Interesting views from Morton fans after claims Mike Ashley looking to takeover as feeder club for Newcastle United
Some interesting views from Morton fans after claims Mike Ashley looking to takeover as feeder club for Newcastle United.
So many people have an opinion on both Newcastle United and Mike Ashley…
Intriguing views below.
Morton fans comment via their Morton Forum message board:
‘Feeder club? Who in their right mind would want Morton as a ‘feeder’ club when we haven’t produced a player to play at the top of level of football in nearly 30 years.
We are hardly at the level of Auxerre in the mid-1990s.’
‘Argument collapses though on the premise that Newcastle United – the Dundee of English football – would be well-placed to judge the competence of other football clubs.
Our record pales in comparison with their basketcase setup, as Kevin Keegan’s recently serialised account of his last spell in charge makes clear.’
‘I spoke to my friend from Newcastle about this, I thought he would laugh at me because I’m always winding him up about Ashley and the shambles that Newcastle is, so I fully expected him to take great pleasure in getting his own back after years.
His words to me were “I wouldn’t wish that cancer on any club. Its hard to know how bad this guy is without him owning your club for ten years. The press don’t report 90% of the stuff he’s done”
Sounds promising!’
‘I can’t speak for your mate of course, but what has Ashley actually done to Newcastle? Do the Newcastle fans in general not have ideas above their station?
He hasn’t put them in financial peril, but his crimes seem to me to be taking their profits for himself (which he’s quite entitled to do) rather than investing them in the squad and not letting the fans tell him how he should run his business.’
‘I’ve always kind of thought the same but the level of sheer hatred Newcastle fans have towards him means there’s probably more to it than meets the eye. Legends like keegan and shearer wouldn’t hate him because he’s making a profit for themselves, and they’ve both worked under him.
The Xisco and Gonzalez deals are obviously one that’s gotten out in the press, but who knows how many other dodgy things have went on that arent widely known in the public.
There’s so many occasions in football where opposing fans on the outside see things one way and don’t see why a clubs fans feel that way about a manager/owner etc but the fans of the club who are entrenched in what goes on at the club know what is really happening.’
‘Newcastle have been relegated twice in Ashley’s time there, and it’ll be three sooner or later if he hangs around.
I think it’s especially the lots of little things (being patronising towards fans and staff, not particularly caring, falling out with highly regarded Newcastle players/mangers, etc) which all come back to the main problem: he runs Newcastle United for the success of Sports Direct and himself, not for the success of Newcastle United.
I know this means that he hasn’t stretched them beyond their means, but they know their owner isn’t terribly bothered if they win a trophy or get relegated, as long as they keep plodding along.
It would be like us keeping Jim Duffy as manager for a decade or more, even if he relegated us a couple of times, because he would see us float back up each time without financial disaster. And add in him surrounding himself with his mates (who are mostly not very nice) and him being a bit of a tool himself, and things will get toxic quickly.
Bottom line is that fans hate it when they know the owner doesn’t care if the club is successful but only that the club continues to float around a financially viable level.’
‘A Newcastle feeder scenario at least has a logic to it that ‘youth-based sustainability’ has completely lacked from the beginning.’
‘Every Scottish club aspires in some sense or other to be a feeder club to the English Premiership and Championship.
It’s not the ‘wee’ clubs alone, Celtic have made huge sums (by Scottish Football standards) selling players to England and elsewhere.’
‘That’s aspiring to sell players, not being structured to help another team regardless of results for us.’
‘Not a huge fan of the wait and see approach when there’s a track record of dodgy behaviour and a massive club with passionate fans that has had the life sucked out of it.’
‘PSV, Vitesse and Antwerp all seem to have done well – especially Vitesse who owe their current status to Chelsea loanees.’
‘PSV: not a feeder club
Vitesse: small number of Chelsea loanees from the cream of their academy
Royal Antwerp: suffered probably the worst spell in their history with well over a decade outside the top flight (but at least they had Ronnie Wallwork!)’
‘Getting a couple of players on loan per season from a club due to a friendly relationship between both clubs is a completely different scenario than the club being set up to replace Newcastle’s youth academy due to dodgy links between the clubs.
To use the Celtic and Man City model that was mentioned earlier, Celtic have the power to have Arzani play in the reserves if he’s deemed not good enough for the first team, whereas if we have five Newcastle loan players at Morton and only one of them is good enough or the first team, we will still have five Newcastle loanees playing every week in the first team.’
‘If you read the article on Newcastle youth, they appear to be scrapping it so maybe they want their prospects playing competitively before going to their under 23 squad? Bridge the gap a bit.
Celtic are a feeder club for Man City, not doing them any harm. Rangers will all be a feeder for Liverpool.’
‘If this happens and our sole purpose as a football club is to develop players for Newcastle then you can stop calling it Morton. It won’t be Morton. Call it Newarkcastle or something and put them in black and white stripes.
I’ll accept the argument that teams are already developing other sides players by taking them on loan, but this doesn’t sound like taking a couple of good prospects to make up the numbers.’
‘I’ve been watching Morton for over 30 years, but I’ll have nothing to do with this.’
‘They signed players on loan at Newcastle with no intention of playing them as favours to agents etc, I’m sure they’d find a way to make their money back by whatever means necessary.’
‘So is being successful meaning that we help a team like Newcastle develop their young players, or we provide an avenue for avoiding tax, or what? Their definition of success might not match ours. It certainly didn’t match Newcastle’s or Rangers’ definition of success.’
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