The Newcastle owner Mike Ashley is reported to be in serious negotiations with Glasgow Rangers FC, to get the naming rights to the club’s famous Ibrox Stadium.
Ibrox – home of Glasgow Rangers
Ashley renamed St. James’ Park as the Sports Direct Arena over a year ago, and that lasted until Wonga did a deal for the shirts, and paid some money over to the club to have the name changed back to St. James’ Park – but there are still Sports Direct signs all over St. James’ Park, that you see when the Newcastle games are being televised around the world.
Ibrox opened in 1899, three years before St. James’ Park become the ground of a new club, which united Newcastle East End and Newcastle West End into Newcastle United, and the Scottish club, who are in need of increased revenues, are looking at some image rights deals.
Charles Green took over the club in June, before they were demoted and are now playing in the fourth tier of Scottish football, and getting little or no TV money.
It’s hardly surprising that Rangers’ fans are aghast at the notion of renaming their famous stadium, and what’s very clear now, if it wasn’t a few years ago, is that Ashley is using both Newcastle United and Glasgow Rangers, which he currently owns something less than 10% of the club, to use as advertising for his Sports Direct company.
Mike did that at Newcastle, and he is doing it at Rangers, even though the Glasgow fans will hate him for doing that.
But in Mike’s eyes of course – it’s purely business.
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36 comments so far
mattyNUFC
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:26 AM
Comment #1there goes our CB in january
jeff
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:28 AM
Comment #2losing against wigan will be bittersweet
it would mean pardew would be closer to getting fired
jesperfuglsang - captain of the lemon crew
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:28 AM
Comment #3Am I the only one to think that the subs last night once again were too little, too late?
…do feel for the lads though, but after 70 min. I just started to wonder why the silver supremo was so hesitant to make substitutions when fatigue and a lack of finding a second goal was clearly there to be seen!
Indian Magpie
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:30 AM
Comment #4Any 1 thinks Pardew has become cocky and complacent.
mattyNUFC
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:31 AM
Comment #5jesper
said it in an earlier post
thought they ran around like headless chickens, all for the cause, for better or worse, but the players sure as hell could’ve used some help from their manager when they were all clearly out of steam
toonarmydownsouth
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:32 AM
Comment #6Dont care really about rangers or sports direct nout to do with us
Matty
Why? SD isnt funded from NUFC where do people get this from?
Indian Magpie
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:34 AM
Comment #7Now i am thinking, pardew did not deserve manager of the year last year. it was Pardew’s luck.
mattyNUFC
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:34 AM
Comment #8tads
it was more of a joke but in reality, you don’t believe SD to have benefited at all from NUFC? not even in the slightest?
you remember the stadium for the past two years? even before MA changed the name?
toonarmydownsouth
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:36 AM
Comment #9Matty
Of course it benefited from it that was my point though, doesnt matter what me point was tho if was said in jest!
wynsleap
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:37 AM
Comment #10Good to see Ashley is putting all his time, effort and money into helping the North East Premiership club he allegedly has ambition for.
House of Fraser and Rangers seem to be taking up his waking hours instead of working out how his club isn’t going to do a free fall out of England’s top football competition and why it has been allowed to get this far.
The guy is an utter disgrace and should never have been allowed to get within a throw of the dice of our wonderful football club.
tequilamag
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:41 AM
Comment #11Jesper in hindsight your probably correct, late goals have hurt us a lot this season and we seem to look vulnerable to counter attacks late in the game. Can only assume that Pardew did not want to risk disrupting the team which until the equalizer looked pretty good for the 3 points. Did you think the overall petformance was an improvement last night?
mattyNUFC
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:42 AM
Comment #12tads
i agree with MA’s blueprint. He is never going to invest loads of money in the club, that’s fine, i realize that. my frustrations are with the team and AP and they seem to be broiling over into any and all facets of NUFC. I just honestly believe, injuries or otherwise- and you can’t say Cabaye being out is the main cause of our current predicament because he’s never been useful in a holding CM role, we’ve been pretty abysmal all season- the ability of our squad far surpasses that of their manager’s.
clock is ticking i feel. pro-pardew-ers’ excuses can only hold verity for so long. is it all down to him? no, but five losses on the trot will be the first time in Newcastle United’s history if we lose to Wigan, and i’m very, very worried about that
geordie157
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:43 AM
Comment #13There are 3 major weak links in the side.
Simpson, Williamson and Jonas.
Simpson, we know he’s leaving his performances have been poor to say the least this season, so why not give Tav a run in the side at right back? He offers more going forward too.
Williamson, can’t head to save his life, aimed at for 99% of set pieces and he’s slow and hoofs it. Put Perch in with Colo, yes we lose height but he keeps it simple.
Jonas, unfortunately no longer reliable, lacks creativity and is no longer a threat going forward. Time to give Marveaux a chance.
Make those three changes and i think we can improve. But will Pardew agree with me, i doubt it.
Rotonda heights
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:44 AM
Comment #14“There are a lot of causes for concern – our injury list, the Europa League but there’s no need to harp on about them.”
So why does he endlessly!! Last night was a bit better as we weren’t 100% 442, so why not leave it at that? We don’t need Souness all over again.
I am sure with the flair, speed and skill we could have got 12 points from the last 4 games and not just played for a draw with either the 4231 or 343 I posted before.
check the toastie
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:44 AM
Comment #15One thing Pardew has a great talent for is Long losing Runs, holds the record at West Ham, wonder if he can break ours. Monday will be interesesting, see if he can take it to five………
In the 2006–07 season, Pardew was criticised after seeing West Ham through their worst run of defeats in over 70 years which included an exit from the UEFA Cup to Palermo in the very first round[11] and a League Cup defeat to Chesterfield.[12] West Ham’s new owners stated their support for Pardew,[13] but on 11 December 2006, following a 4–0 defeat away at Bolton Wanderers the previous weekend, it was announced that Pardew had been sacked by West Ham. The club statement read “The chairman Mr Eggert Magnússon and the board have been concerned by the performances of recent weeks and feel that it is the right time to make a change in the best interests of the club.”[14]
mattyNUFC
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:44 AM
Comment #16tequila
late goals against us have been a mainstay in Pardew’s reign! 2-0 up v wolves and we finish 2-2. Tottenham in 10/11 1-0 going into extra time and lennon salvages a point. next game same story with sunderland. last night. this is not something new by any means
Indian Magpie
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:47 AM
Comment #17Where is Gorgonzola/pecorino any 1 knows
tequilamag
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:52 AM
Comment #18Matty, unless you can produce some concrete evidence that Newcastle have statistically let more goals in late under Pardew than other teams I can only take that as an assumption though you maybe correct. TBF to Pardew I can understand him not wanting to make a change last night for the reason I posted before. Sunderland and Liverpool hit us with late goals but we down to 10 men.
jesperfuglsang - captain of the lemon crew
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:53 AM
Comment #19Tequila…I am not going to kid myself by saying it was a great performance because that would be a lie – but they showed a will to fight for it and that was really nice to see.
…first half wasn’t bad, but it took us a while to get up to speed (too many situations where we are not at out toes and not enough movement still)
…the second half started with with much more determination and drive, but it took its toll and fatigue kicked in after 70 mins. A manager should not be afraid of making changes (that’s an important part of the game; Pulis knows that and it won him the game)
Everything is easy in hindsight and it’s not always fair to second guess the manager cause God knows it’s not always easy, but it was there to be seen even the commentators mentioned it 🙂
Pardew has a tendency to make make subs too little, too late I think…
A quick question though, can anyone sum our tactics and formation up me ’cause I just have no idea what was going on last night tactically 😀 looked like a 4-4-2 infused with bits of a 4-3-3 and even 4-5-1 at times (it was really confusing)
Rotonda heights
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:53 AM
Comment #20I think our fitness is shocking. We play a different team in Europe virtually apart from the last game, so really not a valid excuse. Other clubs have players doing areobics, yoga etc to supplement their training.
The only thing that impressed me about Allardyce was player conditioning. My sunday league local team look fitter at the moment.
jesperfuglsang - captain of the lemon crew
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:54 AM
Comment #21*out = our
Indian Magpie
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:57 AM
Comment #22Jesper,
What is this with you and posts, more smileys than words sometimes
mattyNUFC
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:58 AM
Comment #23tequila
i won’t sift through that for the benefit of one-upping someone on the blog, but, when was the last time you felt comfortable with a one goal lead with AP here? ok, bit of a loaded question cause it’s always a nail biter but you just brought up two more recent examples of when it’s happened, from this season too. You could throw swansea in there as well because we could have gotten something out of it (wholly undeserved) if we hadn’t conceded to de guzman.
and jesper, tequila,
on last night i agree with nearly everything you’re saying, jesper. Yes, there was plenty of fight but zero cohesion or direction. the players were knackered and clearly needed their manager to make the right substitutions at the right time. if it were me? I would’ve brought ranger on for one of the dembas. Bigi on for tiote who was abysmal and marvs for guti. ranger to trouble the backline, marvs to hold the ball up just ONCE and make ONE intelligent pass to keep possession (something i don’t think Guti did all evening) and Bigi because tiote was abysmal last night
Rotonda heights
Nov 29, 2012 at 9:59 AM
Comment #24check @ 15
if memory serves, curbishley came in restored tevez and mascherano to the team and they pulled off the great escape, but pardew had left them with a mountain to climb.
It was a bit better last night and if I have any sympathy for pardew it is having to play willo forced on him as that guy is killing us.
mattyNUFC
Nov 29, 2012 at 10:00 AM
Comment #25jesper
pro-pardew’ers will shout from the rooftops that we “got what we wanted! it was clearly 433′ but i have no idea what they were doing. aimless at best
tequilamag
Nov 29, 2012 at 10:01 AM
Comment #26Jesper you also have to factor in the opposition. Stoke are an awful team to play.. they rely to a great extent on throw ins and free kicks and play is constantly broken up. Given that I think Pardew went 442 as this was the system that we used last season when we won. It was never going to be a free flowing game, but given that I thought we played much the better football .
Rotonda heights
Nov 29, 2012 at 10:02 AM
Comment #27indian
italy
tequilamag
Nov 29, 2012 at 10:03 AM
Comment #28Matty you answered your own question, regardless of who the manager is you never feel comfortable with a 1 0 lead.
toonarmydownsouth
Nov 29, 2012 at 10:03 AM
Comment #29Geordie157 @13
Tbf no one was a bigger weak link than tiote and not only last night….
mattyNUFC
Nov 29, 2012 at 10:04 AM
Comment #30tequila @ 26
fair point. i also think a lot of our ‘better’ play was down to some really awful first touches from most of the stoke players. they do have a few players capable of some nice stuff (ethrington, nzonzi, shtton) but the rest of the team’s first touch is pretty embarrassing
mattyNUFC
Nov 29, 2012 at 10:06 AM
Comment #31tequila 28
yeah, of course, but i feel the frequency with which we give up late goals or concede leads is much, MUCH higher than with say Hughton or even Big Sam
it’s worrying. This, moreso than form or personnel or otherwise, has been the one consistent thing in Pards’ time here
Indian Magpie
Nov 29, 2012 at 10:08 AM
Comment #32Rotonda,
i mean the poster, not the cheese itself.
Charlie in the Gallowgate
Nov 29, 2012 at 10:11 AM
Comment #33check the tostie
Déja-vu 1
Didn’t realise Pardew had set the losing record at West Ham.
Déja-vu 2
In season 1987-88 we finished 8th 1pt behind Wimbledon on 56pts. Whatever happened to them
Season 1988-89 finished bottom on 31 pts winning 7 games but we lost 4 in row 3 times with the the last 9 games yeilding 3 pts and 4 goals. Déja-vu
Not confident for Monday – could start in the bottom three. but will be there
tequilamag
Nov 29, 2012 at 10:12 AM
Comment #34Matty, it always seem much worse when you concede late especially 2. Proper kick to the goolies last night.
lukewigz1
Nov 29, 2012 at 10:39 AM
Comment #35How any of you can blame this on Pardew is beyond me, the fact of the matter is we are missing ten or eleven first team players, the biggest mistake we have made this season is not strengthening in the summer and under estimating the premier league and europe together I for one would be utterly dismayed to see Pards chopped, we need stability continuity and I will bet my house we will turn this around and stay clear of relegation
Crawfordladd17
Nov 29, 2012 at 4:39 PM
Comment #36Go away Ashley you destroyed the name of one of my clubs and your not going to destroy the other