A club in an abusive relationship

I am gutted. Not as much as when Chris Hughton was sacked, which felt like a bereavement because he given the heave-ho for no credible reason and was doing a good job. But Andy Carroll joining Liverpool – two points above Newcastle Utd having played a game more – is still upsetting. Even more so, given that it seems he didn’t want to go. With the recent death of Nat Lofthouse and his lore at Bolton Wanderers, Carroll, at his boyhood club, could have remained there his entire career. But that doesn’t take into account the pondlife and gangsters that inhabit the St James’ Park boardroom, asset-stripping the club for every penny before they sell it. Mike Ashley is only going to leave Newcastle Utd with someone putting a wodge of money in his pocket or exiting in a bodybag. There are no doubts which option Tyneside finds the most preferable.
It is the carpet-baggers who get the £36 million, not the squad, which is now left without an adequate striker, given that Carroll had scored more goals than all the other forwards combined. Twelve league goals at this stage of the season is not a bad return, especially after a month-long injury. At the start of the season, one commentator dismissed Carroll as getting his club no more than twelve goals a season. Well, inadvertently he has been proved right. Carroll was Newcastle’s best player and it was said that he was not for sale at any price. But the board have been proved to be pathological liars in a court of law – why should they change now? Maybe Carroll will do a Michael Chopra and bottle opportunities in front of goal against Newcastle Utd or at least a Beardsley and come back to Newcastle United at the tail-end of his career. Yet it should not have come to that. Duncan ‘Big Dunc’ Ferguson never wanted to leave Everton, but Newcastle paid top dollar to bring him over in the late 1990s and after several semi-productive years at Gallowgate, he returned to Merseyside. Ferguson was older than Carroll’s 21 years though.
What is more galling is Blackpool had the gumption to retain Charlie Adams – who wanted a move to Liverpool. Their chairman, Karl Oyston, was in breach of the FA’s Fit and Proper Person test for an alleged bankruptcy (a clerical incident since resolved), yet Mike Ashley would fail a true Fit and Proper Person test, both as a football club owner and as a human being. (The FA should be sued for breach of trading standards with that test’s name). Spurs made a bid for Sergio Aguero in the region of £34 million but his club, Atletico Madrid, responded by improving and extending his contract. That could have happened with Andy Carroll but unlike Newcastle United, Blackpool and Atletico are clubs run by people who care about the welfare of the institutions they are entrusted with running, not how much money can be wrung out.