1982 you were 5 for fucks sake!!!! Hardly a really aware life and death football fan. That makes you about 14 when Keegan took over as manager which just confirms what I was saying. Its not your fault tho.

Says it all. Fuck off, Chris will lead us to glory.

The reason you're in the pro-Ashley camp suddenly becomes clearer.... Relegation and promotion have been part of this club long before and will be long after Ashley. This is the world of football. Surely your not one of the god complex fans who think we have a divine right to be in the prem and challenging for Europe every season? We dont, as nice as it would be, we dont. God complex?? No. But I sure as hell do not 'enjoy' relegation. I enjoy this club being successful. But the point your missing Craig is that for most fans, at most clubs, most of the time, us included......You are not going to be succesful. There is a big problem with a lot of our support who arrived just before or during the Keegan years. You / They had it so good you were not used to being crap. A level of expectation has been created by our brief flirtation with title chasing and the champions league. And make no mistake it was a brief flirtation. Over the last 30 years we have usually been shite. So when you say you "enjoy the club being succesful", get it in perspective. We would all love the Keegan days to have continued and be up there winning titles, cups and playing in Europe but that doesnt mean you cant get enjoyment / excitement in the majority of years when we are not succesful. And you're missing my very clear point that I (and I'm guessing the majority of people on here) don't 'enjoy' relegation. The enjoy relegation context is taken out of context and you know it. I was referring to the excitement of football and that trying to win the league, win a cup, get into Europe etc are all exciting, but also in a nailbiting way, trying to avoid relegation and get promoted are also exciting. Football in this country is all about promotion and relegation from the prem down to the grass roots. You cant just have the glory. Expectation rarely falls in line with desire - that's the way of the world that we're all acutely aware of so there's no need to become patronising about perspective. It sounds very much to me that you get enjoyment out of the results rather than necessarily the performance which, I'm sorry, I just don't get. We'd likely get the results if we were playing in the Conference - would you still enjoy it? Yes I would still enjoy it because that would be our level of competition. However if it got to that stage then im sure a lot of glory fans would have fucked off. If you can ONLY enjoy games in the prem challenging for Europe then you are a pretty sad cookie in my book. Sure this season has been 'successful' in terms of the results. But it's been akin to playing FIFA 10 on the piss easy level and even then, we've made hard work of it at times. Comparing it to the last time we were in this position 17 years ago it's worlds apart - the performances were on another level to those of today. Maybe thats the problem, too many of you are used to winning on the piss easy level of FIFA 10 . Im guessing you wernt really into football last time we were really shit and that must be hard for those of you who arrived with Keegan. But we were really shit before Keegan and really succesful in the 50's. As a fan and while i appreciate it may not be nice, you have to get used to enjoying football whatever league you are in. And its also worth noting a hell of lot of fans will have enjoyed this season a lot more than they have others for a good while.

Leazes, not every remark is made with the Halls and Shepherds in mind. Putting them to one side ( go on, you can do it) surely being an old git 80% of your time as a Newcastle supporter has been watching an unsuccesful team. Infact our fathers would laugh at what we consider succesful. Winning cups in the 50's and Europe in the 60's. Football is about peaks and troughs for virtually every club.

The reason you're in the pro-Ashley camp suddenly becomes clearer.... Relegation and promotion have been part of this club long before and will be long after Ashley. This is the world of football. Surely your not one of the god complex fans who think we have a divine right to be in the prem and challenging for Europe every season? We dont, as nice as it would be, we dont. God complex?? No. But I sure as hell do not 'enjoy' relegation. I enjoy this club being successful. But the point your missing Craig is that for most fans, at most clubs, most of the time, us included......You are not going to be succesful. There is a big problem with a lot of our support who arrived just before or during the Keegan years. You / They had it so good you were not used to being crap. A level of expectation has been created by our brief flirtation with title chasing and the champions league. And make no mistake it was a brief flirtation. Over the last 30 years we have usually been shite. So when you say you "enjoy the club being succesful", get it in perspective. We would all love the Keegan days to have continued and be up there winning titles, cups and playing in Europe but that doesnt mean you cant get enjoyment / excitement in the majority of years when we are not succesful.

There new manager has them fired up and challenging for everything.

Because he cant get back on Newcastle Online and "win" his argument. Its a sad situation and he needs to move on.

The reason you're in the pro-Ashley camp suddenly becomes clearer.... Relegation and promotion have been part of this club long before and will be long after Ashley. This is the world of football. Surely your not one of the god complex fans who think we have a divine right to be in the prem and challenging for Europe every season? We dont, as nice as it would be, we dont.

If your only excitement as a newcastle fan is challenging for Europe then you are going to have an awful lot of wasted seasons.

In honour of the kings first game i'll go for 3-1

You can't tell me that the rollercoaster of the last 18 months hasn't been exciting!!!! This is football you know not chess or tiddlywinks. Relegation is just as much part of football as anything else. Or did you all prefer those dreary non entity seasons we've experienced over the years. Gut wrenching to get relegated, exciting heading for promotion. If you don't enjoy relegation and promotion you should find a new hobby.

You are aware that this sterling job Ashley has done, is put us into our lowest league position for nearly 20 years ? And one of the most exciting periods of the last several years but hey ho.

In seriousness Leazes, I'm not sure what you mean by accept lower standards. I wasn't sure we had a choice on the matter or could effect it. Even for those of us who have so far boycotted by our wallets, it's still your team, good or bad

They said they've made mistakes and want to put them right. Its not confession, they are not going to go through each mistake by name and apologise for it to tot up the number of hail marys.. Be gracious enough to accept the apology. All owners / boards are here to make a profit, however Ashleys probably the only owner who so far hasnt. Appointing Shearer would have been a disaster imo With regard to the rest of your post I agree with Oz and find it very emotional and invalid. Appointing Hughton has created stability. His mission was promotion and he has bought / loaned the right players to achieve it You have no idea what will happen come June.

Source? Various accadacca threads for starters

Yes

Your whole statment is massively flawed. The old regime didn't live within their means. As a fan i was over the moon with Owen's arrival, but adding 10m debt a year meant it was a risk we simply couldn't afford to take. As custodians of the club there job was to rationalise the risk/reward, but they run it like fans, getting carried away with the hype - and rather than minimising the risk by loading his contract with clauses if we didn't make Europe they bent over and took one from his agent. People who critise the old regime don't come to the match thinking its monolpoly viewing players like financial assest. They were just sick of players like Kieron 'f**kin' Dyer picking up £80k a week.... I'd love to hear you justification for Dyer being on £80k a week, as we gave him that knowing he was a sick note! Also, I think our views of Ashley's business model is also incorrect. I dont see his aim to make us into profitable entity, just a self sufficent one. He brought in more players in January than any other club. Ok, Best may not live up to his name, but he's a player that fits our needs perfectly and you have to be a realist, there were no better players availible. Maybe Victor Moses, but his agent made my blood boil, the goon was constantly on Sky Sports bigging him up spouting rubbish about Real Madrid being interested link. Under the old regime we would have taken one from his agent to get him. Sure Ashleys made mistakes, but I truely belive he is learning. Unlike some stick in the muds on here I see myself as a quite reasonable fan. Frankly there is nothing in what you say that is unreasonable and a lot of truth in it. The problem is, as usual some what it to be black and white when there is shit loads of grey. They'll come round (except Leazes) eventually, just like the majority of fans already have and just like the doom mongers from earlier in the season already have. People have slowly woken up to the fact that the Halls and Shepherd were much better than they thought at the time, despite constantly disagreeing with me when I tried to tell them. I don't expect some of the Ashley supporters to admit that he has dragged the club massively downwards, even when it becomes even more obvious, say by the middle of next season when our bargain buys are struggling to stay up and we do nothing in January to help the situation other than bringing a few bargains and loans. You're right, I won't come round because he won't succeed. However, if he EVER does qualify for the Champions League, then I WILL admit that I was wrong, and give due credit for it, unlike some. i hardly think that's the case. just because ashley's reign so far has been worse than shepherd's doesn't change the fact that shepherd was incompetent. Leazes, you are like the bloke who blames his new wife for his ex wifes infidelitys. You are fighting your Newcastle Online battles infront of a different audience who dont give a shit. You really need to (if not already) sign back up under a new name......Leazes's nephew and get it all off your chest... then simply move on.

Your whole statment is massively flawed. The old regime didn't live within their means. As a fan i was over the moon with Owen's arrival, but adding 10m debt a year meant it was a risk we simply couldn't afford to take. As custodians of the club there job was to rationalise the risk/reward, but they run it like fans, getting carried away with the hype - and rather than minimising the risk by loading his contract with clauses if we didn't make Europe they bent over and took one from his agent. People who critise the old regime don't come to the match thinking its monolpoly viewing players like financial assest. They were just sick of players like Kieron 'f**kin' Dyer picking up £80k a week.... I'd love to hear you justification for Dyer being on £80k a week, as we gave him that knowing he was a sick note! Also, I think our views of Ashley's business model is also incorrect. I dont see his aim to make us into profitable entity, just a self sufficent one. He brought in more players in January than any other club. Ok, Best may not live up to his name, but he's a player that fits our needs perfectly and you have to be a realist, there were no better players availible. Maybe Victor Moses, but his agent made my blood boil, the goon was constantly on Sky Sports bigging him up spouting rubbish about Real Madrid being interested link. Under the old regime we would have taken one from his agent to get him. Sure Ashleys made mistakes, but I truely belive he is learning. Unlike some stick in the muds on here I see myself as a quite reasonable fan. Frankly there is nothing in what you say that is unreasonable and a lot of truth in it. The problem is, as usual some what it to be black and white when there is shit loads of grey. They'll come round (except Leazes) eventually, just like the majority of fans already have and just like the doom mongers from earlier in the season already have. I don't know that it's the majority, but a hell of a lot are simply apathetic towards Ashley because we are top of the league (that's the 2nd division. A lot of folk, I reckon, have forgotten that fact). If we do struggle next season, I have an inkling that that apathy will soon diminish. However, I sincerely hope we do finish mid-table or higher next term. We both know thats not true. Simply alot of fans are just enjoying the matches. We all know theres tough times ahead if we get promoted but basically theres fuck all we can do about it so we might as well enjoy a game at a time. Being NUFC, who knows what next year will bring.

We were either going to walk this league or collapse and I'm pretty certain that was the general view of the 'doom mongers'. I don't share your opinion that Mike Ashley is doing everything with NUFC's best interests at heart. Naughty naughty How so? Being a contrary fucker I could be wrong......But I dont recall saying "Mike Ashley is doing everything with NUFC's best interests at heart". Feel free to link if I did as I do talk shite from time to time.

Saw them on tv the other night. I haven't seen them since, but two goals struck me as shit goalkeeping. I may go and watch them again from the link up there /\ Tut give them credit snakey! They can only beat whats infront of them! I totally agree. But if a goalkeeper lies down before you have kicked the ball, even my old aunt would know how to score a goal. Carrolls 1st was an unstopable header...very few keepers at any level would of stopped that if any! Carrolls second, the keeper charged out to close the angle but stopped halfway...was still a very composed tidy finish. Lovenkrands the keeper was gash like but again a very composed finish...how many times have we seen players hit the keeprs legs or blaze over from that position? The run and through ball from routledge were immense.

Is anyone else a bit worried by the fact they had to selotape a piece of paper to it with an arrow and the instructions with how to turn it on? As for the webcam, I'd be so tempted if I was down there to suddenly pop in front of it, waving my arms around and shouting 'Help! Help!' Just for the craic like. can I draw attention to the tie the bloke with the wrench is wearing? Xmas wrapping paper? And bloke with arms folded.....Gotta be Leazes Mag saying......."If Shepherd was running this.........."

We were either going to walk this league or collapse and I'm pretty certain that was the general view of the 'doom mongers'. I don't share your opinion that Mike Ashley is doing everything with NUFC's best interests at heart. Naughty naughty

Your whole statment is massively flawed. The old regime didn't live within their means. As a fan i was over the moon with Owen's arrival, but adding 10m debt a year meant it was a risk we simply couldn't afford to take. As custodians of the club there job was to rationalise the risk/reward, but they run it like fans, getting carried away with the hype - and rather than minimising the risk by loading his contract with clauses if we didn't make Europe they bent over and took one from his agent. People who critise the old regime don't come to the match thinking its monolpoly viewing players like financial assest. They were just sick of players like Kieron 'f**kin' Dyer picking up £80k a week.... I'd love to hear you justification for Dyer being on £80k a week, as we gave him that knowing he was a sick note! Also, I think our views of Ashley's business model is also incorrect. I dont see his aim to make us into profitable entity, just a self sufficent one. He brought in more players in January than any other club. Ok, Best may not live up to his name, but he's a player that fits our needs perfectly and you have to be a realist, there were no better players availible. Maybe Victor Moses, but his agent made my blood boil, the goon was constantly on Sky Sports bigging him up spouting rubbish about Real Madrid being interested link. Under the old regime we would have taken one from his agent to get him. Sure Ashleys made mistakes, but I truely belive he is learning. Unlike some stick in the muds on here I see myself as a quite reasonable fan. Frankly there is nothing in what you say that is unreasonable and a lot of truth in it. The problem is, as usual some what it to be black and white when there is shit loads of grey. They'll come round (except Leazes) eventually, just like the majority of fans already have and just like the doom mongers from earlier in the season already have. People have slowly woken up to the fact that the Halls and Shepherd were much better than they thought at the time, despite constantly disagreeing with me when I tried to tell them. I don't expect some of the Ashley supporters to admit that he has dragged the club massively downwards, even when it becomes even more obvious, say by the middle of next season when our bargain buys are struggling to stay up and we do nothing in January to help the situation other than bringing a few bargains and loans. You're right, I won't come round because he won't succeed. However, if he EVER does qualify for the Champions League, then I WILL admit that I was wrong, and give due credit for it, unlike some. Leazes, you sometimes come across as reasonable and sensible, but sometimes I can only imagine you are part of the Shepherd family. Its not about the Halls and Shepherds, thats history. Ashley has dragged the club down, he's now dragging it back up. Well, even the Westwoods, Seymours etc got promoted after being relegated. So what ? To be continued......... After the pub