Are the stars set to align on the 9th June 2020?
If you are a Geordie, you might be forgiven for not knowing the significance of the 9th June 1862.
If you are a Newcastle fan and you don’t, kindly leave this page.
When Geordie Ridley first sang the Blaydon Races on the 5th June 1862 at Balmbra’s Music Hall, little did he know that it would be immortalised as the Newcastle United anthem.
A few clubs have made feeble attempts to nick it such as, amongst others, Manchester United, QPR and, bizarrely, the mackems, but it remains immediately recognisable as Newcastle United’s own.
The year 1862 is significant for a number of events.
In the US the one dollar note came into circulation in February, Dr. Richard Gatling patented the Gatling gun in Indianapolis in November and in June slavery was outlawed in US territories.
At the time of writing, the 9th June is a week away, and down at the virtual pub, it won’t be lost on fans that “only at Newcastle” could the country’s richest Jewish family partner up with Saudi Arabia’s richest Arab family, along with Amanda Staveley, to potentially make Newcastle United surely the world’s richest sporting franchise.
The fact that this is happening in a worldwide pandemic and has sucked in two nations, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, who are fighting a geo-political war by proxy through NUFC over alleged TV piracy, drawn in Amnesty International, the World Trade Organisation, the widow of the murdered journalist Adnan Khashoggi, numerous grandstanding politicians and, most irritatingly but inevitably, Richard (barred for life from Tyneside) Keys.
Should the Newcastle United takeover happen, the potential for the football club and the region are stellar.
The Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) is estimated to be worth an eye watering £255 billion and the Reuben brothers a mere £19 billion!
The 9th June 1862 does not, itself, seem too apparent for anything particularly remarkable.
If the stars do though align on the 9th June 2020, please could a talented song lyricist incorporate the words…Ashley gone, absolutely mortal and Messi signs for Toon, in an amended version of the Blaydon Races.
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