Barry Moat still thinks there's a chance of him buying Newcastle United in the future. Apparently, whilst Moat has no immediate plans to launch another bid, he will continue to think about how he might wrest the club for Ashley in the future. Speaking to Sky Sports News he said: "For one reason or another it didn't come [. Click to continue reading...

Mike Ashley has taken Newcastle United off the market after 5 months and appointed Chris Hughton as permanent manager until the end of the 2010/2011 season. Emotions were running high when this was announced last night but I wanted to try and analyse the situation a little more objectively in the cold light of day. Click to continue reading...

Of all the loathsome, inept and baffling decisions made and actions taken by Mike Ashley and his useless merrymen running the show on Barrack Road, he's finally gone where I thought he could never go. Having announced the decision to take the club off the market and install Chris Hughton as permanent manager, the official [. Click to continue reading...

The following announcement was made on the Newcastle United site tonight: NEWCASTLE United are delighted to announce that Chris Hughton has been named the permanent manager of the Club, his contract will run until the end of the 2010/11 season. At the same time the Club has confirmed that it has been withdrawn from sale and is [. Click to continue reading...

According to an article posted on The Telegraph's site late last night, Mike Ashley has turned down Barry Moat's latest £80m bid for Newcastle United even though he'd previously said he'd accept the bid on the terms specified. What the article says is that whilst Ashley had previously rejected Moat's offer to take £40m down and [. Click to continue reading...

Would-be Newcastle United owner Barry Moat tried to persuade Richard Harpin to invest in his bid to buy the club. Richard Harpin is the head of HomeServe and has a personal fortune of more than £200m, which places him as one of the top 5 richest North-Easterners according to the Sunday Times Rich List. Click to continue reading...

Alan Shearer says he would still love the Newcastle United manager's job but is also prepared to consider managing other clubs. At the end of last season it seemed almost certain that Shearer would be given the Toon job despite failing to keep us in the Premier League. Ashley had described employing Shearer as 'the best [. Click to continue reading...

Apparently Barry Moat tabled an £80m bid for Newcastle United on Friday and Mike Ashley had to be saved from angry fans by stewards during the away match to Scunny. Divven get too excited though - it's News of the World time again. First, Barry Moat's bid. Sport of the World has apparently 'learned' that Barry Moat [. Click to continue reading...

After a summer of discontent at Newcastle United, with the club having been up for sale since May, we've failed to attract a single serious buyer. It seems Moat was all mouth and all the other 'bidders' were either publicity hunters, time-wasters or chancers who only expressed an interest in the hope of purchasing way below [. Click to continue reading...

Chris Hughton will be appointed as permanent manager of Newcastle United after the weekend's visit from Doncaster. Apparently Chris Hughton has been offered a £250,000 a year deal which is believed to be the same package that David O'Leary turned down in August. I have no idea why O'Leary turned down the manager's job at Newcastle United [. Click to continue reading...

Mike Ashley is now prepared to take £80m for Newcastle United but will there be any takers? Amidst another petulant stab at the fans in yesterday's Times, Mike Ashley announced: "Barry Moat has been driving me mad for two years. If he wants to buy the club, he's got a one-off opportunity to come up with the [. Click to continue reading...

No honestly, I really do. I mean he's clearly absolutely crackers. What, you think all of this apparent contempt towards Newcastle fans and his bad behaviour is all down to arrogance and spite? No man, he's nuts. How else do you explain his actions and this reckless and continual 'p*ssing on his own chips'? Click to continue reading...

Alan Shearer reveals that whilst he'd take the Newcastle United manager's job today if it was offered, he's prepared to get on with life in the interim. With Barry Moat's bid - or indeed anyone else's bid - looking less likely to succeed as time goes on, Shearer's chances of becoming Newcastle manager this season are [. Click to continue reading...

Apparently the Sheard-fronted Star Foundation has made a bid for Newcastle United and the group expect an answer this week. Sheard claims the matter is in the hands of lawyers with Halliwells representing the Americans and Travers Smith representing Ashley. Sheard claims it's "all done", saying: "We will push it forward this week and it will be [. Click to continue reading...

Nothing much new has happened at Newcastle United, although rumours about Barry Moat give me something to write about. For various reasons I've spent the last 5 days largely out of touch with any football news at all, neither having time to read a paper nor to browse the internet. Upon checking the news this morning I [. Click to continue reading...

The traditional Sunday trawl of the back pages has begun, except technically I've gone all modern these days and access the back pages online (partly because I'm hungover and don't fancy the walk to the paper shop). Anyway, so what do they have to say? Well first of all, an amusing story of Freddie Sheperd and [. Click to continue reading...

There is growing uncertainty that the sale of Newcastle United will go ahead before the turn of the year, amid increasing fears that Mike Ashley will attempt to ride out another storm of controversy, with a view to maximising his return on the club. As both a cause and effect of the uncertainty is the [. Click to continue reading...

Some newspapers are reporting that a South African businessman is now interested in Newcastle United. I rather suspect this could be a case of 'here we go again' as bids are rumoured and then fall by the wayside but you never can tell with this sort of thing - very occasionally a rumour turns out to [. Click to continue reading...

The press are reporting that Barry Moat has made a 'substantial' offer for Newcastle United. If I had a pound for every time I've quoted the press about someone being just about to take over Newcastle United I'd probably be able to buy the club myself. And then there'd be changes I can tell you. If [. Click to continue reading...

Speaking in an inverview with Ray Stubbs in his new role as a pundit for ESPN, former Newcastle United manager, Kevin Keegan, spoke in some depth about his £2 million pound payday from the club, and his possible future in football. When asked by 'Stubbsy', "would you ever consider returning to a club you love [. Click to continue reading...

Former Newcastle United owner Freddie Shepherd has been having his say on Keegangate, as is his wont in such situations these days, and of course that called for a comparison with his time at Newcastle and how things were so much better back then. Freddie said: "There are no winners [I say no winners, you listening to [. Click to continue reading...

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 [. Click to continue reading...

Save us from ourselves! That is the plea you hear from various quarters with regard the behaviour of other Newcastle fans in recent months, notably recently, in response to the anti-Ashley jeering which was evident throughout the Ipswich game. The view taken by some supporters is 'what will be, will be' and we should get [. Click to continue reading...

Some news agencies are reporting that Kevin Keegan's payout could force Newcastle into administration (see here for example). What they are saying is that 'some at the club' (who?) fear that a potential £9m payout to Keegan will break the club and send it into administration. They go on to point out that we will be [. Click to continue reading...

When Mike Ashley rode into toon he took the Freddie Shepherd Gang by surprise. Shepherd claims he was ambushed while he lay incapacitated on a hospital bed and before we knew it rumour quickly became fact and Ashley had bought Newcastle United, not exactly with a suitcase full of money but without any of the [. Click to continue reading...

Reports in The Mail and The Mirror are suggesting that Newcastle United may be sold by the end of this week. We've heard it all before of course but one of the newspapers will get it right one day and maybe it's today. Last week Newcastle issued a statement saying that Ashley's £100m asking price has [. Click to continue reading...

According to a statement the club made to The Journal, Ashley's £100m asking price has been met and 'all parties are at the sale and purchase stage', which sounds a bit different to any parties I've been to. The Journal then goes on to speculate that it could still be some time before the takeover situation [. Click to continue reading...

Firstly, many thanks to bowburnmag and workyticket, for granting me authorship on this fine site...I promise to blog responsibly, visually and as often as I can. The illustration is an old image of mine, appropriate for this week as KK's battle begins, and shows Big Al triumphing over "The Chunky Cockney Monkey". Click to continue reading...

According to The Chronicle, they were contacted by one of their 'usually reliable sources' who said that one interested group had reached written agreement about buying the club and 'other sources' close to Sheard's American bidders said that the deal is close to crossing the finishing line. Both Derek Llambias and Seymour Pierce deny these rumours [. Click to continue reading...

The 40,000 crowds we've been getting at home games could help Barry Moat's attempts to take over Newcastle United Football Club. According to a recent article in The Journal, Moat's original business plan was based on the Toon attracting 25,000 for home games. I have no idea how The Journal knows that but if we assume [. Click to continue reading...

While fans are divided on their thoughts away from the pitch, it would be hard to argue that you're not happy with the results on it. The football is hardly of the 'total' variety but in a results game, we're grinding out the points where it counts and really, for now, that's what matters most. [...] Click to continue reading...

On what is an extremely slow news day so far, I managed to find an article in City AM about Rob Lee's new role as an investment guru for sportsmen and other high net-worth individuals. Lee does make a few comments about the current Toon situation though and when asked if Ashley was just throwing up [. Click to continue reading...

The Telegraph is claiming that talks between the club and Barry Moat are scheduled and that a deal could be agreed imminently. The key word in that sentence is 'could' though, so let's wait and see how it actually turns out. The Telegraph's claims do seem at odds with Keith Harris's last statement on matters, which [. Click to continue reading...

Apparently the Sheard-fronted US bid is in trouble. According to The Chronicle, the talks between the bidders and Seymour Pierce broke down after the US consortium failed to provide proof of funds. That's not quite the end of things though as Derek Llambias has been teleconferencing with them, although no progress has been made. Click to continue reading...

It was about a year ago today, just after the 2008 summer transfer window closed, when Newcastle United went into the free-fall it has yet to recover from. To be fair, the club wasn't exactly setting the world alight before that and, arguably, the last period of stability ended when Sir Bobby Robson was given the [. Click to continue reading...