Extraordinary how much footballs changed since the 90s. You missed out wolves, West brom, stoke and Bournemouth from billionaire owners and probably many more.
I would love it, love it if it all went tits up and those Geordie muppets expecting instant success saw their team stuck in mid table despite spending a fortune !
You have to live up here to fully appreciate their sense of self entitlement. There is about 1 in every 1000 who isn't fully behind this without a care about who is really running the show. I can say with 100% confidence that if the Super League option is floated again they will be unanimously for it in stark contrast to the stance that the fans of those clubs had recently. Why should Newcastle deserve more success than Barnsley, Crewe, Middlesbrough or Lincoln for example, they don't. So now that the Premier League have opened the door and brought sport washing into our living rooms and bars and daily lives what's to stop North Korea, Iran and Russia buying up clubs? Nothing as far as I can tell. Who knows what's gone on behind the scenes to get this through, it's big money so I would say nothing would be off the table in terms of making it happen - I won't widley speculate in case I mysteriously disappear. Anyway here's one of Newcastle finest MPs, who has been working continously to get this through for a while, in action when she had different principles before the money came along
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...e-human-rights-groups-on-saudi-newcastle-deal Fans so blinded by money that they wave around the flag of Saudi Arabia without a care in the world for what goes off there.
I’m not trying to be a dick here, but honestly, if the exact same happened to Sunderland, I don’t doubt for a second that you wouldn’t be absolutely loving this.
I genuinely wouldn't buy a season ticket if our owners had direct links to such a bad regime such as Saudi - regardless of money or success. Our current owners are less than competent arguably but at least they are not responsible for human rights abuses and death. I also don't get the hate Ashley gets - yeah he's a dick but he's run the club without getting them in debt. And the hate for Bruce? He's a championship manager at best but seems like a pretty honest and decent bloke. Has anyone checked Porktalk? Surely they're apoplectic with rage that such a small club like Newcastle has been bought compared to their massiveness.
Fair point mate and I respect your view, I can honestly only speak for myself but no I wouldn't be loving it and would have huge concerns as to where the money was coming from. I had already followed closely the circumstances of that poor journalist who was hacked to death and I for one could not reconcile that from them buying my club. I agree many would love it if only for bragging rights but I think it would would be alot more balanced than how it is for our neighbours. The press would be balanced as well, we were slaughtered for appointing Paulo Di Canio as manager (the same person who is a legend at West Ham). Already journalists who had expressed the view that they didn't think it would go through have been threatened. Luke Edwards, the local Telegraph journalist, has had physical threats made against him and his family and was told to leave the North East for his own safety. I'm sorry but this isn't something I would want my club to be part of, blood money, no thank you.
Newcastle are the only club preventing either of the Dee Dars from being the most deluded set of fans. Pretty much every major population centre has achieved far more than them in sporting terms, and at least Sheffield can claim they've got two clubs fighting for their population. For a one club city they've achieved the square root of sod all, their most successful period is closer to the American Civil War than today, so to listen to them reckoning they should be a major force is laughable. They're Huddersfield with a few more fans.
In what sense are they deluded? Most don’t expect them to win much but they at least expect to have a go. They should be at least competing with clubs like Everton, Leicester & West Ham. When Mike Ashley took over they had the 3rd biggest gates in the country & were the 4th biggest shirt sellers. They’d played in Europe for most of the previous 15 years. Since then Ashley’s turned them into a club that just settles for staying in the league each season whilst encouraging the managers to play weakened teams in the cups. He’s turned a great stadium into a giant sports direct & sister companies advertising tool. They were paying less wages than clubs like Swansea & Watford whilst Ashley turned a huge profit season after season. Imagine someone taking us over & taking us from our ‘natural position’ at the bottom end of the championship to a lower mid table side in league one & not paying the wages that Donny & Rotherham did for example. We’d be fuming. They should be pushing for domestic cups & competing for a European position with the money they generate. If they aren’t then they’re been badly run.
All this billionaire owner stuff is just an illusion. These billionaires and their money take the game further away from its working-class roots but those very working - class fans in the main lap it up, deluded by the prospect that their historic club, now run by people who don't give a toss about anything but money, are able to compete with other billionaire funded teams which similarly dont give a toss about their fans either. As Churton said earlier in this thread, football stinks. It's no wonder some fans, me included, are gradually losing their attachment to the game and even to their own clubs.
I'm sure Wednesday fans think the same. Newcastle have barely been relevant in years, they had a good spell at the end of the 90s because one of England's greatest ever forwards was a boyhood supporter, but other than that they're not much better than the Dee Dars.
So? I've nothing against the lad Spender who makes an appearance on here every now and then, but he mentioned Newcastle's sense of entitlement the other day and I'd say maybe the Mackems need to look closer to home. Their sense of entitlement during our promotion campaign was plain for all to see, straight off the back of their Netflix series too. Entitled fans that now have nothing else to talk about after sinking into league one obscurity.
Can't argue with that but you don't explain why Newcastle deserve to be the new super club? I've got nothing against the Toon by the way, I lived there as a student in the 70s and frequently went to St James's Park. But I still don't see why they deserve it any more than Everton or Burnley for example.