Like everyone else - every now and then I go through my Facebook memories. This was today's doozy - originally posted on 28th August 2009. 11 years ago. It's simultaneously like going back in time and being stuck just here. Some of the names and details are different - but nothing has changed. Not really.
As they sing in The Rocky Horror Picture Show:

​Let's Do The Timewarp Again

FROM NUFC.COM

​Club criticism: 
Chaos theory in practice  

From the Mirror, the thoughts of Brian McNally - a local journalist of long-standing whom we've not always been  in agreement with. This time though he's on the money:
The bare-faced cheek of Newcastle United managing director Derek Llambias and his boss Mike Ashley regularly attracts unflattering comparisons on Tyneside with Peckham brothers Del Boy and Rodney.

More front than Brighton is an expression coined by the Toon Army long before the Tyneside comedy double act's little wager that ended with Llambias cavorting around St. James' Park in his birthday suit during a private party.

Once they were branded as "Cockney Mafia"- geographically inaccurate I should point out - by protesting Geordie fans in the wake of Kevin Keegan's departure in September 2008 it seemed their days on Tyneside were decidedly numbered.

But, incredibly, almost a year on from Keegan's departure two of the most despised football men in British football still own and run Newcastle United.

That, despite, twice putting the club up for sale, isolating Geordie legends Keegan and Alan Shearer, selling a raft of star players including fans' hero Shay Given, making hundreds of staff redundant, and, in the process, suffering scathing and unrelenting criticism over the course of the most depressing 12 months in Newcastle's 117-year history.

Survival in this hostile climate is possibly the most noteworthy feat of their troubled time at St. James' Park.
A play lampooning the Ashley-Llambias axis "You Couldn't Make It Up" perfectly captured the mood of farcical chaos that surrounds the two men.

In trying to sell the club they have issued more deadlines than a 24-hour rolling news channel and broken every one of them. They have made public statements that don't even stand up to the flimsiest of examinations. 

Take the strange case of the Shearer snub. At the end of last season Llambias said: "We want him to be the manager 110%," while Ashley insisted that making Shearer interim manager was his "best decision." They then completely ignored both Shearer and their previous statements to leave the club in limbo.

Then there is the mystery of the disappearing buyers. Ashley and co are still unable to find a purchaser for the club, despite Llambias publicly claiming in July that "more than two" bidders had matched the £100 million asking price. So if Llambias' claim was correct seven weeks ago they there had at least three buyers-where are they now?

And why is he still asking £100m after selling nearly £25m worth of stock in the shape of Oba Martins, Sebastien Bassong, Damien Duff and Habib Beye?

We now find that Newcastle have been talking to Tyneside businessman Barry Moat, Graham Roberts Fanbase 410 outfit and Geoff Sheard, whose attempts to buy Sheffield Wednesday came to naught last season, none of whom had the necessary funds ready available.

A proud club has been made a laughing stock by a clueless, spineless administration that seems incapable of getting the simplest decision right or providing fans with even the most basic level of communication.

It saddens me that a club with such passionate and loyal supporters is run with an ineptitude that would be embarrassing even at Sunday League level. The Toon army deserve far better.

Even Ashley has admitted to a catalogue of basic errors that painfully illustrate that both he and Llambias don't have a clue how to run a professional football club. Ashley may know how to pile his sports goods high and sell them cheaply, while Llambias can spin a roulette wheel and run a casino.

But the horrendous mess they have made of "running" Newcastle United over the last two years has plummeted the club into an unparallelled decline.

Never in all my time in football I have never encountered a club so chaotically and pathetically run as Ashley's Newcastle United. Is it any wonder that potential buyers question a club that is put up for sale by email, where the owner swigs beer in the stands and challenges his MD to streak around an empty stadium.

The only streak the Toon Army are dreaming of now, apart from a winning one, is the sight of a pair of rather portly backsides disappearing over the Tyne Bridge never to be seen again in Geordieland. It can't happen soon enough for me and 50,000 disenchanted Geordies.

Newcastle West End Foodbank provides emergency food for people who are struggling to make ends meet and unable to afford food for themselves or their families.  
We work with over 60 Referral Agencies who refer people to the foodbank for support in their time of need.  Our Referral Partners include:
Citizens Advice
Social Services
Refugee Organisations
Homeless Charities
Newcastle City Council
Schools
Religious Centres
GP’s
Housing Associations
 
The social impact of Coronavirus has resulted in more people using our services and we have responded by opening additional centres across the city to prevent people going hungry.  We now distribute food in the following areas:
Benwell
West Road
Byker
Heaton
Lemington
Newbiggin Hall
 
Over the course of 12 months to 31st March 2021 we issued over 19,000 food parcels (an average of 1600 parcels per month) which fed approximately 53,000 people.  In part the reason for this increase is the result of Covid 19 on vulnerable people. Our response to demands across the City is the support we provided to other community groups in Walker, Byker and Heaton.  
 
From April 2020 to March 2021, 53,000 people benefited from the food in those parcels.  This is an increase of 62% (up 20,000 – on the previous year @33,000).
 
This number includes 21,500 children – under the age of 16 which was an increase of 62% on the previous year.
 
To make these food parcels required 307 tonnes of food in the past 12 months– up by 50% on 2019/2020.
 
On average public food donations at supermarkets or to our centres make up 46% of the food we issue.  NWEFB has to raise funds and donations to make up the shortfall in food.  
 
Lockdown meant it was not possible to generate donations at NUFC match-day collections. 
 
Free School Meals in the holidays and the £20 uplift in Universal Credit have helped low income families cope with the economic impact of the pandemic.  Both FSM and the UC uplift are temporary measures which government plan to stop in September 2021.  Furlough is also due to be stopped. This could lead to yet another increase in people using the foodbank.
 
When these measures are withdrawn, many families could fall into deeper financial hardship and poverty. 
 
Research shows that people need to use food banks for many reasons, the main ones being low-income – benefit changes – benefit delays – or can’t meet household bills. 
 
A Foodbank is a last resort for people who are struggling to make ends meet and feed their families. 
 
Newcastle West End Foodbank works closely with its service users to address the challenges of living on little or no money, or without a regular income. 
 
 
Newcastle City Council Information

• Newcastle has pockets of relative poverty and food poverty is symptomatic of wider poverty, with high levels of unemployment and child poverty, key statistics include: · Newcastle residents live in the 23rd (out of 317) most deprived local authority area in the UK (IoD, 2019) 
• In 2020, 31.8% of pupils are entitled to and claiming Free School Meals, compared to the national average of 17.3% (NCC, 2020)
• In Newcastle 20,626 children live in poverty, equivalent to 45% in Central Newcastle, 33% in North Newcastle and 38% in East Newcastle (End Child Poverty, 2019/20) 

 

​They say that the return to normality doesn’t seem real yet. That the 18 months of Covid which has left thousands dead, millions ill, and all of us affected is still too recent and too raw. Yet Newcastle United kick off against West Ham at 2pm on 15th August, with all fans allowed back in. It seems familiar, but remote.

Maybe things will feel real when Wilson scores that winner at the Gallowgate and we remember that collective roar of unity and triumph. Maybe we’ll remember that football is so wonderful because it allows us to forget the daily worries of life? 

I know, because we are all fans, that people don’t seem positive about this new season. Ticket sales are down, people have changed habits of lifetimes, football isn’t relevant when faced with family members suffering and dying. The “takeover”, the lack of signings, the lack of confidence in management and ownership has become a recurring depressing theme. Most seriously though, we have lost confidence in ourselves. We fear the future, we argue in places least suitable for nuance and understanding, like social media….we lack unity and we lose spirit with squabbling and people are sickened.

But I’ll tell you what is real and sickening. A father in Benwell coming home from work with just enough for the rent but not enough for food; a mother in Byker who can’t afford nappies for her baby, people going through redundancy who don’t have savings being forced to wait 5 weeks for benefits, a cut in October of £20 to Universal Credit when heating, clothing and footwear are needed to keep out the Tyneside winter chill…that stuff is real. Really real.

So we need you all to show your united response against adversity which has always characterised the people of the North-East. We need the support and goodwill of the NUFC family, players, management, media, and especially fans. We need your help.

We need the 10p you find in the sofa ‘cos that’ll buy a tin of beans, we need the tins and toiletries you can spare, we need the pasta sauce and the rice pudding, we need the fivers that’ll feed a family for a week. We need the cheery waves and greetings when we see you, we need your wonderful smiles and goodwill. We need you all and we need you now. I don’t care if you’re going into the match or not, we still need you. I don’t care what you think of players, manager, owner, media, politics, economics, philosophy or theology, we still need you. We need you united. 

We’ll be outside St. James Park, starting with the Norwich friendly and then the West Ham match and all home matches this season.

We’ll be having a public meeting in September where we’ll discuss how to end Foodbank dependence – The Right to Food, Living Income and the West End Foodbank’s Pathways Programme.

​As soon as we don’t need to do this we’ll tell you because Foodbanks should be a memory by now. But they’re not. They’re here and people, your friends and neighbours need them.
We need you now. United.
Howay the Lads, and Lasses!
NUFC Fans Foodbank.