Articles 
A personal view from an exiled member
Once upon a time there was a man named Ronnie Lambert, but most people on Tyneside knew him better as ‘Busker’, the man who’s ode to his City, ‘Home Newcastle’ became a much played pre match anthem at St James Park and the lyrics of which still resonate deeply within the hearts of exiled Geordies like myself.
While there are probably only a few of us would actually drink a “bottle of the River Tyne”, even post 1980’s cleanup, the lyrics of Busker’s song still receive approving nods because they get to the heart of what it is and what it means to be a Geordie; That feeling of coming home to a city that has roots that dig deep into one’s soul, roots that bind you and delight you and that make up an integral part of your native identity.
Busker understood this and that’s why his music, while dismissible as corny and sentimental to those who’s roots lie elsewhere, still fills most Geordie’s hearts with warmth on a cold matchday and has them humming along to its knowing refrain.
It’s always struck me that Newcastle United Football Club, in the many administrations that have reigned during my 31 years, have never properly been able to tap into that identity and make the most out of it, especially from a “business” point of view. Too often the fans have merely been viewed as a by-product of the “business” with no serious efforts made to do anything more than sell them this year’s overpriced shirt.
Sir John Hall arguably made the best stab of it, Freddy Shepherd often went nauseatingly too far down the parochial path with his talk of how “only a Geordie” could understand the club. Hello Freddy, Kevin Keegan and Joe Harvey amongst others say “hi”!
However, neither, I feel, really made the most of the Newcastle Supporter’s insatiable passion and deep interest in the history and culture surrounding our once very successful club.
My lifetime has not brought any meaningful trophies to St. James Park, all I’ve had are hope, dreams, folklore and memories with brief glimpse of success cruelly snatched away at the tail end of 1996. Because of that I, like many others have turned to the past for the glory that I’ve missed out on in my trophy-less years as a supporter of NUFC. I’ve steeped myself in the folklore of Hughie Gallagher and Jackie Milburn, Joe Harvey and the Fairs Cup team and I’ve always been rather surprised that the club’s various administrations haven’t done more to sell this history to my success starved generation.
Year after year, I’ve read about heroes of the past passing away and I’ve looked to the club for a tribute, a mention, a lasting memorial. Instead, aside from the renaming of a stand, all I’ve witnessed is a single statue of ‘Wor Jackie’ being erected, paid for not by the club but by readers of the Evening Chronicle!
To that mind one of the first things I proposed to the committee of what was then the Newcastle United Supporters Club was that we push the club to introduce a Hall of Fame for ex-players and managers, that their achievements in representing our great club might be properly celebrated and fans might be given the opportunity to pay a lasting tribute to these great servants of the club.
Thankfully the Newcastle United Supporters Trust, as the NUSC has now become, has made this an integral part of their long term plans for shaping community involvement with the club and I look forward with pride to the day it is established and we induct our first heroes into its hallowed halls.
In the meantime though, things have gone from bad to worse as far as the attitude of the current administration goes towards the preservation of our club’s glorious history and heritage.
One of the first things Mike Ashley did after taking the reins of power at St. James was to decommission a project setup by former chairman Freddy Shepherd; to wit he put the kibosh on plans to build two £65’000 a piece statues of our two all time goal-scoring legends – Alan Shearer and Jackie Milburn.
In Ashley’s view these were a frivolous waste of money. Unlike Freddy, who while no angel at least appeared to have something of a grasp of what the club was all about, Ashley didn’t see how statues like this help build and further the relationship between the club and its customers. He didn’t get how they build on the heritage and folklore we grow up living and breathing. Ashley didn’t see how the statues would pay for themselves everytime some wide-eyed Geordie kid walked past one and asked for the first time “who’s that, Dad?” only to be sucked into a lifetime of devotion to Ashley’s “business”; Newcastle United.
Ashley didn’t see how plastering the roof of the Gallowgate End with a giant advertisement for his sporting empire cheapened the look of the church of St James. That’s because Mike Ashley treats Newcastle United and everything that’s said about him as a joke.
Don’t believe me? Get yourself along to the director’s suite of St. James (it shouldn’t be hard, just walk through the front door, Ashley has sacked so many of the staff that there probably won’t be any security left). When you get there take a look at the framed Sunday Times cartoon Ashley has hanging on the wall poking fun at his pathetic joke of a tenure. Yes, folks, this is a man who doesn’t just mock the supporters and people of Newcastle on a daily basis, he publicly displays a cartoon satirising his own disastrous reign in a suite where he entertains other football chairmen.
And now we come to the final insult. Having once again taken down the ‘for sale’ signs (conveniently after it’s too late to improve the threadbare squad) Ashley still doesn’t get why it is that over 40’000 still come to St James every other weekend. He still doesn’t get that we don’t come because of him; we don’t come because of the “superstar” players or the awe inspiring management team he’s put in place. We don’t come to have an overweight opera singer bawl at us to “get behind our team” (Sorry Mr. Danby but its true) we do it not out of misplaced pride to any of this but because our heritage, our history and our identity is intrinsically linked to a place called St. James Park.
Or at least it always has been up until now. Now Mr Ashley has had another brainwave and even that once seemingly irremovable truth is up for sale; for the right price, of course.
It’s a truly sickening day for all of us.
Ronnie Lambert, AKA Busker died earlier this year at the age of 58 and will be greatly missed. I doubt he could ever have imagined that one day his lyrics might be twisted and malformed by the greed of one man so that fans were left singing:
“I’ll brave the dark at the Barclaycard, in the Sugarpuff’s End in the rain”
Mr Ashley, it’ll be a cold day in hell before we do. Remember that when you consider how many season ticket holders you think you’ll get back into your rebranded stadium when the 2010/2011 season comes around.
Through relegation, humiliation lies and Dennis Wise the supporters of NUFC have stuck with this shattered club and given it their undying support. Attempt to strip us of its heritage however and you commit an act of heresy that no Geordie will be prepared to forgive. That, I’m afraid Mr Ashley, is where the bottom falls out of the barrel for most of us; the final cretinous act of a hopeless gambler and his utter failure to understand the “business” of Newcastle United Football Club.
R.I.P Busker,
“They’ll never take St. James”.
