Yet another transfer window carried out in the dark by Newcastle United leaving their fans wondering infuriated and at boiling point with the club’s lack of communication as to their policy on signing players. Toon fans were hoping that by deadline day they’d be welcoming a new striker to St James’ Park and waiting patiently in a queue stretching out of the club shop clutching a black and white shirt ready to have their new number nine’s name emblazoned on the back.
Yet in a style that most fans have now become accustomed there was no striker despite attempts over the summer and on deadline day to land one. Another regular occurrence that comes with Newcastle United’s summer transfer window is a statement from Managing Director Derek Llambias with this particular one giving a brief outline of the board’s policy and why they failed to land their targets before the window snapped shut. As expected the statement was met with great disdain by a majority of the Geordie population. The question begged is whether Llambias is right to release another statement, angering fans and risk putting Newcastle back into the headlines.
To be perfectly honest as a fan myself I’ve lost all hope that Llambias and owner Mike Ashley will ever speak publicly to the press and give fans the face-to-face communication that they crave. But on the flip side the duo know they need to broadcast information from the boardroom to their customers and have chosen to release statements as a medium. The old adage ‘beggars can’t be choosers’ springs to mind when this subject inevitably crops up at the end of every transfer window. It’s a well-known fact that Ashley doesn’t talk to many people outside his circle of friends and confidants, while Llambias is equally uneasy in speaking to television cameras and into a reporter’s dictaphone.
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Whatever Newcastle fans are expecting from the hierarchy they will never get it. The way I see it is that the fans were spoiled by former chairman Chris Mort who was openly vocal about everything Newcastle United and even went as far as appearing in guest talks and interacting individually with the Geordie faithful. Mort was a fantastic chairman and he certainly built up a superb rapport with the fans. However since he left and Llambias was appointed things went downhill with the Kevin Keegan debacle, relegation, sacking Chris Hughton and now the supposed asset stripping all counting against him and Ashley.
I do feel for them, though, and the mind-set that some fans have towards them is ridiculous. They aren’t trying to ruin the club and certain events that have coincided with their time at the club have seen their stock plummet in the eyes of Newcastle fans. But let me pose this question. If Mort stayed and decided that releasing statements instead of interacting with the fans was a better way to communicate would they be so hasty in their derision and criticism of him? I severely doubt it. In my opinion Llambias hasn’t done anything wrong in preparing a document that offers fans an explanation and keep them informed of what they are trying to do at the club. Fans still crave the days of Mort and the open discussions that would take place on a regular basis. What the current regime doesn’t understand is that Newcastle United is more than just a football club to the people who reside in the area. It’s a religion, a way of life and they want to know what is going on a their club. Whether they are entitled to that is a different matter but the feeling that their desires aren’t met is how it comes across.
Personally I don’t mind if Llambias and Ashley release a statement every so often giving me an insight into what’s happening at the club. It’s not exactly making the headlines for the wrong reasons and I honestly think fans are starting to make mountains out of molehills when it comes to things like this. The problem is that they want to here it straight from the horse’s mouth, which is something that will never transpire. What they have to realise is that they’ll never get anything more and just learn to accept it.
Written by Jak Penny
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