What has Mike Ashley ever done for us?
Much has been said about the tenure of Mike Ashley at Newcastle United.
Ever since Mike Ashley bought the club, he’s been going to sell it, according to some sources. Every week we’ve been linked with yet another foreign billionaire who would inevitably then distance themselves from the stories. Nigerians, South Africans, Indians, Americans. It’s about as reliable as transfer speculation.
We’ve also been told that players have to buy their own suits; that players are unhappy with the board, there was the protracted fiasco surrounding Keegan’s departure when it didn’t appear that those in charge actually knew what was going on, and then of course our shirt sponsors became a laughing stock themselves. We can’t find a new manager, because no-one wants to join a club where they can’t get anything beyond a short-term contract, until Joe Kinnear wanders into sight, and decides that the best way to calm the situation is by acting as an expletive-fed machine gun.
At this point it might be quite easy to dismiss Ashley’s tenure as a complete disaster. After all, what has Ashley ever done for Newcastle United? Well, I’m not claiming he’s perfect: anyone who thinks Dennis Wise was more of an asset than Kevin Keegan obviously is going to come in for some flak — but he’s not the ogre he’s been made out to be either.
Money (That’s What I Want)
When Mike Ashley took over as the Newcastle owner he admitted that the club owed around £100m:
I paid £140m for the club with the expectation that there was a debt of £70m. Actually it was around £100mThe Independent
This wasn’t in the Chelsea or Manchester United league of debt, but as we weren’t in the Champions League, that was a significant amount to carry. And, according to Keith Harris, it has been paid off: “there is no debt in this football club. Mike Ashley paid off the debt.”.
This will undoubtedly be reflected in the fact that Ashley will want more money when he sells the club on — so it’s not as if it’s been done simply from the goodness of his heart — but the club could have ended up in real trouble with that level of debt.
But other than paying off the club’s crippling debt, what has Ashley ever done for Newcastle United?
The Boys Are Back In Toon
What do Zamblera, Tozer, Kadar, Spear and Baheng have in common? The most obvious is that you probably haven’t heard of any of them. Other things they have in common is that they are all 18 or under, they all play for Newcastle United, and Newcastle actually paid money to sign them. Rather than simply waiting for players to magically appear locally and work their way through to senior level, the club has attempting to adopt a policy of signing decent quality youngsters with the hope that they will either make it to the first time, or can at least be cashed in on to help fund the academy.
At the moment, that’s our best hope for unearthing talent: we can’t compete with the likes of Arsenal (Walcott) and Manchester United (Rooney) when they want to sign top-class, well-known players. But what we can do is sign youngsters with potential and hope that some of them will make the grade. Indeed, this is what we thought Dennis Wise was theoretically supposed to be doing…
Special Brew
Mike Ashley came in for a lot of stick from the national media for what were deemed ’stunts’ or ‘gimmicks’, such as sitting with the fans, drinking with the fans, and even downing a pint of lager at Arsenal. I can’t understand why some football fans would seem to prefer that their chairmen/owners wouldn’t want to mix with the fans - surely someone who does mix with the fans has a better chance of understanding them? What was actually wrong with him just enjoying the match?
Also, I’m one of those irresponsible people who cheered from my local as I saw Ashley downing a pint. Okay, it’s not grown up, it’s not clever, it’s setting a bad example, and it was against the law. But you know, apart from that, it was quite impressive. I bet your club’s owner couldn’t down a pint (excepting maybe Delia)…
The Unforgiven
One of Ashley’s greatest advantages is that he is not Freddy Shepherd; and he is in fact personally responsible for deposing the man that called the Newcastle fans mugs for buying shirts (he had a point, mind you, but that applies to anyone buying overpriced replica stuff), the man that described Geordie women as dogs, and his captain as Mary Poppins whilst in a Marbella brothel.
Ashley not being Freddie Shepherd is therefore a significant, and frequently overlooked benefit to the new regime…
Money For Nothing
Despite Keegan’s insistence that Michael Owen needed a new contract, him being the only striker of anything even approaching quality that we had at the club, Mike Ashley showed a considerable reluctance to the idea that Owen was worth £100,000 per week. This presumably is because of Owen’s appalling fitness record - he has averaged something like 13 games per season for Newcastle, which my maths makes around £400,000 per game. He might be a good player, but I have to agree that this doesn’t look like value for money… and if you factor in his transfer fee, I make it 21 goals for a cost of around £35 million.
Fortunately, now Fabio Capello has dropped him from the England team, if Michael actually wants to play any football, he’ll have to try and get fit for some club fixtures…
(But Dad,) (I Don’t Want To Go To) (Watch Newcastle Get Beat By) Chelsea
Having been a football fan for a good while, I know how it is supposed to work. When fans ask for a larger family area with cheaper tickets, and a specific singing section, the club is supposed to react in predictable fashion by announcing that they have been listening closely to what the fans want, and then adding some more corporate boxes instead.
Which is why I was slightly surprised and somewhat pleased that Newcastle increased the size of their family enclosure more than three-fold, allowing me and my son to get season tickets for a smidge more than it would have cost for just me to go to the cheap seats in the new singing section that has also been created.
Of course, the teensy drawback here is that all the dads taking their sons and daughters to the game (because while it is sons and daughters, it is mostly dads) are probably inflicting deep psychological trauma on their offspring by forcing them watch their team get expertly dismantled at home by Hull City…
Reasons To Be Cheerful
…but apart from wiping out the club’s crippling debt, investing in the youth team, trying to fit in with the fans, getting rid of a much-disliked chairman, refusing to be held to ransom by a player who is rarely if ever fit, making it easier for parents to take their kids to games, and creating a singing section for the fans, what has Ashley ever done for us?
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