An OPEN LETTER to all Newcastle Fans
Football FanCast guest columnist Joe Ripley writes an Open letter to Newcastle United fans.
Dear Newcastle fans,
To say that life under Mike Ashley’s stewardship at Newcastle United has been rocky is tantamount to saying that the Arctic Circle is a bit nippy and why his mooted idea about selling the naming rights to St James Park has gone down like a lead balloon among supporters, is it more of case of need than to actually spite you?
As an Arsenal fan I think I am in a good position to talk about the merits of it. Like you are feeling now, I felt horrified at not only the prospect of leaving our beloved home, but moving to a brand new stadium. It was a wrench I can tell you and you can bet your bottom dollar that the likes of Liverpool and Tottenham fans are totally against the prospect of leaving their own spiritual homes in the coming seasons as they move into their new ‘branded’ stadiums, which could be named anything, depending on who is the highest bidder.
Unfortunately it is the nature of the beast and had Arsenal not sold the naming rights, then the new stadium wouldn’t have been built and we certainly wouldn’t be the richest club in England in terms of gate receipts that come in on any given match day. It was horrible to lose the name Highbury, but it wasn’t as bad as actually having to move stadium and at least you won’t be suffering that agony, should any sponsor coming in. The bottom line is no matter which sponsor comes in to Newcastle, to supporters it will always remain St James Park. You haven’t moved location, nothing has changed and the new name will not transform the club’s identity in anyway whatsoever.
Unfortunately as much as we like to remember how football once was, if Newcastle sells out their name then they are only following what other clubs are being forced to do. It is easy money and why us, Liverpool and Tottenham are having to do so in order to get a hefty down payment in order to finance their grounds, perhaps at Newcastle it is more of a case of having to in order to keep afloat and on some sort of financial standing. It is well documented that the fiscal situation at your football club isn’t a healthy one and should you not make an instant return to the Premier League then it could get even worse and may leave the club in a not so dissimilar situation to the one that Leeds United have found themselves in during the past few years. Surely the club’s future and being in a stronger financial position holds a far greater significance than any sponsor that has designs on moving in. I mean would you rather retain the name St James Park if it means you have to sell your best players in order to just keep the club afloat?
Obviously at the moment it is all speculation and perhaps somebody will come in and give you guys the leadership you deserve, prior to any talks with future sponsors, however should no one be forthcoming then perhaps it is an idea that you should perhaps embrace for the long term future and livelihood of your club. I hated leaving Highbury and having to move to the Emirates, but at least you’ll have the good fortune of remaining at the same stadium.
Yours sincerely
Joe
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You know what, selling the naming rights to a currently nameless stadium, for £100m, made sense. Selling the rights to SJP for what would probably be peanuts, doesn’t.
We might get enough to cover a third of, say, Barton’s wages per season.
I agree with si,I think at best we’d get £2m a year….we’d save more than that in wages by giving away Geremi who cant even get a game.I accept if you move to a new stadium it is a neccesary evil to help pay costs of it but we are not in that situation although even the mackems didnt sell out the name of their new stadium they allowed their fans to choose it.The fact that they picked a ludicrous name that was copied from somewhere else is by the by. St James’ forever.
but it is a different scenario as st james’ has history the emirates dont and tottenham and liverpools new stadiums wont either and if we were building a new stadium i would have no problem with changing the name to fund it but we have been at st james’ for about 115 years or more
You had a spanking new stadium, no history attached. Need I say more?
I dont think any money would be enough for the loss of our stadium name But lets not ignore the fact Mike Ashley wouldnt spend the money on our ever depleted squad anyway
Not sure how being in a completely different situation puts you ” in good position to talk about the merits of it.” but I’ll put that down to arrogance. You had a shell of a stadium that needed a name which is now the soulless Emirates. We have a ground with plenty of history that should not be forgotten.
You also have a club who poured the sponsorship money back into pay for the ground. We have Mike Ashley, who says he’ll invest £20m per year, doesn’t, and then tells us he will again as a favour. If you think any of the money made from selling the naming rights will go back in to the club, then you are more deluded than your article suggests!
Why not sell the name of the team next?
You’re right when you say that renaming the ground for money wouldn’t make a jot of difference at one level ie the fans and people of Newcastle would still refer to it as St James’ Park. The rub would come when we watched the tellybox beaming our matches live to the world and calling our ground the “Tena Lady Stadium” or whatever….(rather apt with an owner who is constantly taking the pi$$).
Our problem is a constant one. We have an ownership which tell us porkies (as revealed by the Sir Kevin Keegan Tribunal) – and we can’t even pick the owner up never mind “trust him as far as we can throw him”
Cheers
When I first heard the “naming rights” statement, like every other Newcastle fan I was shocked and repulsed, but if the naming rights are sold to a reputable company (e.g. as reported Adidas) then I could accept that albeit for me it will always be St James’ Park, but I would rather burn the place down than have it named anything to do with the current short term owner i.e. Sports Direct
Others have already pointed out the marked difference in naming a new stadium to that of renaming an old one so I’ll not repeat their correct observations. All I’d like to say is, if the nanny rights money was given to the manager THIS year to spend in January – and it would have to be a decent lump sum – then I think some of us more pragmatic types could be pursuaded to grudgingly accept the decision. However the rights are for next season, and we can’t be in this league next season, so with any luck we’ll not need to sell the naming rights as we’ll have be back where we belong in the prem
it always amazes me the amount of interest newcastle united sparks amongst non Toon fans!!..they cant help themselves, This open letter has an air of a slightly condescending tone…i would say to the writer of this open letter why not concentrate on the problems your team arsenal are having in bridging the gap between themselves and Man u and chelsea because for all the hype about Arsenal thats all it is, Hype…so enjoy the fact you sold your name to a middle eastern airline but i bet the day the name was changed Bertie Mee was turning in is grave