Your Silent Face!
By TrueFaith, 31st October, 2006
We're in the shit! You know it, I know it and no amount of spin from elements of the Freddie Friendly local press and their laughable happy-talk can disguise it. We are in a relegation scrap and that is what faces us this season. That is the reality of our situation.
How did we get here? Well, at the risk of boring the bollocks (and tits) off you all, its because of an abysmal level of decision-making at the very top of the club, a complete absence of planning and strategy, appalling managerial appointments and a completely reckless investment of club money on so many players who have proven to be utterly and completely shite! I struggle to think of one club who has squandered so much money on so much over-paid garbage in recent seasons as NUFC yet have a board of directors who try and pass this off as a badge of honour and evidence of their commitment to Newcastle United. Its enough to make you fucking sob!
We've done the explanation for the club's alarming decline to death and there are those in the tf bunker who can pin-point almost to the exact minute when our club started to implode - clue - Partizan Belgarde penalty shoot-out. But whilst there are those of you in the tf congregation of angst-ridden Mags who are seriously worried and depressed about the state of the club, the time has come for some-one at the club in some position of executive authority (i.e. not the manager) to stand up, take responsibility and show some genuine and strong leadership.
This means more than wheeling out Sir John Hall for the benefit of the back page of The Chronicle to spout some shite about being "just a fan". Sir John isn't in any position of responsibility at the club at the moment on a day to day basis. And he's nothing like being "just a fan" as I would understand the term. Please spare us the patronising horse kak!
His son, Douglas is a director of the club but we have heard nothing from him in this last week. Hmm. Likewise Shepherd. According to he Chronicle, Shepherd's wife has been ill (but he doesn't want the sympathy vote - right!). According to the Sunday Sun, Freddie Shepherd was in Majorca on holiday whilst we played Charlton and Douglas Hall, so I believe, was not at SJP on Saturday either. Leadership?
So then, at a time when Newcastle United is facing possibly the biggest challenge as a Premiership outfit, the club had no main directors at SJP for one of its most vital encounters of the season. I will apologise unreserverdly if that was not the case and publish a retraction if that statement is incorrect.
true faith has made it plain we regard the current hierarchy of the club as a busted flush.
Shepherd has had nigh on a decade as Chairman, has had huge resources at his disposal and free-reign to hire and fire but NUFC has gone backwards on his watch. He and neither can the Halls can absolve themselves of responsibility no matter how much they wish to do so. Its time for a new energy, direction and new ideas at NUFC. The current mob have got nowt to offer in my opinion!
Like every other supporter out there, we are keen to find out what Belgravia has to say, what their plans are and how they will involve and effect us.
We know they aren't Geordies but as the likes of Lord Westwood-Gordon McKeag-Stan Seymour-Sir John Hall-Freddie Shepherd et al have all been sons of the Tyne it doesn't appear that having the right bona-fide Tyneside birth certificate necessarily imbues the occupants of the boardroom with a knack for running our football club correctly.
As for having a manager "with a feel for the club", well, Jack Charlton and Willie McFaul certainly had that but bombed badly as well as Roeder increasingly looks like he's doing.
We want to know what Belgravia are thinking about and we'd happily meet them (sometimes we get a bit above ourselves at tf you know) and listen to them off the record and have something of an idea about what's going on, if they really want the club and what their aspirations are and why they want in at the House of Pain! We've had no contact whatsoever. We've been asked in e-mails from the Tyneside tifosi, so let's have that on the record, no-one from Belgravia has contacted anyone at true faith and what we know about what is going on with the take-over we pick up second hand from the press.
So then, for the time being we're stuck with Shepherd and Hall.
They need to sort themselves out sharpish and start displaying some leadership qualities, start getting behind the manager (and not with daggers drawn to stick in his back) and pull out all of the stops to keep our club afloat.
We are in a relegation dog-fight. There are some of you who think we are too good to go down. That's bollocks. If we don't win football matches and get points on the board, we will go down and no amount of squealing about it will prevent that.
Newcastle United has no pre-ordained right to be in this division. Just because we have loads of supporters and a big shiny stadium and players paid a fortune does not mean we have the right to stay in The Premiership. We have to score goals, win football matches - all of that stuff. We have to earn our status!
Have a look at Leeds, Sheff Wed, Wolves and The Mackems - all of those clubs have a self perception of themselves as part of English football's gliteratti yet all of them are in a lower division to Reading, Wigan, The Beasts, Watford, Fulham, Charlton, Bolton and Blackburn who have made up for what they lack in prestige and profile with sound investment, good management and the correct decison-making.
Newcastle United is crying out for strong leadership at every level of the club's activities from the Chairman down to the tea-lady (who we hear will do her bit anyway).
No-one can hide. Everyone needs to stand up to be counted. Shepherd can start the ball rolling by sorting the players we need to keep this club afloat when the transfer window opens in January (what he should have done in the summer), the players need to give fucking everything on the park and some of them need to start acting like proper athletes outside the game as well if rumours we have had passed to us are correct. Glenn Roeder is facing his sternest examination of his career as a manager. He will know if he gets this wrong he'll never manage at this level again.
There is no place for bottle-merchants at Newcastle United from now until May.
Its going to be shit, we're scrapping for every point and the football will not be what we think it should be from a Newcastle United side. The ascetics of our 
performances have to be forgotten about. We just have to fight for our just and righteous cause! We have to play our part by getting behind the players in every game we play. But at the same time we can agitate for those men who have brought us to this position to fuck off out of Newcastle United.
They have let us down badly and they have no right to continue to have the responsibilty for the stewardship of our club, regardless of what it says on their share-owning, because frankly, if supporters walk away from Newcastle United, there is no club.
Keep On, Keepin' On...
Nufcmismanagement view:
A cracking article that tells it as it is.