Remember Graham Roberts and his plan to put Newcastle United in the hands of the fans? I thought that had faded into oblivion. In fact I thought it was a complete non-starter and imposed a reporting embargo on myself about it, but I've lifted it in the interests of amusement. It seems this bid is still simmering [.

In recent years the model of fan ownership exercised through supporters' trusts has been increasingly high-profile in British football, not least thanks to the sterling work of the national body Supporters Direct (SD). Meanwhile, very different yet nonetheless successful models of fan ownership exist across the continent, as seen throughout the Bundesliga or alternatively with the ‘socio' model as at Real Madrid or Barcelona.

Ever since Mike Ashley first put Newcastle United up for sale there have been rumours of various fan buy-out schemes for the club. The latest of them was probably that Graham Roberts nonsense, which I took a particular dislike to and refused to waste electrons on. However, it seems that the results of the Keegan [.

Well, no-one saw this coming: Ebbsfleet United, the "world's first web community owned club", has lost most of its community in its second year of operation and the club is spiralling towards disaster on and off the field.

It's hard to say just how unsurprising this is.

The Newcastle United Supporters Trust (NUST) has launched its 'Yes We Can' campaign, which aims to raise enough funds to finance a fan buy out of the club. The NUST's plan, which has been dubbed 'Barcelona on the Tyne' by the financial community, aims to democratise the club and ensure that the 'current situation at Newcastle [.