Fan letter to Ashley from Paul Nicholson

[toonlegend]

"answering as if i was ashley

sounded more like you were answering as p'boro

[ghostrider]

"answering as if i was ashley

sounded more like you were answering as p'boro

[pboromag]

seems to me ghost is answering using common sense

to many people expect to much

ash hasnt ever said he would spend millions or even billions

we all know what we get with ash

he has made mistakes but so did the mckeags and the two numpties who sold it to ash

when i see this constant bleeting about an owner of a club i think for god sake get a life talk about the players ,talk about the team i think most of our fans are more obsessed with who runs our club than what happens on the pitch

when i look at cardiff reading forest sheffield sides,leeds,and many any more who have been in the big time are big clubs and arent anywhere near where we are and yet i dont see their fans bleeting like stuffed pigs

he has made mistakes he hasnt any more money he wants to give to the club

get over it
stop filling you young kids with ideas of how good we were used to be or should be
and get them in the ground on their feet singing and chanting and not sitting down like they are at school watching a film that they will be getting questione on later

we have never been that great for the big part of history for most of our times

so why whinge now because allegedly rafa didnt get what he wanted or expected

[toptoon]

seems to me ghost is answering using common sense

to many people expect to much

ash hasnt ever said he would spend millions or even billions

we all know what we get with ash

he has made mistakes but so did the mckeags and the two numpties who sold it to ash

when i see this constant bleeting about an owner of a club i think for god sake get a life talk about the players ,talk about the team i think most of our fans are more obsessed with who runs our club than what happens on the pitch

when i look at cardiff reading forest sheffield sides,leeds,and many any more who have been in the big time are big clubs and arent anywhere near where we are and yet i dont see their fans bleeting like stuffed pigs

he has made mistakes he hasnt any more money he wants to give to the club

get over it
stop filling you young kids with ideas of how good we were used to be or should be
and get them in the ground on their feet singing and chanting and not sitting down like they are at school watching a film that they will be getting questione on later

we have never been that great for the big part of history for most of our times

so why whinge now because allegedly rafa didnt get what he wanted or expected

There is a half way house in the argument. The only part of that letter which I didn´t like was the call to back Rafa "unconditionally" in January. Very few owners would (nor should) do that with their managers and that showed, in one sentence, that the person writing the letter is not being reasonable. That sentence spolied the letter, for me.

We need to be practical and not reel off a wish list every 2 minutes. Ashley needs to go because he is not prepared to invest sufficiently in this business and the business of running a football club is not compatible with his style. Ashley values us at twice the price of Southampton - he needs to re-evaluate this. There are many aspects of the club that make us attractive to buy - the manager and finacial stability, fan base, etc. Get the price right, Ashley, and do us all a favour.

[andyj73]

.. Just makes people think of you all as whining mags moaning again .. Embarrassing ..

This is the fan letter that has gone viral recently.

Pretty decent i think.

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Dear Mr Ashley,

I, like many others, am a life-long Newcastle United fan. I have had my season ticket for 40 of my 47 years. When I started going to games, we were a struggling team with no superstars, and were a club going nowhere. We were drifting along in the lower to middle echelons of – what was then – the second division, with an ageing stadium and a board of local businessmen who were happy to let the club simply exist.

When Sir John Hall bought the club, we finally thought our time had come. Not our time to win trophies, but our time to finally support a club we could be proud of. He transformed us into a side that everyone up and down the country – if not throughout the footballing world – wanted to watch.

In the end, we won nothing, but during that time every fan looked forward to a weekend. We were excited to go to the games – whether at home, or hundreds of miles away on a cold, wet February Tuesday night.

I have told Sam, my 10-year-old son, all of the stories about our 5-0 win over Manchester United, and Asprilla’s hat-trick in our 3-2 win over Barcelona.

After much coaxing and persuasion, my stories finally wore off on him, and like me, my dad and my grandad before that (he) became a Newcastle fan.

He got his first season ticket midway through last season’s successful Championship campaign and he loved it. He was excited about this Premier League season, particularly as I had told him that with Rafael Benitez at the helm and promises that had been made, finally, we may return to the days of having a team to be proud of. Not a trophy-winning, perennial Champions League qualifying team, but one that will win as many games as we don’t and nestle into the Premier League without the constant worry of relegation every year.

I should, of course, have known better.

In Rafa, we have one of the master tacticians in world football. (He) is a manager that most clubs would beg for. When it comes to the game we all love, he, above all others at our club, should be listened to.

So it mystifies and bemuses me why when he – ”the right man” to lead Newcastle United as you called him during your recent interview – advises you that we need particular players to make us a team able to compete in the Premier League (on the back of promises and assurances that were made to him), he was ignored.

The time to be bold was now. The time to listen to those that know was now. The time to make a footballing statement was now. The time to maintain the growing momentum and feel-good factor was now.

Unfortunately, Mr Ashley, you failed on all levels.

Whether you are wanting to own a club that has a possibility of a good cup run or a European spot in the table or whether you are – as you claimed – actively trying to sell the club, then surely the best way to achieve either would be to have a moderately successful product that would either perform to the best of its ability or look like an attractive proposal for a potential buyer?

My bet, as a fan with a vested interest, is that your interest lies in neither of the above statements. My personal opinion, for what it’s worth, is that you are happy to see the club plodding along with a minimum of ambition and continue to use the club and particularly the stadium, as a platform to continually promote your Sports Direct brand as an unofficial sponsor, with little to no money being paid to the club for doing so.

You claimed that you will not put a penny more into the club from your own fortune yet if your Sports Direct company were an official sponsor, considering all of the advertising in and around the ground, the sponsorship deal would likely be worth a lot more than the amounts of money you have put into the club already.

For us – the fans – it is heart-breaking. We have a love for our club which many would say is unrivalled. It is blind loyalty. If we go into one of your sports stores and we don’t like the items you are selling we can just shop elsewhere. With Newcastle United we do not have that luxury. You know that, and you exploit that.

We all watched your interview on Sky. We all hoped we would finally get a chance to hear you answer questions that fans have long been asking. Unfortunately, all we got was a stage-managed monologue of Mike Ashley.

We didn’t want to watch a performance that told us nothing a friendly chat with a friend and stable-mate, who was never going to ask a hard-hitting question that might be difficult for you to answer or put you on the spot.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

But you should remember:

WE are the reason Rafa decided to stay at the club.

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

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

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

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

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

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.


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.

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

[pboromag]

There is a half way house in the argument. The only part of that letter which I didn´t like was the call to back Rafa "unconditionally" in January. Very few owners would (nor should) do that with their managers and that showed, in one sentence, that the person writing the letter is not being reasonable. That sentence spolied the letter, for me.

We need to be practical and not reel off a wish list every 2 minutes. Ashley needs to go because he is not prepared to invest sufficiently in this business and the business of running a football club is not compatible with his style. Ashley values us at twice the price of Southampton - he needs to re-evaluate this. There are many aspects of the club that make us attractive to buy - the manager and finacial stability, fan base, etc. Get the price right, Ashley, and do us all a favour.

but what is sufficiently
surely you cant put a figure on it as we may have only spent a few million in this transfer window and al the players could come good
however if we spent 140 mill it doesn't guarantee us anything

we are not a great buy

there is little in the way of improvement to be made except for spending hundreds of millions

the fan base cant increase we sell out every week

financial stability created by ashly
the manager appointed by ashly

unless you have someone on an ego trip we are not a good buy

to spend 400 mill on a club when players are going for half that is a great price so I think ash has us undervalued

but with us whinging at every opportunity if say deutsha bank came in and wanted to rename the stadium kraut park or the likes they would be arguing with the fan base from day one

you either want a successful club and forgoe a lot of what people love about our club
or you keep with someone like ash

[toonlegend]

"we have never been that great for the big part of history for most of our times "

I would refute that part of the statement as for the first 80 or more years of footballing history

we were that great ! better than the likes of manure, puddles, arsenal, et al

it is only the last 30 years or so that we haven't been "that great" except in flashes.

[ex_pat_magpie]

.. Just makes people think of you all as whining mags moaning again .. Embarrassing ..

Your lot are the ideal teachers to show fans how to moan and whinge. It is deeply ingrained in the Muckem genes

[ex_pat_magpie]

"we have never been that great for the big part of history for most of our times "

I would refute that part of the statement as for the first 80 or more years of footballing history

we were that great ! better than the likes of manure, puddles, arsenal, et al

it is only the last 30 years or so that we haven't been "that great" except in flashes.

You have to understand the club's history though June to be able to rationalise that.

[pboromag]

"we have never been that great for the big part of history for most of our times "

I would refute that part of the statement as for the first 80 or more years of footballing history

we were that great ! better than the likes of manure, puddles, arsenal, et al

it is only the last 30 years or so that we haven't been "that great" except in flashes.

that is why i said our times

i have seen us in europe i have seen us in the chapions league
i have seen us blow a 12 point lead
i have seen us in division 2

but not many of us would have seen us lift silverware

yet most of us would have only seen us have 5-6 good years

a few finals
an intertoto
great days out in the champos league better days out in the europa league

but for mosyt of our lifetimes we are living on past glories