Will Newcastle fans put off new buyers?
Posted by DavidM in Kevin Keegan, Newcastle | 16 September 2008
I spent this weekend with football fans from Arsenal, Liverpool, West Ham and Oldham, discussing many aspects of the game over numerous pints of Cardiff's finest. Some things we broadly agreed on (Manchester City now have too much money) and some we disagreed on (Arsenal being the best club in the world).
Not surprisingly given this week's events and the demonstrations over the weekend, the future of Newcastle United was a hot topic. We all agreed that the situation for Keegan was bad and none of us were too surprised he left the club.
Besides the Toon army though, many football fans question whether he was good enough to take Newcastle to the top and keep them there. I know he enjoyed a good spell in his last tenure at Newcastle but the world has moved on, and even then he couldn't sustain the performance.
That's not the point though - Newcastle fans love him and they want him in charge. For them getting rid of Keegan was the last straw and now they want Ashley and Wise out. But it made me laugh to see a banner on Match of the Day saying 'Cockney mafia out' when the most likely candidate to purchase the club would be from the Middle East, USA or Russia.
Which brings me to the point. On the radio this morning they were discussing whether Newcastle was a good investment for a new buyer. It came down to a two-part decision.
First, what is the business opportunity? Newcastle is a big club, with gates little below Arsenal's, it has passionate support especially locally and the team is clearly under-performing. Merchandising and other sales are way behind Manchester United's. That means the right investment leading to the right results could see income at Newcastle United rise far beyond current levels. At this level, it's a very attractive purchase.
However, the second part was the risk, and primarily the fans. Given how they've hounded Ashley in the last week so he's now forced to sell, and the displays of dislike for anyone they don't hail as their messiah, the fans are in danger of leaving the club in an even worse position - with an owner who doesn't want to be there but can't sell.
Unless there is a Geordie billionaire willing to invest just for the love of the club, Newcastle fans are going to have to either learn to love management that may not be their first choice (so long as it gets results), or get used to languishing lower down the table with the other clubs that don't have deep pockets.
We're always on the look out for new writers. So if you fancy writing about your team, please get in touch.
Comments
Please don't continue to trot out the same lazy lines used by the national media in respect of Newcastle fans.
-Firstly, most of us are Newcastle fans, rather than 'Keegan' fans.
-Irrespective of who was managing the club, it was the club structure (Wise pulling the strings, without the responsibility, the manager asking for players and not getting them, and getting ones he didn't want) that was the problem, rather than 'getting rid of Keegan'.
-Having said that, when the club bring back Keegan as a publicity coup because he is a talismanic figure, they have to expect to take some flak if they then undermine him
-Another significant part of the problem is that under Ashley/Llambias, the club simply didn't communicate with the fans. At all. That's why this problem didn't happen last season - Chris Mort who was chairman last season understood the need to keep the fans informed and 'on-side'.
-I'm not necessarily convinced KK could have "taken us to the top and kept us there" either; however he would have taken us closer than we were, and we would have got to watch attractive football on the way.
- Displays of dislike for anyone not the messiah? Nonsense. MA brought this on his own head: promising to back KK and then undermining him. Allardyce was given a chance; Souness was given a change; - ultimately for these people the style of play cost them the fans. Had they played decent football, they would have been given far longer to succeed (Roeder was equally unsuccessful but the fans didn't dislike him - Shepherd pushed him as soon as Allardyce was available) We want to win, and we want to see good football. But we'll put up with 'reasonable' results if we get to see good attractive football.
-I'll back any manager who understands we pay our money to see decent quality attacking football. And so will most of the fans. Most of us will keep going even if we don't get that - I even renewed my season ticket in the Souness era, for goodness sake!
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.reallifenews.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1207
