“We don’t demand a team that wins, we demand a club that tries,” read the banner. Such was the rot that had set in at Newcastle United in Mike Ashley’s 14 years, that any concerns the club’s fans had over a takeover merely extended as far as ‘when’, never ‘whom’.
The two entirely avoidable relegations, the rebranding of the stadium as the Sports Direct Arena, the hiring of Joe Kinnear, the employment tribunal with Kevin Keegan, the failure to retain Rafael Benitez. The decision to release Jonas Gutierrez – a man who mere months prior had made his footballing return after battling cancer – by asking the also-released Ryan Taylor if he could “pass the phone to Jonas”. Only the word count prevents me from going on.
Newcastle fans would, understandably, have greeted any new owners with the
