So, here we are again. Another transfer window, and another takeover story hits the headlines before we so much as get a sniff of our first swoop for a colossus going cheap.
The third takeover attempt in as many transfer windows, so will it be third time lucky I wonder? Amanda Staveley got as far a having a curry with our esteemed owner, before being blown out the water (near the end of the transfer window) as being a time-waster.
Peter Kenyon managed to write an impassioned open letter to the fans with our chubby leader saying that this was his preferred buyer… Then lo and behold, he’s gone too with no money and no consortium… and another transfer window almost gone.
As many of you may know, I live and work in Dubai, but born in Benwell in the Toon many moons ago. Last Sunday, I came into the office as usual, and a colleague says to me, “well it looks like the Toon will be City’s little brother, and I guess you think it’s your birthday”. I’m a little incredulous and ask him what he’s talking about, to which he replies, “well it’s documented in Reuters, the Toon have been bought by the cousin of Sheikh Mansour”. And so, it began. (Please note this is not the ‘big reveal’ and it gets better / more believable…so keep with me).
Needless to say, I had to check it out, and sure enough, the papers are full of it, Newsnow is in overdrive, and as the days go by, there is one contradicting story after another. It’s sold, it’s not, an offer is in, no offer made…the Premier league knows, and the Premier league knows not. Same old s*** but different transfer window, so I take a big pinch of salt and keep reading. After all, we’ve been here before, haven’t we lads and lasses, but hope springs eternal as they say.
The contradicting stories continue, ho hum, but then I start to see some articles appearing here in the local press and nothing is denied by the club (which usually happens when rumours fly).
I have a small glimmer of hope. I’m probably not alone, in that I’m ever an optimist, so I’m happy to cling to hope however big or small.
Then, a few days ago I was talking to another colleague in the office. We got to chatting about football as you do, and I told him about my concerns, and he says with absolute belief and surety, “no need to worry, it’s a done deal”. He goes on to tell me his wife, who works in a very high up position in the financial district here, (this I already knew), is working on the deal, and that her company is the financial group tasked with putting the deal together for the real estate part, the stadium, etc. He insisted that it is a done deal from the buyers side for sure.
The Bin Zayed Group and Sheikh Khaled are well known and certainly have the money to do a deal of this magnitude. BZG would not come out and say the things that they have said if they didn’t believe them to be true.
And so, my optimism has increased to a level where I’m beginning to believe!
I hope your office mate is right. I wish I had your optimism.
Business there doesn’t work quite the same way as in the UK.
I’ll consider it a done deal once the Toon announce it on their website.
Briiian(Quote)
Business works the same way the world over. A buyer buys something the seller is selling.
What I still find incredible is that everyone who now says the know something, are still dismissing Staveley’s former bid. She represented the same man when he was interested in LFC and, from nowhere appeared in town trying to broker a deal for us.
I fully expect to learn that this turns out to be the culmination of the talks that she was rubbished by Ashley for. In my mind BZG have simply returned to the table once the club was again safe and made the offer in the certainty the club was safe from relegation and they had the summer window to actually bring into effect change.
sickandtired(Quote)
Hopefully today we get that announcement hwtl
Harrogate mag(Quote)
Why bother with the real estate if the stadium is owned by the council
Daddybear(Quote)
Is this on the main blog Olly?
Dubai Toon(Quote)
Here’s hoping it actually happens this time. Also, you can see my apartment in this picture ?? Hwtl
Timmytoon(Quote)
Only it’s not the cousin of City’s owner, people need to stop thinking they know it all because they reside in Dubai and know a legal person who knows someone who is helping the deal out.
BS about his cousin which led me to believe that his story is a fairytale made from all the other reports we have seen this week.
Nothing new but the Sheikhover will happen behind closed doors. 🙂
Cocobear(Quote)
Please read what is written, I know it’s not his cousin, that’s what was reported in the press when it first hit the papers. I did not say I know it all because I live in Dubai… wow…
Dubai Toon(Quote)
The stadium is owned by Newcastle United, the land on which it is built is owned by the council – big difference
Nigel Barton(Quote)
Stadium this council that won’t be talking about that when all comes to fruition these people think big and st james park ain’t big enough
Harrogate mag(Quote)
All speculation until something concrete emerges that is tangible and we can get behind.
How many times in your life have you heard a : “My Fathers, Nephew who works at… ?
Joe Hawkins(Quote)
My doubts are increasing again. It concerns the fit and proper person PL test. How can they allow one family to own two clubs? I think that’s the stage we’re at and partly explains the club’s and Ashley’s silence. No point talking if the PL turns them down.
Don’t know what to make of Rafa wandering around in Spain. He should have been back at work on Monday. He never takes 3 weeks holiday. All very odd.
georgio(Quote)
How can Rafa work when all this ***** is going on I don’t suppose any transfers in or out can be done without throwing a spanner into the financial equation
Aussie fan(Quote)
geoegio: isn’t Rafa at the CL final. Probably was invited as a previous winner?
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Why speculate so much it’s sold it’s not sold yet It’s in the hands of dog Ashley sorry odg sorry again god Ashley it will end the same fans disappointed all over again great players and people lost to other teams the toon on the lower levels again struggling to get back Rafa lost to us and the who can blame them for it 😥 if it comes off I will jump for joy but I just want to see the end of it and Ashley and cronies gone
Fasteddy1955(Quote)
So apparently no big news today…. this so called Lawyer has never been heard of. If this is all made up I think I’m done …. so Stressful!!
Dean(Quote)
I have a good contact at Sky Newcastle offices who told a press conference was being called today he also told me that Newcasle Airport had its arrival itinerary altered for the arrival of n unscheduled flight from Dubia the aircraft is to be taken to a quiet part of the airport before the passengers can get off there has also been transport laid on by NUFC to pick an uknown group My contact tried to find out who the passengers were but its al hush hush…Saying that I drove past SJP about 15 mins ago but theres no media build up.
John W Langston(Quote)
Fingers crossed J W Langston
Dean(Quote)
And who are you John W. Langston? And why haven’t you ever said a word on here before? So we are supposed to believe you now.
May as well believe Lee Ryder!
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Looking forward to the Champions League final but I am still confused as to how the Cheeky Chappy accent of Lennon and McCartney morphed into the screech of Carragher, McManamanemanan and Gerrrard? I think I will have to turn the sound down.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Who are these people coming out of the woodwork and making shyte up?
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Sure that goes on with every article published. Everyone just guesses and speculates
Dean(Quote)
Sky Pundits’ Champions League predcitions:
Carra – Liverpool
Charlie Nicholas – Liverpool
Le Tiss – Liverpool
Thompson – Liverpool
Fat Ronaldo – Liverpool
Shearer – Liverpool
Steve Nicol – Liverpool
Lawro – Liverpool
Gary Lineker – on the fence
Eric Sykes(Quote)
‘Arry Redknapp – Spurs
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Gerrard – Liverpool
McMamanamamamanaman – Liverpool
Little Jimmy Krankie – Liverpool
Ken Dodd – Liverpool
Stan Boardman – The Geerman.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Jimmy Tarbuck – Liverpool
Cilla Black – Liverpool
Jerry and his Pacemaker – Liverpool
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Wayne Rooney – has anybody seen Colleen. She took the lids to the shops 3 weeks ago and I haven’t heard from her since? Liverpool.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Michael Owen – I think I will go for a nil-nil draw here as usual even though these have been 2 of the highest scoring teams this year. So, for me, nil-nil after extra time and penalties.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Phil Neville – United! the spirit of ’99 will always win out. You what? We’re not even in the final. Still United!
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer – I am just glad I still have a job!
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Theresa May – well, we will have to put it up for a 55th vote and wait and see.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Sting – Roxanne, you don’t have to put on the red light. Roxannnne, Roxannne.
Liverpool, for me.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Stephn Fry – Liverpool. Did any of you happen to catch me in that movie Peter’s Friends a few years ago? I was brilliant in it wasn’t I? As I always am. Even hosting a quiz show I manage to steal the show. I am brilliant aren’t I.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Dame Judy Dench – it has to be the Red Bindippers for me like. I think that Jordan Henderson fella has a nice ****.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Dame Helen Mirren – Liverpool. I used to have nice t!ts when I was younger and showed them off a lot. Even into my 50s.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Sir Richard Attenborough – Liverpool. You have Tom, **** and Harry and if the Krauts find **** we still have Harry and Tom. And how did Donald Pleasence manage to go blind in only a couple of weeks?
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Georgio – Rafa doesn’t have a job does he?!. He’s out of contract as far as we know.
I suspect Eric is right though, he’s probably over to watch or work on the CL final.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Sharpy: it would be a massive shock if an ex-Liverpool Manager who won the Champions League and also worked in Madrid was asked to comment on Liverpool in a Champions League final in Madrid 🙂
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Lots of new faces on here all of a sudden .
Nice read Dubai, hope your info is right mate, but i always remain glass half empty as you know . I also hate Jabba and don’t trust the fecker to lie straight .
Sharpy, enjoy Mexico mate, sounds fun 🙂
nice to be home.
kimtoon(Quote)
Sharpy: the pyramid at Chichen Itza is only about 100 miles away. You should go.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Eric – we were out 2 years ago mate, further south near Tulum. We did Chicken Pizza (as the boy calls it) and Tulum then. Had to, and the boy loved it!, he was so interested in the history and culture – he basically kidnapped the tour guide ?.
I preferred Tulum though, I think all the stalls set up around Pizza spoiled it – but I understand why they are there at the same time.
We’ve done Xcaret and Xel-ha this trip. They were brilliant too, and the boy swam with dolphins – which was great to be able to do that with him.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Kim – thank you, it’s been great but fly back on Sunday ☹️.
How’s Lewis?. I take it you’re home now? Hope it’s not too serious for him.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Sharpy: been a long time since I was at Chichen Itza, probably 25 years and it wasn’t commercialized back then. Sounds like it is now.
I was in Cozumel which had the cruise ships even then. That’s my bugaboo. Cruise ships! I won’t go anywhere now that have cruise ships.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Pleased your back hope all well with Lewis,have you give Helan her phone back lol
Iceedog(Quote)
Mark Douglas up to his usual tricks of claiming it is not The Chronic’s fault that they are full of shyte. Now saying it is all too complicated for them to work out. If you employ monkeys, you get bananas! And the head guy just continues to make excuses. This one will go down in the annals of Chronicle history as probably the worst excuse for the worst excuse of a newspaper.
https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/adventures-newcastle-united-takeover-land-16361837
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Sharpy, Ice, thanks for the good wishes re Lewis. Yeah we are back home now, he’s still poorly but better than last friday night when he was rushed in . Hoping he improves enough to go to respite on Wednesday night for one night as i have tickets to see Muse at Ashton gate.
Gone a bit quiet on the sheikh over front. Chronicle trying desperately to be relevant and ITK , i’m sure they will milk it with as much click bait **** as possible until the transfer window ends. 🙄
kimtoon(Quote)
Kim – I hope so for you too – firstly coz it sounds like you need a good night out after the week you’ve had, and secondly coz Muse are quality!!. One of my favourite bands through the 90s.
Sharpy17(Quote)
There is always going to be rumours thanks to social media and blogs such as this one. I think fans will post things without the intent of raising expectations – though often that can be the outcome – but I have no issue with that.
What annoys me is when journalists do this!. I just think if you are getting paid, then that comes with a responsibility to report the truth and quash some of these rumours. I’m not saying have a go at the fans making claims, but I’d expect a decent journalist to know the timeline (roughly) of a buy out. I’m yet to see any journalist do THAT article. None of us know at what stage this buy out is at, but they could say – if it’s at this stage it’s likely to take around X amount of time (all going well).
Even the Chronicle – the local paper you’d expect to take that responsibility, hasn’t done this. Instead they come up with – we’ve spoken with UAE journalist – like they are any more in the known. They can provide another uninformed opinion, but I could get that from Bryan in Byker ??♂️.
I think journalism in its truest form is dead. It’s been replaced with breaking news – regardless of whether that’s factual or not.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Sharpy: I guess you know by now that I not impressed with the standard of reporting at The Chronicle. There are multi parts to it now. First, they employ idiots. Anybody who has ever read a Lee Ryder article would know this. It is at the point where he only writes what amount to extended tweets. Next, they report before they check any facts. Then they repeat what other in-vetted news-outlets say like this new guy Jacobs in Dubai and hide behind it as an excuse. Which is the last bit of their useless “journalism” because then they have their editor come out and say – it wasn’t us, it is complicated, how dare you accuse me of clickbaiting!
The Chronic act like they can repeat anything that is said on Newsnow or on Twitter and say it was them and not us “wot made it up”. They don’t do any fact checking. And they have like 7 full time journalists so we should hold them to a higher standard. They should not be like some 12 year old in his bedroom with his pr!ck in one hand and his laptop in the other passing on made up stories.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
I don’t even know why I get upset at The Chronic anymore. I know they have no contacts at NUFC and just made stuff up like some bloke at the local pub. They probably always worked this way. John Gibson never struck me as the brightest bulb but I do think he had some contacts at the club. The current bunch are stupid AND out of the loop. And even worse is that they are constantly making excuses for their ineptitude.
I will have to stop reading The Chronic and also Olly’s and Uncle Ed’s reposts of their stories 🙂
Eric Sykes(Quote)
toon want 20mil for gayle what i find strange with gayle he was often out with a hamstring injury while at the toon but he had never had trouble with it while playing a lot of ccc games mmmmm
icedog(Quote)
icedog
June 1, 2019 at 08:15
toon want 20mil for gayle what i find strange with gayle he was often out with a hamstring injury while at the toon but he had never had trouble with it while playing a lot of ccc games mmmmm
Yep that’s very odd Ice, crossed my mind too.
kimtoon(Quote)
Really looking forward to Champs lge final tonight, missed a lot of good games last week.
kimtoon(Quote)
Sharpy, re Muse, i’m really looking forward to seeing them. Wanted to go see Alice cooper in Cardiff in oct but can’t get respite for that saturday 🙁 Also missing out on seeing Gary Numan in bristol due to no respite, but saw him back in the 80’s so not so gutted about that one. His new stuff is really very good though and his daughter sings with him sometimes, she’s good.
kimtoon(Quote)
Kimtoon: sorry I didn’t say anything about your boy. But I will now – I hope you and him are doing better.
Who do you reckon will win the CL? Everybody is cheering for the Red Bindippers. And so am I.
I think it is because I like Klopp. But then again. I don’t mind Poch either.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
MUSE!! 🙂
I bought their album Absolution years ago and threw it in the bin because I got mad they were ripping off Radiohead.
But I bought it on Amazon and realized about a week later that their music stood for itself so was able to download it again.
It is a great album, not withstanding the similarity to Radiohead 🙂
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Spurs to win 1-0. Erikson goal in first half.
georgio(Quote)
Eric, thanks.
Can’t see past a pool win Eric and i hope they do, feel a bit sorry for them missing out on the title. I thought they were excellent all season but the draws did for them. To only lose one game is brilliant and any other season they’d have the title in the bag with those points.
Muse were very much like Radiohead early days but are very much their own music now, all bands get influenced by someone. The new Album is really good (Simulation Theory ) give it a listen, i really like “Dig down ” and ” Thought contagion” in particular . Thought black holes and revelations was a better album tbh but it’s very different to be fair. Eric, Absolution is a great album, can’t believe you binned it lol.
Would love to see Radiohead at some point, though i prefer their old stuff if i’m honest.
kimtoon(Quote)
Spurs will be dying to have a shiny big Champions league cup for their shiny new stadium trophy cabinet .
Just think how many pages the southern press could write about that, it would take the whole of the transfer window before they got bored. 🙄
kimtoon(Quote)
I’m going for a Liverpool win tonight. Hope they do it. Either way though, it’s good for English Football…
Dubai Toon(Quote)
Aye Dubai, great advert for our game, lets hope both sets of fans don’t embarrass us too.
kimtoon(Quote)
So Rafa Does know whatsgoing on and is being kept in the loop,and being told there is money to spend whoever has the club,ime pleased about that
icedog(Quote)
Kimtoon: I don’t know what the fans will do. The Wanda Metropolitano is quite a way out and the festivities won’t finish until about midnight. I was at The Bernabeu a couple of years ago and they didn’t serve beer so I think it will probably be the same tonight. I have mentioned this before but the hotel I stayed in for $150 a night a couple of years ago are charging $1,500 tonight. My guess is that the Daily Mail will have pictures of a lot of Scousers sleeping rough. No Spurs fans though as that would go against their love in for all things Daniel Levy.
I doubt many of the bars in the centre will let any football fans in.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Lee Clark to be new Manager of Blyth Spartans. Good luck to him. But whenever I see his name it reminds me of Troy Stavers saying Clarky should succeed McClaren before we got Rafa.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
I checked The Daily Mail website and it seems there is nothing much happening in Madrid. You know they will have about 100 photographers aching to take pictures of Scousers in fountains and being arrested. Only 4 arrests so far according to The HateMail.
From what I recall there aren’t many fountains in Madrid and I really don’t know where anybody will get a drink after the game. That could be a good thing and a bad thing as you will have 100,000 fans wandering around aimlessly.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
So the game starts at 9pm local time. 100,000 scousers and cockerneys on the
p!ss all day and thousands without tickets and denied access to bars. What could possibly go wrong?
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Olly’s spellchecker blanked the c@ck in c@ckney 🙂
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Michael Owen: CL semi-finals second legs –
Liverpool 4 Barcelona 0
Ajax 2 Spurs 3
This has nil – nil written all over it for me like!
It is on BT in England right? That means Owen and McManamamanamanaman? Oh God, I don’t envy you lot.
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Yeah on BT FREE too.
TV menu on my virgin box says channel 100 showcase has it free too.
kimtoon(Quote)
Pool always have hundreds of ticketless fans turn up to big games, apparently loads of fake tickets being sold there today, quite a few been arrested for selling according to news.
kimtoon(Quote)
Sad news about Antonio Reyes RIP, 35 is way too young to die
kimtoon(Quote)
Dubai – Spurs were always my 2nd team growing up so I’m rooting for them. I think it was the Gazza think.
Sharpy17(Quote)
Bloody chronicle are sack less how do they keep their,report meeting of new clubs to PL DERBY instead of Villla ffs
Iceedog(Quote)
I get the impression that The Sun and The Mail actually want there to be trouble. They love to print the number of arrests and have photos of overturned tables. It is like New Years Eve where they would much rather show pictures of girls in mini-skirts vomiting on their friends shoes than people just having a really good time.
I know I have said this before but I also know what these piece of **** papers will do. And yet, I will go on their wensites just to confirm I was right 🙂
Eric Sykes(Quote)
Olly: why is this any different to a normal transfer window? Rafa’s contract and any buyout will have no effect because we never do any business until the final 2 days anyway.
Eric Sykes(Quote)