On behalf of everyone associated with true faith may I welcome new Head Coach Steve 
McLaren to Newcastle United, a football club that means so much to us all and the community that sustains it and without which it is meaningless.
It has been a good move on behalf of the club to dismiss Alan Pardew’s coaching staff and it is good to see that even Lee Charnley and Graeme Carr realised that giving McLaren an opportunity to bring his own people in to run the coaching side of the club was only correct and proper. We obviously extend our best wishes to those who join Steve on the coaching team. Much is expected of them.
In many ways, the attention now turns to Graeme Carr and Lee Charnley. Both those men must share their blame for the failures of last season when grossly insufficient recruitment was made and to no-one’s surprise the team struggled very badly. It now falls to both those men to identify the correct players and negotiate the deals to bring in the players of sufficient quality and quantity to Newcastle United FC.
McLaren will like Pardew learn very quickly that he cannot rely on Charnley and the media department to make his life easier. From day one of the McLaren era they have clunked and clanged with a press conference which might put a Soviet Union show trial to shame for how clumsily stage-managed the whole thing was.
Inviting only new bessie mates The Mirror and perennial soft questioners, SKY, in the form of David Craig hardly gets McLaren off on the right tone – no meeting with the local press or any of the other newspapers that cover Newcastle United on a daily basis and with whom the manager will by necessity have a relationship with. Another clanger dropped but well, I have little doubt Lee Charnley, Wendy Taylor, Lee Marshall and Keith Bishop will tonight imagine they have pulled off something of a blinder! No hard questions for the new manager and bish-bosh, job done.
Except the new manager now has several important journalists and media outlets with their noses put out of joint for really no reason in honesty. It really doesn’t have to be this way. They have given McLaren a problem he need not have had.
That said, we’ve had patter previously about improving lines of communication but even the pitiful sham of the Fans Forum, with an open invitation for Mike Ashley to attend from their number unresolved that was promised to be brought forward hanging in the air. The inability of the club to respond to polite correspondence from the Newcastle United Supporters Trust and the Football Supporters Federation tells its own tale.
It’s all a bit unnecessary, classically petty and small time.
Welcome to Newcastle United Steve! 
I’m really not sure about this because, whilst I’ve heard McClaren is a good coach etc, he has had mixed success as a manager and his success was a few years ago.
He has won trophies though. So I hope we’ve got that Steve McClaren.
I think Mike Ashley was genuine when he went on the telly. He knows that his words will be shoved down his throat if we don’t win a trophy or qualify for the champions league so he wouldn’t have said that if he didn’t mean to do it.
As with many others, I’ll wait and see what the summer brings and how we do next season before I get the bunting out.
I wish I had your faith in Ashley but he’s been responsible for so many lies and general deceit over the years. Why would he have a personality transplant now! He may have taken himself off the board but he’ll still be pulling strings and setting agendas. I had a letter this morning from the club reminding me to renew, talk of top 8 finish, giving domestic cups a good go and delivering exciting and attacking football. And they’ve extended the deadline even further to 19 June. New future or new lies. Not convinced but I’m still prepared to be wrong and will eat my cynical words if I am.
I’m happy we’ve got McClaren. I just hope we can manage to get Austin now, but with this being Newcastle United I won’t get my hopes up until he’s on the pitch holding up the shirt!
Good appointment with a track record of winning trophies. I’m happy with this.
I think change is here, but we will not go from zero to 100 overnight.
For me McClaren is much better than Pardew and bringing in his own backroom staff is vital to a change in playing style and tactics. Had Carver and Stone stayed on, I would not be writing this. Exhibit 2; the manager being incentivised to win a trophy! Wow, that´s real out of the box thinking and Charnley saying that “the Club NOW shares the supporters desire to win a trophy” unbelievable, really.
Exhibit3; Ashley´s interview and relief at the West Ham game. I´ve been anti-Ashley since Keegan went but I think he has finally realised that his policy for NUFC after 2 consecutive relegation battles was wrong and that he will not start throwing his own money around but may well try to expand the “business” and reinvest.
If he doesn´t want to reduce his loan, then he will have 53M from last season to spend on players plus 20-40M from this year plus recycling money from summer sales.
I know we will not spend 100M in total, however spend we will.
A rumour from Spain last week, Newcastle are sniffing around Juanmi from Malaga. Remember him from the pre season friendly in Germany.
I’m glad I left Newcastle 11 years ago and lucky enough for my kids to grow up by the beaches of Sydney! Gees there is no optimism left, it seems the will to live has gone for most fans. Can we at least pretend to get excited, remember we all went spare in 2011 and we had our best season in 8 years. we lost our captain, midfield play maker and our striker that year. and Ashley didn’t even want to finish more than mid table.
What has this to do with anything re: NUFC? Don’t come back then!
So Steve will be Head Coach, but not trusted within the new Newcastle FC structure to be the team Manager. At Newcastle, independent oversight of the long term direction of the team is VERY important. The role of team management will be will be overseen by the Board. BUT WAIT! The good news is that Steve will be on the Board too! So if the Head Coach tanks and doesn’t win a game, we can ask the Board to see if he wants to sack himself. This is uniquely Newcastle. Though admittedly, it’s only at Newcastle that the only person at the club qualified to BE on the board is the Head Coach. Closely followed by Cath the Tea Lady.
J.O.K.E. of a club.
Regular readers of this website know where I stand-I resent everything Ashley stands for and will continue my long-standing boycott. But I am trying to comment on what the majority will do, and given that only a maximum of 1000 people (of which me and my wife were 2) have so far joined the protests outside the ground and inside on the last day of the season,it is unlikely that all those missing voices are suddenly going to join us.I hope that thousands have cancelled their season tickets, but I suspect Ashley had done enough to buy himself a bit more time.Having waited 6 years so far, I do not have a problem waiting a few more weeks to see where McClaren stands.
#Ashleyout
Does the club not understand that every manager they appoint is seen as a puppet? So what do they do? Exclude most of the press and instruct McClaren to talk to nobody unless expressly permitted to do so. They’ve undermined him from his first moment inside St James’ Park. But hey, McClaren knows exactly who he’s getting into bed with. I wish him luck but I just cannot see this working out for anybody who accepts this poisoned chalice of a job.
Why the blind positivity…. Wanting to seem well balanced? Fair?
Fuck that…. I am still at WAR with Ashley and he has not put down his weapons.
Nothing’s changed. The problem at the club is the owner and appointing another arse licker is going to solve nothing. McClarens known for dour football so another season of shit awaits us. I couldn’t give a monkeys anyway because I won’t be back until the fat controllor sells up.
I think McClaren can only be judged when his ambitions for the club conflict with the aims of Ashley. Basically, we will see if McClaren puts the club first or accepts the ways of Ashley. It is fair to at least give him a chance, although it is also understandable that a lot of us remain to be convinced.They all now want us to measure them by winning a trophy,so we should do that. My suspicion is that the change that has been made is simply to stop saying ” we are not trying”.Hopefully, McClaren has bought into this because he genuinely wants to succeed,so something will have to give.
Are you allowed to suggest that any of this actually happened…? ‘Preferred media partners’ only surely…?
Anyway, setting my negativity aside for a second… Good luck Steve, you’re going to need it…
This kind of clumsy, wrong-headed approach to media relations (like we’re in the middle of a fucking war or something) only happens when the man at the top decides he knows better than the professionals and the professionals are too weak or scared to challenge him. Anyhow, fuck all that bollocks. Welcome to the club, Steve – and good luck!
His initial enthusiasm is refreshing and a relief after years of Pardew negativity. I hope rumours of Steve Black coming back are true. I hope McLaren being inspired by Ashley’s interview at the end of the season doesn’t prove as niaive as it seems. Evidence of real intent by the club will be in those bought and sold or released. The treatment of Jonas suggests to me nothing has changed and our club remains one without class or decency. Good luck to the man himself and others that follow but it will take a lot to convince me anything has really changed under Ashley ownership. To state an intention of winning cups is key because our seasons have died on FA Cup 3rd round day recently. I wonder what sports physchologists would make of a target of 10th and cup exits in January?
Perhaps Steve being on the board may change the way staff are treated. Lets not forget that Pardew was responsible for the treatment of his staff.
I get the sense that there is a lot more confidence in McLaren than Pardew. He does come with a lot of endorsement and if he can get the best out of Joey Barton then coaching wise he is what we need right now.
If McLaren can start bringing on the youngsters, challenge top ten and a cup run then I’d say he has been a success in his 3 years.
Those fans unwilling to at least give the bloke a chance should do the decent thing and not turn up to the games. Thats what we did in the 80’s after all?
Seeing as how I love United, I really want this to work and I’ll try and adopt a positive outlook on the future. I’ll wait and see who joins the squad and who joins the coaching team. I’ll wait and see how the team perform in August and whether their fitness levels increase to a magical 90 minutes per game. Looking forward to seeing how tactics pan out and whether corners and crosses increase to a professional level. It’s going to be interesting I suspect and hopefully we can become a strong club and one that no longer interests the media as a comedy club. Mind the exclusion of the media was a bit bizarre during the announcements today as was the flurry of board appointments! Still won’t be renewing my ST though – I’m not feeling that positive!
That’s a poor welcome. You didn’t even spell his name right!
An improve,met over Pardew – not a chance another loser for the sack
And on the board, that’s a strange one. At least he can propose that he wants to sack himself when he runs out of steam and fancies some compo. To put Bob Moncur on as well is just putting another yes man in place. We all know where he stands. Time will tell.