Tonight:
5°c
Mike Ashley is to blame, says Freddy Shepherd
19 May 2009Former Newcastle chairman Freddy Shepherd insists Mike Ashley is solely to blame for the club's relegation plight and urged the current regime to stop "whingeing".
Shepherd sold the club to Ashley nearly two years ago having himself suffered criticism for his running of the club.
Since then, however, the Magpies have lurched from crisis to crisis and are staring relegation in the face heading into the final weekend of the Premier League season.
And Shepherd told The Sun: "Relegation would be an absolute disaster in terms of corporate and the crowd.
"It took us 12-15 years to get a big ground, a great academy and a good set of players. We left and all of a sudden there's a disaster. And you can't make a profit out of a disaster.
"One thing that is really upsetting is the whingeing that is going on. They blame everyone but themselves.
"They have to look at themselves and say 'what have we done wrong here' and not start blaming other people. It annoys me that they seem to blame me all the time.
"Every year we were there we made a profit. There is only one person to blame and that's the guy who decides who is going to run the club.
"Lots of people can buy football clubs but not many can run them."
Reader views (2)
Everyone says you have to understand Newcastle Fans to be the manager. What makes them so different? The first thing you do is forget the fans, Get a good manager, Back him and the results will follow. You don't think 'What will make me popular with the fans?', because they obviously don't know what's good for them if they think Keeagan and Shearer are the only people who can save the club from mediocrity.
- Alex C, London, 19/05/2009 14:02
Report abuse
So someone is blaming Mr Shepherd and he is blaming someone else. Will no-one take responsibility?
The biggest mistake Newcastle made was to keep getting rid of managers or the board upsetting the decent ones. They are on their 11th manager in 10 years. Freddie Shepherd was in charge for the majority of that time.
I wonder who the next Messiah will be once shearer has gone? I know Newcastle fans feel that the "Messiah" tag is perpetuated by the media and not themselves, but are they not partially to blame for hounding out their managers like Allardyce and Souness in favour of names like Robson, Keegan and Shearer?
Perhaps they should take a leaf from the Man Utd and Arsenal books and appoint an unknown manager unrelated to the club and the fans shouldn't expect so much just because they think they are a big club and deserve success.
- Paul R, London, 19/05/2009 13:46
Report abuse
