G'day Newcastle fans. I realise that it has been 16 months since my last article, however I now have a bit more time on my hands, so I thought I would write another article. Unfortunately, this article is not exactly about an original topic, it will discuss the (hopefully) imminent takeover of the club by Amanda Staveley's consortium, which appears to be largely backed by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund.
We are all excited about A****y's hopefully imminent departure. We are all elated and we are all so relieved to see that the 13 years of hell it has given us are hopefully coming to an end.
If this goes through, it means there will be hope in the stands of St James' Park, and hopefully something that resembles ambition and competence (in relation to football management) in the boardroom.
Over the last few days, my excitement about this potential takeover has meant that I have been (involuntarily) waking up at around 2am, to the check news and to try and see if it is time to celebrate a new dawn for the club I fell in love with over the last few years (when I started watching football beyond the Australian National Teams).
Like many overseas fans, especially those in places like Asia and Australia, Premier League games are on at ridiculous hours. The games are usually kick off at around midnight or 2am (time difference fluctuates between 9 and 11 hours). However, it has been increasingly hard to find the motivation to watch Newcastle. No matter how much you love the club, it is hard to find motivation to watch games kicking off in the middle of the night, when you know that you are unlikely to see your team do anything beyond trying not to concede for 90 minutes. Unfortunately, it has reached a point where I have been muting twitter accounts related to the club, so I can try and get some sleep (I have had anxiety issues so I have muted the accounts to try and manage it, I still check the results and watch some of the games when I'm feeling better).
There are not many worse feelings than having no desire to watch, or even follow a team of players who give their all for a shirt that you love every week. The fact that a group of men who give absolutely everything for the shirt are not viewed by their boss as a hard working football team, but instead are seen as nothing more than an ATM for said boss to withdraw Premier League TV money, and offer them minimal support in return.
However, this potential takeover could change all of that. The fact that the ownership of our great club may soon change gives me (along with every other fan) hope. It makes me almost want to get up at stupid o'clock to watch games (when they eventually resume), knowing that our football club will be one that is trying to be the best it can be once again.
Provided that it goes through, it makes me want to hop on a plane and get myself to St James' Park, which I was planning on doing later this year (although I will have to postpone that due to the current pandemic). The current (hopefully soon to be former) regime made me seriously question whether I wanted to spend all the money needed to come over and watch the football, as although I would love nothing more than to be in the stands at St James' Park, spending thousands of dollars to watch a team that was not assembled to compete and put money in the pockets of a man who is exploiting hard working fans both on Tyneside and around the world is not something I find particularly desirable.
Anyway, enough of the narcissism, I will now quickly look at what a takeover might mean for the club and us as fans (especially those of us who do not go to games on a regular basis (or at all).
A takeover means hope. It means that we as fans can (hopefully) watch a club that is now trying to fulfil its potential and achieve what we all know deep down that it is capable of achieving. It means a reason to pull on a black and white shirt and smile. It means that when we decide to watch games in the middle of the night, it is worth barely being able to function for the next 24 hours, as opposed to simply making your entire weekend feel like a waste of time. A takeover makes us dream again, and although we dream of Europe and the Premier League due to the potential wealth of the prospective buyers, not being perennial relegation battlers with zero ambition is all we ask.
However, as much as we dream about the potential of a takeover, we must also not get our hopes up too much (at this stage). The deal (at the time of writing (21/4/20)) has not officially been completed and rubber stamped, and not every takeover will do what the City Football Group has done at Manchester City. Some takeovers, as we know all too well from what happened 13 years ago, can actually do more harm than good (although this is about as likely as me travelling to the UK tomorrow on a flying pig).
You know what, stuff the potential negativity. This is not a time to be negative, it is a time to dream and hope again. When the club changes ownership, be it in the next few weeks, months, or even years if we must wait that long, we will all (rightly) be celebrating the dawn of a new era at Newcastle. An era where hope and ambition guides the club, as opposed to the balance sheet.
If this goes through, we the fans will hopefully get OUR club back, and we hope that it will be everything we wanted it to be, and potentially so much more. A football club is not a toy for some billionaire to try and milk for all it is worth, leaving it bone dry and in a constant battle to survive. A football club is something that unites people in a region, and all over the world. It gives people an escape from their daily struggles and gives people a reason to work. Hopefully, this takeover will make Newcastle United a football club once again.
Thank you for reading this article, sorry I've been gone for so long, and I look forward to being at a St James' Park that is not an advertising board for a below average sportswear shop (which fortunately does not have retail outlets in Australia) one day soon.