Meanwhile, Shay Given has attacked the Newcastle money men he believes are hindering manager Bobby Robson's efforts.

The Republic of Ireland goalkeeper insists the St James' Park board, battling with debts of £70million, is potentially letting Robson down by not giving him the transfer funds he needs to compete with the biggest spenders in the transfer market.

Given said: 'We need to see progress. We need to find good new players. But I don't know what, if anything, Bobby Robson has to spend. You don't know if Newcastle have the kind of money after spending £50m on the stadium.'

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2001

Answers

Reinforcing the message to the wider world that we have no money!

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2001

But he's only a goalie. Would you expect YBR to tell him how much money was available. Large dose of salt (wrt this particular "quote") methinks.

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2001

Given has noticed that we haven't signed a big money player and come up with this. Unless Freddie has told him to tell the press we've got no money, which is a good thing to publicise

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2001

Not just the £50m on the stadium, though is it? It's £1??m on players spent by KK/KD?RG and indeed BR. With the state of the transfer system and the money we've already spent, I have a good deal of sympathy with the board.

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2001

Given's not saying anything people don't already know, and it hardly sounds like an attack. Just an answer to a question he was asked. Alan Shearer would probably say the same thing if asked, except he knows a little better how the press take things and blow them out of proportion. Just another case of the press taking a simple comment and trying to stir things up. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2001

Given slagging off the club again, He has to go !

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2001

Great news Shay, we're giving Bobby 10mil but on the condition that he buys a first rate keeper. Knew you'd be pleased.

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2001

To provide acounterpoint to Dans 'sympathy' for the Board, IMO they should be strung up.

They have:

* have overseen a 75 reduction in the market value of the business, and alienated the City financial institutions * supervised/managed the waste of something like £100 million on players, the end result of which is a piss-poor playing squad and an inability and/or apparent unwillingess now to do anything about it.
* have still failed to provide covered training facilities, despite talking about it for donkeys years, that means we now have to train on the SJP pitch which is already badly deteriorating.
* have made no tangible progress with the much-vaunted, and desperately-needed Youth Academy
* have alienated large tranches of their supporters through pig- headedness and administrative incompetence
* tolerate an interface with their public, their own web-site, that is an absolute laughing stock throughput the world.

Other than that they're doing a great job.

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2001

'The Mag' was reporting that Shepherd and Douglas Hall wanted out, but were waiting for the right bid. Since then I've heard nothing. Any substance to this, or was it just wishful thinking?

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2001

Stevo,

There have been press stories recently that they're trying to sell out to this guy Lamar Hunt in the US.
I feel quite sure that Hall would like to sell out, but at the present share price of only 33.5p his stake is only worth £23 million - ie. small change.
Regarding FS, I'm not sure. He seems to enjoy the prestige associated with the position, and his stake is only valued at £8 million.

Actually, if they had real confidence in the Club's future they'd invest £20 million of their own money to take it private again, get the team back up to the top, and then sell it.

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2001

Cheers Clarky.

The worse case scenario, IMHO, would be Hall +/ Shepherd wanting to sell, not finding a buyer, and in meantime doing as little as they think they can get away with until one comes along.

-- Anonymous, March 04, 2001

That could be the present scenario Stevo - if not, it's a very passable impression!

-- Anonymous, March 04, 2001

Clarky-

I didn't claim the board were God's gift to football administration, I was just talking about the transfer situation. You talk about the board 'managing' millions of wasted transfer money. If they'd tied RG's and KD's hands in the transfer market, they'd have been pilloried for lack of ambition. So they let the managers spend, they buy shite and the board get blamed for that as well. And if we'd bought wisely, would the board get the credit?

-- Anonymous, March 04, 2001

Management must manage, Dan. That is their only function - if they get it right they get all the credit, if they get it wrong they should accept the blame. They can't just delegate the responsibility for investing the Club's money wisely, and be absolved from responsibility if it isn't.
Football is absolutely no different to any other business in this regard. That's just the way it is.

IMHO, the present Board's track record is poor, however, you could try to convince me otherwise.

-- Anonymous, March 04, 2001