A shocking article in my opinion. I usually just lurk on on here but after finding this on NUFC.com yesterday and not seeing anyone else pick up on it and have decided to make a posting.

So now we know - the limit of our chief executives ambition is "mid-table stability". Without a change of leadership this means that we had better get used to the dross we have seen over recent weeks. Opinion - Mihir Bose, Sports Writer

First appeared in the Daily Telegraph Sat 24.02.01

COULD Newcastle United do with a rich benefactor?

The City seems to think so, but David Stonehouse, Newcastle's chief executive says they are doing fine in their ambition to attain mid-table stability in the Premiership.

The club, Premiership runners-up in 1996 and 1997, made losses of £19 million last year and have hardly spent any money on players, balancing purchases with sales this season.

Stonehouse says: "We do not have the spare cash of Manchester United, and if we had the resources of some of the Continental clubs we might splash out in the transfer market. Every year we have a budget for net expenditure on players and that is largely intact. But we have made mistakes in the transfer market in the past and Bobby Robson and the board are not keen to spend."

Newcastle borrowed £55 million to enlarge and renovate their stadium and with interest at 7.45 per cent that means annual repayments of nearly £4.5 million. Last August they borrowed £4 million to improve catering facilities.

Last month they received a welcome £15 million, the final tranche of a £25 million interest-fee loan from NTL, the cable company but the drop in the club's value has been significant. NTL bought their last set of shares in the club in December 1999, when shares were valued at £1.20. They are now worth 34p each.

One City analyst told me: "The club is treading water and it needs somebody to come and put in money to take it forward. Since Cameron Hall Development own 48 per cent, that could only come if Sir John Hall and his family decide to sell."

Stonehouse admitted that the interest payments were a drain but insisted: "I'm not worried about the cash flow, what I'm concerned about is that we maintain our mid-table position.

"We have long-term commitments and we need long-term stability. We are not Manchester United, but a lot better placed than other Premiership clubs having done a lot of the development of our ground.

"I'm not sitting here worried about getting fresh capital. My concern is the transfer system, players' wages and performance. We do not have to get into the Champions League, mid-table stability is more important and we will cut our cloth accordingly."

However, if supporters want to cut more fashionable cloth then new money, perhaps a new owner, may be the only way forward.

Mihir Bose

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2001

Answers

AP

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2001

Speaks for itself really. What astounds me even more is Stonehouse's stupidity in publically saying this. Even if that is what they are hoping for they should always speak ambitiously.

This sort of statement would never have been allowed in the days of SJH, rightly or wrongly.

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2001

clarky

you've met DS - does this sound about right? If it does then i'm as gobsmacked as DeB. No wonder we're where we are.

"We'll settle for medocrity" permeates through the club from top to bottom.

Of course, if it doesn't then it's just another lazy b****d journo digging up old quotes and putting them out of context. conspiracy? Where's JFK when you need him....oh.

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2001

Min,

It does and it doesn't!
You have to understand that David Stonehouse is an accountant, and so corporate stability and fiscal prudence will be second nature to him, and his immediate priorities. However, my best instinct is that he has been quoted out of context in this article.
When I met with him, he didn't strike me as being unambitious. He is very cearly as much a fan of Newcastle United as the rest of us on here, and for that reason I have no reason whatsoever to doubt his ambition for the Club.

The problem here is that the person who really should be spelling out in very simple terms the forward vision for the Club, and thereby dispelling current concerns and getting the supporters on-side, is the Chairman.

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2001

To be fair to the Chairman didn't he try to do that a few weeks back in the first Q&A session?

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2001

Well DB, one could perhaps argue that's one definition of leadership.
It's not mine.

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2001

Lack of ambition, or just plain pig-headedness? Lengthy piece at footballunlimited which includes quotes from FS is here.

Could be the interview from a few weeks back rehashed, but still makes interesting reading. The bit that makes me wonder if FS is just being foolishly stubborn is this:

With Robson in place and a refurbished ground accommodating the Premiership's second-best support, should Shepherd not be investing heavily again in the side?

'Firstly, on the money side, it's stupid to say what you have in your pocket, and what you don't. It would be commercially stupid. Secondly, the transfer system in my opinion will be abolished. It will not stand up in its present form. If other clubs want to delve into the transfer market in a big way, that's up to them, but it is not for Newcastle.'

Shepherd insist this is not at the behest of the club's plc board. Yet Keegan, when he quit in 1997, suggested the constraints of the club 'going public' had left its mark. Shepherd is unimpressed with the argument.

'I disagree with that. You look at Leeds and they have paid £30 million on Rio Ferdinand and Robbie Keane and good luck to them. I'm positive the transfer system is dead. Obviously something will take its place, otherwise the whole game will be unworkable. But the present system is finished.'

Of course Leeds is also in Europe and playing well there, even if not yet being terribly convincing the league.

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2001

If you pay the money for players and the team performs well, the team becomes successful and no-one thinks a jot about the price for the player because everything is well.

I think FS is being a bit cautious about the standards of Robson's signings. Robson has spent the money yet we are seeing no substantial return for the money. Investment in the team must be to strengthen the team yet that has not happened.

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2001

One thing they HAVE managed to do well is shield the public from knowing how much is in the transfer kitty. No-one on here has a flipping clue how much money we have do we?

Mind you that's all well and good but there is no point in having the money to attract the top players if we haven't got the league position to attract them.

If it's only the money that attracts the players we are going to suffer with them.

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2001

well - they could help themelsves by building a half decent training ground and youth academy that would suggest longtermism.

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2001

That's happening in the summer isn't it?

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2001

I think the board are holding off on the Academy and are still chasing badgers at Woolsington

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2001

The FA have anything against badgers playing footy? Ok, they're small, but they're tough little buggers. 2 of them in the middle of the park would scare a few opposition teams. Probably.

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2001

Fiscal prudence demands that the Club avoids huge expenditure on new players until such time that there is a definitive agreement on what system will replace the existing one. I said yesterday that we neend a couple of high class midfielders, because it is in mid field that the battles and wars are won. Someone suggested that we need more. However, history has shown time and time again that the introduction of one layer has had an enormous impact. I remember how Carter, Doherty and Lawton improved the fortunes of their new clubs, and did not Cantona have a dramatic effect on the fortunes of Leeds and Man Utd. Our ability to finance future purchases will be seveely limited by existing obligations and covenants. We need a new principal owner who believes that the injection of additional funds will enhance shareholder value. The stock is only a quarter of the IPO -- a wise investment of 15 million at the appropriate time might raise the value of the shares well beyond their existing level and bring us the success for which we have long yearned.

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2001

It's simple really, Mr Stonehouse has made a blunder which I question.

Remember the ambitious board of the eighties, 'we will never be as big (perhaps he should of said 'GREAT' as even Man Utd havent reached that level yet) as Liverpool,' Stan Seymour. Our crowds then stayed above average and below the ambitious Liverpool - thus Liverpool made more money, as did the unsuccessful Man Utd, who where still the biggest football club on turnover with the highest crowds.

Sir John Hall and Kevin Keegan, in the 90's, 'announcing ambition(the key)'. The result our fans supporting the club like no other can (like in the again ambitious days of the 50's when no club could match our numbers), even when shite under Gullit, KD and shitish under Sir Bobby.

Now we have the second highest natural turnover in Britain behind Man Utd (THATS EVEN WITH OUT CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FOOTBALL, OR EUROPE, or even plugging jouros to associate our ambitions with Man Utd, like Arsenal do) we are simply the second biggest club.

I believe strongly if the club does not announce ambition, then that could hit season ticket sales and merchandising.

Man Utd have played with that word ambition (along with plugging their local press ask any City supporter, he even tell you it happend when they were shite and city where decent. It's the best way of advertising!!!!) since the busby days, Liverpool since the shankly days (Liverpool before shanks where a no where club in the second flight).

The simple answer to any club is announcing ambition, not 'advertising' medriocrity.

I'm now seriously questioning Mr Stonehouse's intentions and I'm watching that reporter with great interest. Clarky made a good point by suggesting that he used quotes out of context.

On the benefactor point, every club could do with one, Liverpool have Mr Thomson a bllionaire, but never advertise it, only clubs with fan bases like Blackburn publically associate themselves with benefactors, and thats only because people will tend to ask where the money has come from. Do you see the Milan (both smaller than the toon) clubs say that their buys are the result of benefactors? no.

This report suggests one thing, it's made to make our average season ticket holder to think we are not second to Man Utd in ambition, thus is this report an attempt to sabbotage season ticket sales and merchandising which eventually weakens our strength in the transfer market, and more importantly our future building of an acedemy?

We havent been excited since the Keegan days, but still have the second highest crowds(e.g.Sunderland have not known anything like their excitement and still cant sell out with freebies. This shows our potential) and the ground is still a sell out in a 51000 capacity. But how can the masses seriously get excited about medriocrity? ANSWER ME PLEASE MR STONEHOUSE.

-- Anonymous, February 26, 2001