A Hostile Takeover

Peter Perfect wrote...

At the end of the day if Freddie Shepherd REALLY loves Newcastle United (as he always claims he does), he will sell up and allow the club to move forward.
However, if he digs in and wont budge , he will soon become the most hated figure on Tyneside EVER!!! Surely the pieman doesn't want that.

Posted by: Peter Perfect  | May 25, 2007 10:01 AM

david veitch wrote...

Fat Freddy will just have to buy a yacht in the medditeranean and cry over his humiliation.
I can even see a huge new stadium, but i wonder where. Mike may have to build the odd swimming pool or conference centre for Newcastles council.
Hugely exciting isn't it.

Posted by: david veitch  | May 25, 2007 10:10 AM

Trevor Stone wrote...

I am sure I remember an interview recently when Shepherd said he would sell if a buyer was found. It seems to me that Mike Ashley is just the sort of person Newcastle needs to give Newcastle some hope for the future. Why is Shepherd so reluctant to sell? He will make a handsome profit after all.

Posted by: Trevor Stone  | May 25, 2007 11:10 AM

Commulus wrote...

With one mighty blow, the forces of evil tumble down the mountainside, the mighty Greybeard was replenished and struck out as the dark lord lay wounded and snarling his last curses into the watery still night air…and they all lived happily ever after!

Note From Luke
Commulus you're back again! Where have you been this time? One of the first and most loyal blog readers,yet silent for so long!

Posted by: Commulus  | May 25, 2007 12:21 PM

Dave C wrote...

Here's hoping that Freddy Shepherd is not so bitter and twisted that he will stand in the way of the best thing to have happened to NUFC for nearly 20 years. I believe that the buy out could herrald the dawn of a new and exciting time for Toon fans around the world and I for one am totally made up about this development. Freddy, be a man and accept you have been out smarted, sell you shares and let us get on with becoming the top 3 football club we all know NUFC should be.

Posted by: Dave C  | May 25, 2007 12:54 PM

Commulus wrote...

I would be a tedious sort of wizard if I was totally reliable, I metamorphosed into yet another incarnation…I am always here in spirit, when the need is greatest, and you are not writing about Cricket. I must go...

Posted by: Commulus  | May 25, 2007 1:00 PM

trev wrote...

Come on Freddie, on yer bike, let's have a proper businessman at the helm.

With a billionaire on the scene there appears to be some consternation that we might become another Chelsea with Prima Donnas and Playboys; er....? Haven't we got a boatload of those already?

I do not believe Sam is a bloke who will countenance these sorts of behaviours, so the tens of millions we have seen wasted in the past 10 years or so are unlikely to be done so again. Anyway, here's to a brighter future!

PS Luke: You have been chastised recently for your punctuation. "Wild's" of Northumberland? That's a possessive apostrophe and "wilds" in this context is plural and doesn't need one. Do journalists (plural here, no need) have to have a degree in English or even a GCSE?

Note From Luke
Ah yes but I'm talking about THE wild of Northumberland, which means an apostrophe is needed. Look, I'm digging myself out of a whole - deliberate mistake! My mum is also very annoyed by my sloppy use of the English language on this blog, I guess it's because I'm so keen to get it up on the site for you to read, I don't take enough time checking through it!
I got an A in English Literature and Language at GCSE and I did History at University and got a 2:1, so there!

Posted by: trev  | May 25, 2007 1:38 PM

True Mag wrote...

Do you need a hand packing Freddy? I'll gladly offer my services, I'll even help your sons pack as well.
Cheerio, bye bye, I'd like to say thanks for everything you've done, but it's very little, so I won't bother.

Posted by: True Mag  | May 25, 2007 3:20 PM

Kevin Hayes wrote...

There is a quotation
“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending� from where it originates I do not know, but it seems it may be apt as far as the current situation at Newcastle United is concerned.
We need to forget about the beginning, forget where the start began of what the team has become(a mid-table, mediocre collection of in the main disinterested under-achievers)which if we are honest was way back when we snatched second place from the jaws of winning the title in 1995/96, despite the intervening years of European qualification and little else.
This start of slide is looked at with rose-tinted glasses and statements like "we might not have won the title, but we didn't half play some good stuff" -the only part of that sentence that matters is the bit about not winning the title!
Forget about it, move on!
As the quote says we can't go back, so we need to stop harking back to it and come to terms with over 10 years of underachievement!
If this takeover is the real deal, and Mr Ashley is serious in his apparent reported bid to make Newcastle United a force to be reckoned with, we need to welcome him with open arms, and Freddy (who despite what people may say has always supported his managers, even if some have taken us backwards rather that forwards)should take his money and retire gracefully especially if his health is not what it should be.
Freddy can retire and leave a legacy of appointing probably the best ENGLISH manager available as his final act as Chairman.
Don't get me wrong Freddy has his faults, probably too numerous to list, but we should let him ride off into the sunset a very wealthy man, and he should realise that this is what I and many others I have spoken to see as the best way to move the club forward from here.
The start of a new end for Newcastle United begins with this hopefully inevitable takeover - a new end that sees us competing on a level playing field with the so called big four!
A new end that sees that competition not on a one off, one season wonder basis, but every season.
A new end that maybe (God forbid) actually sees us win a trophy or two!
There is at last a positive vibe that can be felt about the club we love, a club that many many football supporters around the country look to as their "second team".
Please Freddy don't let this opportunity pass us by.
Let's forget about the start and where we came from to get where we are!
Let's look forward to the start of the new ending!

Posted by: Kevin Hayes  | May 25, 2007 5:05 PM

Hugh Gallagher wrote...

Why should we post a comment then if it needs to be approved?
The comments are tame at best. Maybe they have been doctored to prevent libel eh? The thing is, most of the comments towards Freddie me lad are fair comment. But what is the point of freedom of speech if you can't use it?
So why not ask questions of Freddy's inflated salary? Does anyone really need to be paid over £500,000 a year when most fans scrape to find £500 for a season ticket?
The man is obscene and crass. If he doesn't sell up the will be one almighty scene at the first home game of the season - uglier than that of Sheffield United or Blackburn.
Freddy, do us all a favour and leave. You've made the club and the city of Newcastle a laughing stock with your ill conceived comments and stupidity.

Posted by: Hugh Gallagher  | May 28, 2007 1:42 PM

Steinar Ranheim wrote...

Hi Luke, I'm sitting up here in Northern Norway and as a Norwegian I probably should have nothing to say, but English fooball is BIG over here, and almost everybody interested in football follows an English team more ardent than the Norwegian teams. There aren't that many of us magpies though! I've read your blogs and everything else you've been writing about NUFC plus followed Newcastle's every kick on the ball for years. And every year it has been much of the same. A lot of hopeless signings, some hopeless managers (and those who did reasonably well, like Robson, were sacked,). Roeder seemed to be a sound manager, but because of the injuries he really never was given a real chance. Then again, his tactics gave been questioned. What on earth happened in Holland, after that superb performance at home??? But whatever manager, whatever more or less hopeless signings, always present, Freddie Shepherd. I think Ashley can prove to be a good thing for the club, especially if he can oust Shepherd. This could be the start of something new and really, really big. But, if NUFC under Ashley becomes a new Chelsea, and achieves the same as Chelsea, will the club remain in the heart of the Geordies, or will it change into something that the wonderful and loyal people of Newcastle are not familiar with?

Note From Luke
You appear to know plenty about what's going on Steinar. Bet you wish you'd chosen to support Manchester United though?! Nah, I'm sure you don't. So why did you choose Newcastle United or did they choose you?

Posted by: Steinar Ranheim  | May 28, 2007 11:32 PM

jeddi wrote...

hi luke im in norway aswell(from walker though) and love your blog, it keeps me and the lads who work away upto date with the latest toon news. If freddie doesnt go he will be HATED with as much passion as you see at SJP week in week out, if he does care, he will go asap. Shepherds a canny buisness man but haway man hes not a patch on ashley and he wouldnt be putting so much money on the table if he didnt have plans.so i hope weve heard the last of freddies stupid comments(half the time i think he just likes to see his face in the paper)
anyway just like to say "alreet" to Steiner glad you picked the toon unlike these glory hunting mufc and lfc fans over here. HAWAY THE NORWEIGAN MAGS!!!(TUSEN TAKK)

Note From Luke
Is there are Norwegian Branch of the Leyton Orient Supporter's Association as well?

Posted by: jeddi  | May 30, 2007 9:24 PM

Steinar Ranheim wrote...

Hi again Luke, I lived in Newcastle (Gosforth) in 1997/98. At that time my boyhood fascination for football had kind of dried up. I read the results and was happy with that. But there's nothing like the athmosphere of English football, so I decided that I had to watch one game, simply because I could then brag about the fact that I had watched English football in England! So I went to St.James' Park on a cold, rainy autumns Saturday and to put a long story short. The moment they played the theme from Local Hero I became a dieheard Newcastle supporter. Watching every game I could, reading everything about the club in your excellent newspaper (which I subscribed to that year). I have continued this back in Norway. Watching every game possible, reading every word in the Journal, NUFC.com and others. Silly isn't it, I'm a relatively normal school teacher nearing 44, and my football interest is greater than when I was 14... :-)But I'm very choosy, I only watch NUFC. The FA cup for example. When Newcastle crashes out of the competition, then my interest in it is also gone. It's below my dignity to watch a final like the one between ManU and Chelsea...The great thing about being a Newcastle supporter is that it's NEVER boring. I mean the big four win their games, and they finish 1st or 2nd and so on and they simply move forward like a big ship. We don't do it that way! We have a chairman who gets the wrong managers and then sacks them at the wrong moments. We have players that were excellent before they came here, and they prove excellent when they have left. Jon Dal Thommasson is an example of what I mean. We can play excellent football (AZ at home) and then we go over there to bag it. And we manages to loose by exactly 2 goals and crash out in a spectacular way...Never boring!

I'll have my holiday on Tyneside this year, so keep up the good work so I can enjoy your paper and a pint of decent beer this summer!

Greetings from Steinar

Posted by: Steinar Ranheim  | May 30, 2007 10:07 PM

Rick Anderson wrote...

Will Mr. Shepherd be reluctant to go because he loves Newcastle United?

Why, certainly! Fred's loved every minuite of it.
Apart from the prestige, there's the £500,000.00 pay packet each year; the extreemly favourable contracts for warehousing merchandise that his privatly owned companies profit by; there's the land deals that have made fortunes for Newcastle United Sporting Club (a company privately owned by the Halls and Shepherds - not to be confused with Newcastle United FC plc) and, lest we forget, there are the all expense paid visits to the flesh-pots that came to light, so embarrassingly (for us!) after the Mail on Sunday's sting, not so long ago.

Yes. Poor old Fred. He will have lost much more than any of us mere supporters. Which new lamb will he look to fleece next?

Posted by: Rick Anderson  | June 1, 2007 9:17 AM

Ron wrote...

As long as Mike Ashley gets over 50% of the shares I don't care whether or not Shepherd sells. Ashley would make sure there were no dividends, Shepherd would be sacked as Chairman (unfortunately with a £1m pay out) and Ashley's offer price would reduce to a fraction of where it stands at present (as the announcement about the offer warned in not very veiled terms). It would be great if the fat one missed out on the bulk of the £30m pay-day he is pretending to have to think about at the moment, but he will certainly sell up.

Posted by: Ron  | June 4, 2007 6:54 PM

Ron wrote...

Told you he would sell!

Posted by: Ron  | June 6, 2007 6:19 PM