I’ll admit, I find it almost impossible to watch Newcastle United these days. My growing indifference to the club I first watched firstly with my Dad in the centre of the West Stand Paddock in the early 70s comes as a surprise to those close to me. They have periodically been exasperated and amused by how much my mood has risen and fallen with Newcastle United’s fortunes. I can now see them baffled when I shrug my shoulders in response to inquiries as to ‘how The Toon are getting on?‘

Where even bad times that kind of query would have been the precursor to a rant, the most they’ll get is a sullen ‘rubbish‘ and a desire on my part to change the subject.

I’m far from alone and I don’t totally discount the effects of cynical middle-age to how I no longer agonise about the fortunes of a football club who were for decades the centre of my attention. But Steve Bruce has emerged as a kind of bromide for Newcastle United enthusiasts. His football as described on the excellent TF Podcasts is largely ‘unwatchable‘. Bruce’s press conferences’ akin to a dog sniffing its own arse. Though they also provide a window into his lack of intelligence, vanity and pettiness not to mention incapacity to take responsibility and show a shred of leadership. He’s worse than I thought he’d be in July 2019 and I expected him to be appalling.

Like all of you’reading this, I’ve witnessed some abysmal Newcastle United performances down the years but Brighton (a) Saturday gone was amongst the worst of them.

I won’t go over what went wrong because that has been eloquently covered elsewhere by TF in the spoken and written word. Lots of us have been expecting the kind of fallow runs Bruce is famous for since he arrived. What we are experiencing now could have been predicted by anyone who completed the most rudimentary of research into his career on English football’s carousel of doom managerial appointments.

But the issues at United go way beyond a poor management appointment. The decisions made beg questions as to the fundamental purpose of this football club of ours.

Decisions which have allowed Rafa Benitez to leave Newcastle United and appoint Steve Bruce have occurred because of a fundamental flaw in the philosophy of the club. It is simply not run as a football club and it never will be under the current ownership.

You just have to have a look at the management of the club.

Lee Charnley is described as a Managing Director. Steve Bruce is as a Head Coach. We have no understanding really of Charnley’s role or his remit. He appears to act only as a silent intermediary between players, the mug who is taking them for training and Ashley and some of the people around him. He is the man who briefs the journalists and is the ‘source‘ at United. There’s no-one else it can be.

The title Bruce carries of Head Coach suggests a limitation to his influence … unlike say, Rafa (the manager) and his contract will differ as a result.

Bruce’s title suggests he has a limited input into key decisions around who arrives and who leaves on the playing staff. Within management models deploying a Head Coach there is a Director of Football who is overseeing the technical development of the club across its entire playing and coaching staff. There is no such person at United. Nor is there a manager who might employ a Head Scout etc. Blurred lines, lack of expertise, no consistency or accountability.

So, here you might ask who is overseeing the football development of Newcastle United?

The answer is either no-one … or Lee Charnley with Steve Nicksen ‘ both men who have woefully inadequate CVs to justify any such role.

You might then ask who is overseeing the development of training facilities and the academy sides? It can’t be Steve Bruce can it? He is the Head Coach with sole responsibility for the first team (I know but park those thoughts for a moment).

Therefore you have to ask where is the governance and management structure for key parts of the club’s activity?

Who, when he was in post was Joe Joyce (ex-Head of the Academy) reporting to? Was that Lee Charnley? A man with absolutely no history within the game or technical knowledge whatsoever!

Perhaps it is because of Charnley’s pivotal position in overseeing the Academy that we have had appalling situation such as that involving Peter Beardsley, accusations of racism, a long-drawn out investigation which ultimately involved a former player leave his position with a permanent stain on his character.

Only this season, we have had Joe Joyce resign as Head of Academy because his own wife has raised a complaint about his own son being poorly treated by an operation that he manages. This is indeed through the looking glass stuff. Read that back to yourself ‘ it is completely surreal. Amongst Mags it barely raises an eye-brow so inured are we to the sequence of incompetence over these last fourteen years.

Not that the recent farrago with the Academy is anything new or completely within the provenance of Lee Charnley.

Those dull enough to remember will recall the failure to achieve Cat 1 status Elite Player Performance Plan for the Academy click here‘when Derek Llambias was winning friends and influencing people back in the day. United failed to demonstrate it had sufficient coaching staff delivering a sufficient standard of coaching for its younger players in a shameful but revealing insight into the culture of the club.

To underline how far behind others United was in achieving Cat 1, the likes of Blackburn and Wigan then in the Championship and League 1 respectively had met the standard. There were many others and as I recall it at the time but United was alone in its failure as a Premier League club. The impact of that meant it was unable to recruit young players outside of the region. Although United has now met the Cat 1 standard, the damage done will have had consequences still with us today.

That does not happen at a well-structured club with qualified, motivated professionals leading their area of expertise with sufficient investment.

Not much has changed with the Academy as can be seen in the piece James Pearce wrote for TF recently – click here

But it’s not just on the playing side where the ineptitude rests.

A couple of years ago, I wrote this piece for the High Level website – click here – a short-lived enterprise that none of those behind it had the energy or inclination to put much work into after an initial flush of enthusiasm. Hello there.

The piece details Newcastle United’s hitherto failure to achieve the Premier League Equality Standard. Things have changed since then ‘ Lucy Oliver has taken up a well-remunerated position at United to rescue the situation.

But that was only been after the situation reached crisis point and the Premier League’s patience shredded with some rumours that have come my way regarding threats to deduct PL points. A threat I understand that has now passed.

It is therefore difficult not to be cynical at some of the stuff United now does in a hurry and via social media.

A minimal amount of corporate attention and direction would mean again, the club does not attract attention to itself for all the wrong reasons and have to be dragged screaming and kicking into the modern world.

But who would oversee and direct that? Lee Charnley? Please.

To not much surprise Kate Bradley has now left Newcastle United. The surprise now rests in the lack of coverage this has had attracted in the media ‘ particularly locally. For those that may not know, Bradley led the Newcastle United Foundation as CEO for eleven years before moving to Head of Business Development at the club in 2019.

That in itself was a strange move because and with due respect, Bradley’s CV as the CEO of a small charity with little experience in the corporate world suggested she did not have sufficient heft to build the club’s income stream to anything like it was pre-2007.

Bradley was the successor to Nicole Aitken who left United abruptly despite enjoying a close working relationship with Lee Charnley. She had been at United roughly the same length of time as Bradley.

This now begs the question what strategy there is to return the club’s commercial ‘income streams to the competitive levels they were at before Ashley wobbled into town. Andrew Trobe for this fanzine has covered the withering of United’s financial muscle over the last fourteen years as a key driver of the club’s diminishing competiveness.

It is difficult to point to anything Aitken or Bradley has achieved to arrest that steady decline in the last four years. Anything at all whatsoever. You can also ask what the plan is now to replace Bradley, if any thought regards that exists whatsoever.

Perhaps if those with a proper record of achievement behind them were recruited, paid the rate with significant demands placed upon them that part of the club’s activities would improve.

But again, who is going to drive all of that? Don’t say Lee Charnley again.

It has long been the b’te noire of this fanzine that the club does less than the bare minimum to engage with supporters.

The walls caved in on the Fans Liaison Committee a couple of years ago when faced with some awkward questions from Alex Hurst. The answers provided in part by Charnley provided an explanation as to why he is the man in the iron mask at St James’ Park. The whole structure of fan engagement had been a largely risible enterprise but a replacement was promised which would be democratic and accountable. Of course that hasn’t happened.

In fact as the season ticket refunds and direct debits continuing to go out of supporter bank accounts over the Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated, the club appeared completely deaf to the entreaties of supporters, notably the Newcastle United Supporters Trust. A change of approach only happened when NUST raised the point with the Premier League.

United have not complied with UEFA guidelines on Supporter Liaison Officers -‘ click here.

Lee Marshall fulfils some kind of function in that regard but his primary role is as Head of Media, a role vacated by Wendy Taylor when she left some time ago. Marshall is often touted as United’s Supporters Liaison Officer but the reality is he left that post in 2016 and has never been replaced. If you don’t believe me – have a look at Marshall’s LinkedIn page.

This means Newcastle United is alone in the top two, possibly all divisions of English football, having no full time supporters’ liaison officer and no structure with which to engage with supporters for two years and counting.

We are now back to Steve Bruce. It is often repeated that Bruce is a symptom of a deep malaise at Newcastle United rather than its primary cause. A shit manager working for a shit owner at what has become a shit club. That is unquestionably true ‘ though it does not excuse Bruce his many failings which extend to his character as we’ve seen increasingly in recent months.

Bruce is just part of the story at Newcastle United. Another sad act who’ll be replaced with another like him if Ashley can find anyone desperate and daft enough to rest on the Barrack Road bed of nails.

As I wrote earlier, it is not a functioning football club. It has no goals beyond staying in the PL (which it is unlikely to do) for financial reasons alone. It has no sporting objective beyond that but because it is so recklessly negligent in the attention it has paid to its own foundations, even its most meagre aspirations can’t be sustained.

You might ask what purpose United therefore fulfils?

Currently it is a billboard for Ashley’s businesses which as others have detailed have grown exponentially since 2007, driven in part by the international exposure the club provides him with.

And that … absolutely nothing else, is the purpose Newcastle United serves.

Nothing changes until Ashley is gone and replaced by professionals. Bruce Out? Unquestionably that is horribly overdue – but Ashley will struggle to attract anyone to United who is little more than a desperate wannabe who any half decent club wouldn’t look at – like Steve Bruce.

Ashley Out!

MICHAEL MARTIN’