The last 16 months have been the most successful since a certain Mike Ashley bought the club.

Mike Ashley – a complete disaster for Newcastle

And that was because we got a manager at Newcastle who completely galvanized the dressing room, and took only a few months to convince the Newcastle fans he could be the real deal, and Chris Hughton made us all proud last season, by getting the club promoted straight back to the Premier League – easily.

Newcastle also started to get good press for not only being a good team, but playing the game in an entertaining and attractive way.

The promotion added around £100M to the value of Ashley’s club, and while the stated goal of this season was just to stay up, Newcastle were in 5th place just a few weeks ago.

Newcastle were in 11th place last Monday afternoon when Mike Ashley did what he keeps doing, and interfered with everything good at the club – by sacking Chris Hughton.

That was some thanks to Chris, for all the great things he had already achieved for the club.

We have to assume that Mike was getting annoyed and upset that the club was so stable – and even successful.

How else can you explain his decision?

But what Mike Ashley thinks is beyond us – because he never says anything – but his actions suggest very strongly that he has no clue how to run a football club, and that’s not a personal opinion – it’s based completely on his record of rash and rather stupid decisions at Newcastle.

Mike let Chris get on with it from July last year – and we have to hope he now does the same thing with Alan Pardew, and  takes a less prominent role in the running of the club.

The best thing would be that he takes no role at all in the running of the club and  sells up – but we don’t know how realistic or possible that is at the moment.

Where’s that Geordie Billionaire we all want to see?

If  Mike keeps low key – and out of the way – and doesn’t do anything – then Newcastle may have a chance.

We have to hope that Alan Pardew comes in, gets the players behind him, and continues on in the way Chris Hughton ran the club, and it seems he made a decent start yesterday.

Chris’ definition of his job was to get as many points as possible this season for Newcastle,  and that meant every game was a possible 3 points – and that’s a great way of looking at it.

Certainly very different and more positive then big Sam Allardyce’s approach to football has ever been.

If Alan Pardew keeps that same philosophy that Chris created, he could keep Newcastle up this season, but there’s no doubt these next several game are going to decide Newcastle’s  season.

The side will either keep pressing in mid table or above – or we’ll plunge into another relegation fight – and it could go either way.

If it’s the latter, then Mike Ashley should do the honorable thing and admit he doesn’t  have a clue about running a football club, and get out of Toon – please!

Newcastle fans will then be able to party big time, as we should be able to get our club back.

And by the way in closing, Chris Hughton is 52 years old today – so we wish the London gentleman a Happy Birthday.