For reasons we can only speculate upon, parts of the mainstream media especially SKY SPORTS and TALKSPORT’ appear to wish to develop a different narrative in regards to Newcastle United. According to the less than credible guests they feature, Mike Ashley is not the single cause of our club’s decline through a mixture of lack of investment, incompetence, venality, arrogance, ignorance and grotesque stupidity. He is not a man who spurns the opportunities that comes his way, preferring to elevate his tacky sports shop and other businesses above Newcastle United.
We only want to deal in facts as a response to the drivel being spouted in our direction. Again, we are thankful to one of our writers, Andy Trobe for taking time out to pull some details together which serve as a timely reminder of what an unmitigated disaster Mike Ashley has been for Newcastle United.
We encourage you to send links of this article to SKY and Talksport and indeed any other news outlet or journalist who is failing to see the true picture Ashley has painted at St James’ Park, Read on:
In 2003, Newcastle had a higher revenue than Barcelona. In 2017, we had a lower revenue than Bournemouth.
From 2007 to 2016, Newcastle’s match day income dropped by 26%. Over the same period, Arsenal’s increased by 10%, Spurs by 32%, West Ham by 59% and Liverpool’s by 62%.
In 2007, NUFC had the 13th highest income in the world.’ In 2017, we didn’t feature in the top 30.
From 1892 to 2007, NUFC were relegated 4 times. In the 10 years since, we’ve been relegated twice and escaped a further two relegations on the last day of the season.
Newcastle’s gross debt in 2007 was ‘76.6m. In 2017, it was ‘144m.
From 2007 to 2016, Newcastle’s commercial income dropped by 9%. Over the same period, Spurs increased by 81%, Liverpool by 177%, Arsenal by 181% and West Ham’s by 233%.
In the 5 seasons prior to Ashley taking over, NUFC averaged 8th place in the Premier League. In the ten seasons since, they’ve averaged 15th place.
In 2007, only 30% of NUFC’s revenue was generated by broadcasting income. In 2016, NUFC were reliant on broadcasting for 59% of their revenue.
In the 5 seasons prior to Ashley taking over, NUFC averaged a net spend of ‘9.5m per season on transfers. Since then, we’ve’ averaged ‘3.4m whilst receiving over ‘0.5b in TV income.
The average net spend on transfers by other club owners ‘ Lerner : Aston Villa (’17m), Abramovich : Chelsea (’55m), Henry : Liverpool (’19m), Hicks /Gillett : Liverpool (‘8m), Glazer : Man Utd (’45m), Abu Dhabi : Man City (’87m)
In the 5 seasons prior to Ashley taking over, NUFC qualified twice for the Champions League and twice for the UEFA cup. In the ten years since then, we’ve’ qualified only once for the Europa League.
Sports Direct’s share price has increased by 33% since 2007. They have not paid a penny in stadium advertising to NUFC over that time.
Since 2007, every Premier League club have broken their transfer record. Except Newcastle United.
In 2007, Newcastle had the third biggest stadium in England. It’s now the 7th biggest.
ANDREW TROBE – FOLLOW ANDY ON @tfAT1892′
true faith‘is’Newcastle United’s‘longest running and most widely read fanzine. It is one of the most prominent and respected fanzine titles in the UK. It is definitely one of the hardest working. This is issue 136 of the fanzine. It is FREE to download now and you can read it offline and on any device you like. For best results we recommend a tablet or i-pad.’true faith‘is written by supporters for supporters. It is for people who like to read about’Newcastle United‘and football in general.’ We do something a bit different. This is avowedly a partisan Geordie publication but also internationalist. You won’t get pop-ups, click-bait, recycled second hand cut and paste news and we won’t lazily reheat nonsense about SKY pundits. We’ll leave that to others. We respect you all too much to go down that road. This is good, solid, old fashioned fanzine writing for the modern supporter in a digital, modern format. Our reading figures for the fanzine are truly astonishing. Each issue, our readership grows and so our audience gets ever bigger. We must be doing something right.
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These are good FACTS. I love a good FACT
Will little dennis wise be making any comment on these facts ? I doubt it ! or will little dennis be back on sky any time soon blowing smoke up Ashley’s arse ? only after the next bid for the club is turned down & he is on to tell us all what a diamond geezer his mate is. How nice would it be to bump into that little cunt in a pub car park ?
It is bad enough that the press are either naive or guilty by association, but some of our fans fall for it too! Anyone who understands anything about our club, its history or the region knows that Ashley is a cancer eating away the heart, soul and body of our club. We need to ignore all the outside attempts to influence what is our club. We will proved right in time if we have the courage to see this through.#ashleyout
Reflects well against the standard stereotypical and – essentially – lazy comments and attitudes of many so-called ‘expert’ pundits who seem to have Newcastle fans filed under ‘D’ for deluded.