I recently wrote a short piece on the announcement of Newcastle United having made a deal with Merseyside-based Marketing company, Ampersand. Anyone who read it will know that it was tongue-in-cheek, although I did make references to the timing of the announcement being so close to the renaming of St James' Park and begged the [. Click to continue reading...

Newcastle United have agreed to extend the loan of bright young keeper Fraser Forster to Norwich City until the end of the season. Forster is Newcastle born and bred, playing for the Toon since the age of 11. After a brief spell on loan at Bristol City, the Hexham born keeper has really impressed at [. Click to continue reading...

Newcastle United manager Chris Hughton was impressed by Fabrice Pancreate. Is he the new Robert? Is he the new Ginola? Who knows? Hughton was impressed with his performance in the reserves though, saying: "He did well and I enjoyed what I saw," said the Toon chief after watching a double from Phil Airey and a strike from [. Click to continue reading...

And I'm not just talking about spending some hard-earned cash to go and cheer on The Three Lions. Shola's talking about actually playing in the World Cup 2010. I know, I know, this is a kid who could barely get in the Newcastle first eleven until this season and has repeatedly underacheived year on year. Click to continue reading...

strong>Cold, damp and pretty miserable, and that was just my fatha. Well no actually, the weather did a good impersonation of mid-December (or else I'm just getting auld). And the first half of the Newcastle vs Hartlepool reserve match sort of felt a bit sorry for itself at times. But with the news that Fabrice [. Click to continue reading...

Well after Worky posting that wonderful photo of one of my all time favourite players, I felt we couldn't leave it at that. So, being a little indulgent, I wanted to share with you my reminiscences of a great Newcastle United footballer (and gorgeous guy), one of the best exports to make it out of [. Click to continue reading...

strong>"The wild boys are calling On their way back from the fire In august moon's surrender to A dust cloud on the rise" It's been a while since I made any musical references in a headline so I thought this was as good a time as any, and it's mainly for MT's benefit. Of course there's a slight play [. Click to continue reading...

strong>Having so far failed in his efforts to raise the funds to tempt Mike Ashley into selling Newcastle United to him, Barry Moat has now gone on record to suggest that the famous St James' Park name wouldn't necessarily have been safe in his hands either. It appears he can see exactly what Ashley is [. Click to continue reading...

Newcastle United are sitting pretty at the top of the Championship right now. It's a good reason to be optimistic perhaps but what happens if we actually get promoted? Even the most pessimistic of Toon supporters would probably entertain ideas of us at least making a play-off spot this season. Sure, we're only a third of [. Click to continue reading...

strong>Poor attitude, poor touch, just in it for the money. But enough about my career as a masseur, I'm talking of course about our half-hearted centre forward Marlon Harewood. Currently loaned to Newcastle by Premiership outfit Aston Villa, judging by performances so far, it would seem to most fans there were no flies on Martin [. Click to continue reading...

Premier League reforms are in the wind but what will they mean for Newcastle United? The Premier League has been undertaking a 'strategic review' since November 2008 and plans to have new proposals in place by December 2010. Bolton chairman Phil Gartside has put forward plans that would lead to a two-tier Premier League of between [. Click to continue reading...

strong>There aren't many more popular former Newcastle players of recent time, in the minds of my generation, than John Beresford. Johnny '(oooohh Johnny, Johnny)' Beresford was a major part of the squad that Keegan assembled to put us back on the map in the '90s. He's been speaking to Lee Ryder in The Chronicle [. Click to continue reading...

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 [. Click to continue reading...

strong>It's been reported that Newcastle have agreed to bring in Ampersand, a Liverpool-based marketing agency, in order to push for new sponsorship. Amid the furore which followed Ashley's latest ill-timed and ill-fated decison to rename St James', it would seem the deal was agreed based on Ampersand impressing the board with their work which went [. Click to continue reading...

Newcastle United midfielder Jonas Guttierrez claims the international break will do us good ahead of an important period in our promotion push. Jonas said: "We have 15 days to recover, to rest and to prepare for the rest of the season. From here to January is a very important period for us." To be honest I never [. Click to continue reading...

strong>A couple of apologies first. One for introducing Marcus Bentley's dulcet Big Brother tone into your head and secondly for perhaps once again putting the cat amongst the pigeons on a sensitive and potentially divisive topic. The topic? Well it's the topic of whether or not you're doing your duty by Newcastle United in attending [. Click to continue reading...

Former Newcastle United star David Ginola has been talking about what it means to pull the black and white shirt on. "When I signed for Newcastle I didn't know the English mentality, I didn't know about the English tradition and I came straight away to the North East and its one part of the world [. Click to continue reading...

strong>At one point during this game, I thought my match write-up might be best illustrated by a big daft grinning smiley. Because at one point, that seemed to sum up the sort of mood around the ground today among Newcastle fans despite all of the ill-feeling toward the current incumbent. This also despite the fact [. Click to continue reading...

Chris Hughton has asked Newcastle United fans to put their disagreements with the board behind them and support the team. Fans are, of course, particularly upset that Ashley plans to peddle Sports Direct on the back of or, to be more precise, on the front of the St James' Park name. Hughton evidently fears [. Click to continue reading...

! Article Start >It's a bit early for Christmas shopping, although I've seen some decorations up in Spennymoor when passing through recently(I mean howay........). And of course we've started the panto early up at The Stadium Formerly Known as St James' Park, but according to the rumours, it hasn't stopped Bolton gaffer Gary Megson adding Andy Carroll [. Click to continue reading...

! Article Start >In his statement when he took Newcastle United off the market, Mike Ashley said "... he is totally committed to the future success of Newcastle United and will be focussing on gaining promotion back to the Premier League." Fair enough, but what's with all this nonsense about giving Hughton a million or two [. Click to continue reading...

! Article Start >Well here it is, the third and final chapter of my first term, first team player review. And not a moment too soon it would seem, to take the focus off Llambias' less than convincing SSN interview. The No.9 shirt is almost as synonymous with Newcastle United, as St James' Park, the black and white [. Click to continue reading...

! Article Start >Who sang Twilight Cafe in 1981? Ah, hang on, not that sort of 'bits and pieces'. No indeed, just some bits and pieces about Newcastle United from the last few days that haven't managed to get their own article. Much has been said of Hughton's now permanent role as manager for the rest [. Click to continue reading...

! Article Start >Newcastle United's 1-0 win last night wasn't pretty but it did the job. Newcastle go back to the top of the table, clear by 2 points. Hughton had this to say about last night's game: "It was an ugly win. Sheffield play a style which makes it difficult. You have to be strong and [. Click to continue reading...

! Article Start >Once again, Newcastle United managed to leave us feeling slightly underwhelmed, and yet still went top of the league after taking all three points at Bramall Lane. The fact that we managed to grind out a 1-0 win against the red and white half of Sheffield was largely down to luck at [. Click to continue reading...

Trick or treat? Which one does Mike Ashley have in store for Newcastle United over the next season and a half? Undoubtedly there are many fans who would like to celebrate Halloween by tying Mike Ashley to a stake and setting fire to him, not least because of his crackers plan to sell the naming rights [. Click to continue reading...

New Newcastle United manager Chris Hughton hopes to get at least some of Mike Ashley's £20m cash injection to spend on players. Amidst Mike Ashley's popular announcement that he would be inflicting himself upon Toon fans for another season and a half, there was also the news that he's putting another £20m of his own money [. Click to continue reading...

Of course, Mike Ashley's recent announcement that Newcastle United will be seeking bidders for 'naming right's' to the stadium formerly known as St James's Park is somewhat 'controversial' to say the least. Indeed, many very strong views have been expressed already, including in this 'blog. Petitions have been prepared, there have been rumblings of more [. 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...

Yesterday's review of the current squad, took a look at the Newcastle defence, an area that this season we've been surprisingly strong in, given our poor reputation in recent years. Tonight looks at arguably the fulcrum of a successful team, the midfield, the place that could and should control a game and dictate the style of [. Click to continue reading...

Just how much can you discuss the same thing, day after day? Well to be fair, we've given it a good go but rather than rant on about the off-field stuff, I thought it might be time to reflect on the on-field matters at Newcastle United. We're almost a third of the way through our [...] 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...

There are plenty of things going at St James' Park at the moment. Some of them have an indirect effect on events on the pitch, and others slightly more direct. One of those which is plainly obvious to some of us, is the direct effect the exclusion of Nile Ranger is having on Newcastle's first [...] Click to continue reading...

Kevin Keegan is to be awarded costs after winning the tribunal for constructive dismissal against Newcastle United. The full disclosure is as follows: 1. Introduction In paragraph 54 of our Award dated 1 October 2009, we identified a number of consequential issues the determination of which we postponed in order that the parties could provide us with written [. Click to continue reading...