Carson's cat

He may not turn out to be the world's best football manager but, with the carnage going on in the Boardroom, it is important that we at least have somebody on the inside who cares about the club. Oh, and we can't afford to terminate his contract just now.

As they see it in Newcastle... Mike Ashley – A hate figure at Newcastle United jnugs9 / February 21, 2014 Newcastle United-a team, a group of fans, a club that is never far from controversy or talking points. At the moment that talking point is Mike Ashley, the club’s owner. He is becoming something of a hate figure on tyneside, perhaps even a scapegoat for everything that happens at the club be it team performances, results or players leaving the club. Is it really all down to him? Mike Ashley bought the northeast club in the summer of 2007 and initially proved to be popular with the Geordie faithful. He used his own money to pay off all of the club’s debt and appeared to be one of the fans, turning up to games in his Newcastle shirt and drinking pints with fellow supporters. He even brought back Kevin Keegan as manager in January 2008 which meant his popularity soared. However, this proved to be short lived. In September 2008 Keegan resigned as manager claiming he did not have full control of the team. Players such as Xisco and Nacho Gonzalez were bought over his head by Dennis Wise and he fell out with the board. This was the start of the rot for Ashley. Following widespread demonstrations at the Hull game which saw a half empty stadium and a 2-1 defeat for The Toon, the club was put up for sale with Ashley saying it was no longer safe for him to attend matches. This proved to be unsuccessful and Joe Kinnear was installed as manager, a man who had been out of the game for nearly 20 years, which proved to be another unpopular choice. Unfortunately the club struggled that season and was ultimately relegated to the Championship, disaster in the eyes of the fans. Later in 2009, in order to pay off some club debt Mike Ashley decided he wanted to sell the naming rights to the stadium which again caused uproar with the fans. In the end the stadium was renamed sportsdirect.com@St James’ Park, more of an email address than a name for a football stadium, after Ashley’s other business Sports Direct. Other unpopular decisions were when he sacked Chris Hughton and installing Alan Pardew as manager, making Joe Kinnear director of football and most recently selling Yohan Cabaye without buying a replacement. It is easy to see why he has become an unpopular figure with the Newcastle fans so what next for the northeast club. At the moment it seems that Ashley will remain owner for the foreseeable future. Newcastle fans are often labelled as being too demanding, but I think although this was once the case they are now more realistic. Most no longer believe they should be challenging for the league title, or even the Champions League, but there is one thing they want more than anything. To win some silverware, something which has eluded them since 1955. Although in recent times this has seemed nothing more than a dream. Since Mike Ashley bought the club, Newcastle has never got past the fourth round of the FA cup. A coincidence, I think not? To me it is clear the only interest Ashley holds in Newcastle United is to make money in order to fund his other business ventures. This may seem a bold statement but I will take the time to explain why I think this. Investment has never been a word in Mike Ashley’s dictionary. He has sold Yohan Cabaye, Demba Ba and Andy Carroll for a total of nearly £65 million without bringing in a replacement for any of them. In the past too summer transfer windows the only permanent first team signing that has been made was Vurnon Anita for a total of £6 million, and he isn’t even a starter. In January 2013 he did splash the cash a bit, but only so the club wouldn’t drop out the league again. He has stated that a top 10 finish in the league is his priority over any cup run, only because that is where the money lies. If he managed the assets that Newcastle have however he could afford to make investment without shelling out too much of his own money. St James’ Park has the potential to make shed loads of cash. Just look at Arsenal and The Emirates, they went through the process of paying off the money spent on the build whilst staying at the top of league without spending too much money and they are now reaping the rewards and enable to spend over £40 million to buy one player. The only advertising around St James’ Park is for Sports Direct, Ashley’s own company, meaning it is free and no money is coming in. It’s not as if Ashley doesn’t have the cash either, he is always buying shares in other companies for large amounts of money, often selling them not soon after to make a quick buck. Unfortunately with the mindset that Mike Ashley has, I think the only thing Newcastle fans can look forward to is finishing in the top 10 of the Premier League, they won’t win a trophy with him still as owner of the club. He started out on the right foot by paying off debt and stabilising the club, which he should take credit for, but has since somewhat lost control and alienated the fans. For me, the summer of 2012 was the turning point. After finishing in 5th the season before and qualifying for the Europa League Newcastle had the chance of launching themselves as a contender once again and reach heights they had not seen since the early 2000’s. But once again Ashley shied away from investment leading the club into a downward spiral once again.

Correct. If Lewis doesn't want to go, then there's no deal - even if Wigan went up to £5 million.

What Did Churchill Really Think About Ireland? This month 100 years ago in Belfast Winston Churchill was attacked by a loyalist mob trying to stop him promoting Home Rule, but his vision was of an Ireland loyal to Britain THE IRISH TIMES, Wednesday, 8 February 2012 Winston Churchill made his first public appearance in Ireland in 1878. In 1877 Disraeli had sent his family into a form of internal exile – the Duke of Marlborough was appointed viceroy in Dublin Castle and his son Randolph decided to act as his aide. Randolph's wife Jenny – proud mother of cherubic Winston – painted his portrait and placed it on public display at a Dublin exhibition, to the joy of the local press. He also learned his first political lesson. His nanny warned him against the dangers posed by the Fenians, reasonable advice as in 1882 republican assassins murdered Lord Frederick Cavendish, the incoming chief secretary, in the nearby Phoenix Park. Churchill's relationship to Ireland is encapsulated for many by a few famous phrases – his celebrated reference to the integrity of the quarrel of the dreary steeples in Fermanagh and Tyrone, and his sharp critique of de Valera and neutrality in the fight against Hitler. But what did Churchill really think about Ireland? Churchill's conversion from Conservatism to Liberalism owed everything to domestic social pressures in Britain and nothing to the Irish question. At the moment of conversion in April 1904 he signalled to the Liberals of northwest Manchester that he was not impressed by the great Gladstonian theme of Home Rule: "I remain of the opinion that a separate parliament for Ireland would be dangerous and impractical." His support for the Home Rule Bill in 1912 was always qualified by a view that a substantial partitionist concession should be made to Ulster unionism. This sympathy for their case was combined with exasperation when he felt they rejected reasonable offers of compromise, exasperation which led him to agree to speak to a Belfast nationalist meeting at the Ulster Hall on February 8th, 1912. The Ulster unionists regarded this as an act of gross provocation. At this venue Winston's father Randolph had declared in 1886 his passionate identification with their cause. In the end the venue was shifted to Celtic Park in Belfast. Nevertheless an angry Belfast loyalist crowd waited for Churchill and his wife Clemmie outside his hotel in Berry Street. "The roar that greeted the attempt to start the motor car was as angry as had been heard in Belfast for many a day." Within the narrow confines of the tiny and enclosed Berry Street the car was jostled by beefy shipyard workers including ironically one William Grant who was to be minister of public security in the Ulster unionist government during the second World War. The Northern Whig , a local liberal unionist paper, wished to downplay the level of threat and argued that the crowd merely wished to send a strong political message. But "it was as rough a five minutes as anybody could desire until at last, with a final rush, the police got the car around the corner and all danger was at an end". Perhaps not all dangers, however. In March Clementine Churchill had a miscarriage and one can only imagine Churchill's anger when at a 1917 dinner Lloyd George twitted him that he fully deserved his Belfast reception. Churchill's speech in Belfast has been rather neglected by historians. Unlike 1904, he now defended the creation of a Dublin parliament: "History and poetry, justice and good sense, alike demand that this race, gifted, virtuous and brave, which has lived so long and endured so much should not, in view of her passionate desire, be shut out of the family of nations and should not be lost forever among indiscriminate multitudes of men." He saw the new relationship of Great Britain and Ireland as fostering "the federation of English speaking peoples all over the world". He assumed that the growing Westminster subvention of Ireland undermined the case for significant economic powers for a Dublin parliament. The new loyal Ireland would constitute a strategic security asset for Britain. Churchill threw himself into the treaty negotiations arising from the Sinn Féin revolution of 1918-21. Accused by Liberal prime minister Asquith of dealing with these issues in a purely pragmatic rather than a Gladstonian high-minded fashion, Churchill replied with a comment marked by a deep sense of political history, self-knowledge and an eye for cant. He argued, with some precision, that Lloyd George's 1920-21 government had done exactly what Gladstone had done in 1880-82: announced determination to fight nationalist violence, then performed an about face, capitulated to it, and negotiated with its leaders. During the treaty negotiations Churchill bonded closely with Michael Collins at London dinner parties. His intentions were twofold – to ensure that the new Ireland would retain links, especially on defence, with Britain and to bolster understanding between Collins and Sir James Craig, the new Northern Ireland prime minister. When Collins showed occasional signs of backsliding from Churchill's view of this deal, Churchill had no hesitation in throwing military support behind the Ulster unionists. In 1926 he visited Belfast and spoke now as an honoured guest in the Ulster Hall and praised his father's speech of 1886 whilst still indicating a long-term hankering for a united Ireland linked to Britain. The electoral rise of de Valera, and with it the dominance of Anglophobic separatism in Irish politics, blighted Churchill's hopes as did the amazing (to him) decision by the Chamberlain government to evacuate the strategically significant port facilities in Ireland to placate de Valera and to convey the idea to Hitler that negotiation not war was the way to resolve historical disputes. On April 3rd, 1940, at a moment of extreme vulnerability, much obsession existed in Whitehall about getting Dublin onside. Churchill met David Gray, Roosevelt's cousin and the incoming US ambassador to Dublin, and told him he would not be party to any attempt to override the wishes of the Ulster unionists to secure this end. As late as 1948 Harold Nicolson and Sir John Maffey, the British ambassador in Dublin, had to tell Seán MacBride in the Kildare Street club that Churchill's apparent sympathy for Irish unity was only on the basis of an Ireland more closely linked to Britain. Today with de Valera's once hegemonic party now in disarray and Collins's party never stronger, an Irish government is reconsidering the role of the thousands of Irish soldiers who left the Irish Army for the British army in 1940. Today Ireland is increasingly nervous about Germany – the gallant allies of the men of 1916 – and its ambitions, and at a time when Ulster unionists were never more über-reasonable. In the past weeks unionist First Minister Peter Robinson made a piece of history by being an honoured guest at a Gaelic football match. What would Churchill think? Copyright © The Irish Times Paul Bew is professor of politics at Queen's University Belfast, and an Independent (cross bench) member of the House of Lords. He has just published Enigma: A new Life of Charles Stewart Parnell (Gill and Macmillan 2011).

'Bhoycotters'. That's poor, even by your standards. Can you give us any examples of non-renewers bad mouthing renewers? I've always taken the view that it is a personal decision and have never criticised anyone for renewing.

Bell McAusland, Gasparatto, Zaliukas, Wallace; Aird, McLeod, Law, Templeton; Gallagher & Miller

Various factors, but the main culprits were the thirteen players who got on the pitch.

KJ is spot on once again.

I understand your anguish, but what's the difference between staying away from Ibrox until Ally goes and staying away until the hedge funds go? For what it's worth I'm beginning to accept that Ally may not be managerial material, but I'd be very reluctant to see him depart just now. He's the only real link we have left with the past and I trust him to do his damnedest to resist any moves by the Board to sell players or downgrade Murray Park in any way. Let's sort out the club's ownership problem first. Get the right people into the Boardroom. And then think about the football management side of things.

The BBC can be blamed for many things, but definitely not this story. Green was touting it to every media organisation that cared to listen to him. The BBC was just one of many to run it.

Just sent you a PM.

Very sad news. My condolences to Sandra. Chas was one of life's good guys. Full of energy and seemed to have a joke for every occasion.

Ally should be judged on League results not on a poor performance in a pre-season friendly. In any event we could not afford to pay the compensation which the three of them would be due.

After Gary Stevens left we had Steven Wright for a short while. He was a natural full back. Since then, though, various managers have used the position to introduce centre-halves like Nisbet, Boli, Porrini, Vidmar, Broadfoot. One player I quite liked in that position, who was very much under-rated, was Alec Clelland. Never did anything fancy but rarely let us down - and he was a proper right back.

It really saddens me that anyone on here could have it in them to say something like that about a fellow Bear. Grow up.