There is no question the campaign to persuade Mike Ashley to find a buyer for Newcastle 
United and sell up started in grand style on Sunday with between 15 – 20,000 fans boycotting an attractive fixture they already paid to watch as a highly effective means of sending a message to the world that this man isn’t wanted here and is killing our club.
The start of the campaign became a major talking point nationally and globally. Empty seats at St James’ Park provided an eloquent statement of the deep discontent at what this man is doing to our club.
It was a great start but now it needs to continue and should not end until he has left.
Supporters have finally realised the power we have.
That is why we all need to continue to act together and follow the guidance provided by the
people behind AshleyOut.com this Saturday.
The first part of the actions against Ashley will start with protests outside Sports Direct stores in the Newcastle area and its my understanding those protests will commence at 12:30.
The second part for those who attend the game on Saturday is a 34th minute stand up to highlight the £34m the club has slushing around in the club account whilst the team on the park is woefully short in numbers and quality and is currently abysmally led and prepared for games.
It is my understanding from talking to key people involved in the Rangers Supporters actions against Ashley that similar actions could be planned across many Sports Direct stores in Scotland. We have also been told some Rangers supporters may travel to Newcastle to join the anti-Ashley protests as part of their own dispute with him and his business.
I could not praise the people behind AshleyOut.com enough for the tone of their message and urge all supporters to follow the sentiments.
If by any chance you missed it, its here:
Swansea (h) protest announcement: Stand Up to Ashley
AshleyOut.com reflects on a successful start of the Ashley Out campaign. In the two weeks since its launch, our website has attracted over 120,000 visitors and 800,000 pageviews, we have backed a match boycott heeded by many (numbers reported vary from 5,000 to 20,000 with the true number probably somewhere in between) and organised protests attended by thousands of fans outside St. James’ Park. Most importantly though, we have seen a vast increase of awareness for Mike Ashley’s failed ownership of Newcastle United in the local and national media and amongst fans who were previously resigned to apathy. These fans have now hopefully found a vehicle to express their profound dissatisfaction with the situation the club finds itself in, which is essentially one of a proud sporting institution transformed into a giant advertising vehicle.
With just six days in between the home games vs Spurs and Swansea, we have not had much time to prepare a new protest, but we are pleased to announce our plans today. As before, we will back any fan who continues to boycott the game to make a stand (#BoycottSwansea). For those fans wishing to attend the Swansea game, we request them to #StandUpToAshley after 34 minutes of the game, to represent the fact that having no manager and a threadbare squad devoid of quality, yet having £34m in the bank is not an acceptable situation.
Secondly, from 12:30pm on Saturday we will target Sports Direct stores within a 20 mile radius of St. James’ Park and their flagship Oxford Street store by means of a peaceful protest. Further details regarding this protest will be released shortly but we wish to emphasise that this must be a peaceful protest and is aimed at Mike Ashley and the shareholders of Sports Direct International plc. This protest is not aimed at the innocent staff members often working with minimal employment rights on zero hours contracts and they must be respected and supported at all times. This protest will be coordinated with supporters of Rangers Football Club who will target stores in the vicinity of Ibrox.
The boycott for the Spurs game was only the start. We would like to widen the campaign at this stage to include Mike Ashley’s main interest, which is Sports Direct and affiliated companies and will shortly be launching a new section on our website dedicated to things every fan can do to ensure that Mike Ashley’s involvement becomes an ever-less profitable one for him and his companies. This new campaign will be known as #AshleyEmbargo
Onwards and upwards!
Target stores:
Sports Direct Oxford Street 275.1 miles
Sports Direct Northumberland Street 0.39 miles
Sports Direct Newcastle – Gateshead Trinity 1.13 miles
Sports Direct Newcastle – Gateshead 2.20 miles
Sports Direct Kingston Park 3.08 miles
Sports Direct Newcastle – Team Valley 3.57 miles
Sports Direct Newcastle – Silverlink 5.65 miles
Sports Direct Washington 6.29 miles
Sports Direct South Shields 7.68 miles
Sports Direct Sunderland Gateway 10.41 miles
Sports Direct Sunderland 10.59 miles
Sports Direct Durham 13.66 miles
Sports Direct Ashington 14.55 miles
Lillywhites Dalton Park LW 14.80 miles
Sports Direct Peterlee 18.86 miles
AshleyOut.com
I see this one going badly… How many “fans” will have been to the pub before the demonstration.
It only takes one or two drunken idiots to have a go at joe blogs taking his kids for a new pair of (tat) trainers for the whole campaign to lose credibility.
don’t think so – the demo is at 12:30 today.
Hope you are right mate 🙂
I don;t think that is the right attitude, nor is it an accurate portrayal of people’s intelligence tbh.
You get idiots everywhere in life but everyone involved in actions so far in my experience has been tenacious, determined, disciplined and focussed on what we need to do.
Whil the Sports Direct protests will be nowhere near the size of the boycott, this is not the point of them. They are designed to spread the pressure and diversify attacks on Ashley and his brand.
Another boycott will no doubt come soon, but we must try things to see if and when they work.
No Mikey the standing outside Sports Direct idea is just a bad one, it stops the momentum of what was a fantastic start last week, another boycott should have happened today against Swansea, Ashley will be loving the attention this is bringing to his shops for the fashion concious members in our society.
Our true fans are crying out for a dignified way of showing our feelings towards Ashley and wouldn’t be seen dead standing outside Shitedirect with a fucking bit of wet A4 paper in the rain. A total boycott of all home matches is literally the only way forward, unfortunately I believe our long term fans stopped attending a long time ago so such a boycott would be very unlikely.
Loved the idea of the boycott and was really proud of everyone who made a stand, however this standing around outside Shitedirect is just dumb and gives the fat man more free advertising.
I was hoping the next step would be further boycotts of home games, in my opinion the only way he’ll fuck off is if his cash cow stops making him money! I have massive respect for The Ashley out campaign but surely they could come up with something better than standing outside his hideous fucking shops in the pissing rain getting pictures of Shitedirect stores on Sky.
Surely walking out on 34 minutes would have been more powerful? I’m still 100% behind the campaign – whatever form the protest takes – but I’m worried the momentum may be lost somewhat if a lot of the people who boycotted on Sunday all go back tomorrow.
This is my worry too. Any other shop would shite themselves at bad publicity but his shop is a different kettle of fish and part of me thinks ANY publicity they get is gratefully received.
Also how about SBR Foundation patches to cover the shirt wonga?
Finally seems like the sleeping giant is waking up. Hang together or we hang separately.
Lets crack on.
It’ll be raining this Saturday lads so no skiving off, bring your brolly and get down to your local Tat Direct Store with your mates.
It’s going to take each individual reading this call out to say “i’m doing that” for it to work. This is not just not going, this is taking action unfamiliar to most i would imagine.
Ring some mates and gan down to ShiteDirect.
This could be the beginning of something massive!