Fan letter to Ashley from Paul Nicholson

[ghostrider]

But you should remember:
WE are the reason Rafa decided to stay at the club.

When a person is adored and made to feel like a king, he will always be swayed.

WE are the reason the ground was full week after week in the Championship.

And the reason why grounds are half full when things do not go right for years on end.
Luckily we haven't had to sample too much of that in the championship.

WE are the reason that the club makes so much money from shirt and other merchandise sales.

Thank you for that, your support is generous.

WE are the reason that you can rely on high season ticket sales year upon year.

Loyal fans that are rewarded for their loyalty with sensible season ticket prices that are split into affordable installments.

WE are the reason there is a Newcastle United at all.

We are the reason why there are shops on a high street or cars on a road or cruise ships on the ocean, etc, etc.
Every fan of every club is the reason they have a club.

But be aware: WE are also the reason that the whole club could fall apart.

By the way you talk, you'd think it had already fell apart but if you believe cutting off your nose will spite your face then you have to make that decision. In the mean-time, I will carry on doing what I can do and leave the other stuff to those that I believe can do what they can do and hopefully get some kind of happy medium along the way.

I realise that you are not likely to read this – or even know that this letter exists – but if, by chance, you do, I urge you to put things right.

Put in writing to Rafa that you will back him unconditionally in January. Speak to people that matter to the fans.

How do you know it hasn't already been sorted out?
Rafa spent a long time deliberating whether to take on this job and he did it as he always does things. Meticulously, don't you think?
As for the word "unconditionally" no owner is ever going to do that with any manager.

Install someone who has a passion for the club in a role of actively seeking out a potential buyer, by selling the vision of Newcastle United that they share with Rafa Benitez, and every single one of its fans.

Seeking out a potential buyer could be underway and maybe has been for all you know.
Whether you believe that or not is not my problem.
As for passion, what constitutes passion from your point of view as an owner?

To allow the club to stagnate and continue to slip into footballing irrelevance is an insult to the loyal fans and could prove to be too much for many.

Paul Nicholson

Hardly stagnating.
The club is not where fans want it to be. I understand that.
Most clubs are not where fans want them to be, including those at the top end.
This club is in a lot better shape than you think it is but it can easily stagnate or quickly deteriorate of too big a gamble is taken for a shot at a sniff of success.

The fans are the life-blood of this football club. We don’t own it. We don’t buy players. We don’t seek sponsorship deals. But we do keep it alive.
Without the fans, this club would be nothing. It would not exist. We have been taken for granted for too long. Your lack of communication with the regional press, and failure to acknowledge our concerns is a dismissal of our importance to the club in your eyes.

Taken for granted?
How many fans of football clubs can say that?...most I would say.
Without an owner you would not have a football club to be fans of. Same scenario.
The fans of this football club are passionate and loyal.
Passion and loyalty do not come from constant success, it comes from a mucky mixture of it all, from the top to the very bottom.
Fans feel entitled, whether it's due to living on history or living on the fact they're known as a sleeping GIANT club or that their city deserves a club that plays with the other big city elite clubs.
We are in the premier league and the worst than has happened since my tenure is relegation for one season before winning the championship twice to get back.
Other big city clubs are still trying to get back after decades out and others never even having a sniff, who are all as big a city.

I would gladly speak to you, listen to you, and have an open mind about anything you, Mr Charnley, Mr Barnes et al, had to say.

No you would not. Your letter proves your mind is more than made up as to what you believe I am and other parties.

Failing that local journalists, who by representing the fans, the club actually means something – would also relish the opportunity to sit down and put our concerns to you. I suspect you will not, but you would – if not get everyone on your side – instantly gain a modicum of respect from the 52,000 fans that pay to see the team you own every week, and the hundreds of thousands that support it from afar.

You know that the only way I'll get anyone on my side is if I provided the manager with everything a manager wants, always and did not interfere with anything to do with the club.
Basically bank-roll the club as and when required but stay silent.
Asking me to use my own personal fortune to take chances is not going to happen and could not be sustained in this crazy football market.

Failure to do something, could result in the anarchy that arose a few years ago, except if Rafa were to leave, it would be ten-fold.

Then you only have yourselves to blame for any turmoil created by doing so.
If the club is run so badly and it's so heartbreaking to see, then; if you're of the same mind as others, I would suggest owning the club as fans and you are then in charge of your own destiny.
Or look at the club in a different light and realise that, although not as ideal as we would want..it is making attempts to get a happy medium.

I have gone full circle in my time as a fan. We have had our fleeting moment, our flirtation with success. We are now back to the ambitionless, struggling side, just ticking over, without ever making an effort to better themselves.

Ambition in today's game doesn't really exist in the real sense of the word.
It is replaced by HOPE and EXPECTATION.
The hope comes from a club like our club or clubs similar to us who can actually get to play in the premier league, which is a feat in itself in this day and age.
Hope is when we compete with the big hitters and the chancers so that we can sneak some success among it all.
Expectation is when you throw all your eggs into one basket and expect to keep a basket full of intact eggs which never crack under the weight.
Expectation is when your club appears to be a bottomless pit of cash that proves you with massive bragging rights and an expectation that surpasses hope and even discards it.
This is when you know you've lost the heart and soul of your club.

Rather than pleading you case through Sky and playing to a national media that, on the whole, enjoys nothing more than reporting on and ridiculing the soap opera that is Newcastle United – particularly when things are inevitably going wrong – make yourself available to speak to me, or fans like me, or the local journalists at the Chronicle, who will ask the questions that need answering. Speak to someone who will at least try to hold you to account on your broken promises and admitted mistakes – the biggest of which you may have just made this summer.

The media will portray me in how they wish, as and when certain situations arise.
I'm the devil in disguise or I'm not..depending on the circumstances at the time.
I am despised by some and rarely worth a mention by others, the world over.
That's the nature of the beast.



I've answered this as if it was Ashley. Trying to best guess his answers.