We have now passed the 13 years point of Mike Ashley owning Newcastle United.
A business plan of basically using the football club to help make both him and his retail empire bigger and more valuable, on that basis Ashley will see this period as massively successful.
The key component in order to try and achieve the above has been trying to survive in the Premier League whilst spending as little money as possible.
With the team now looking pretty much certain to survive this season in the top tier, this is how the Mike Ashley era looks…
Two Premier League relegations
Two years in the Championship
Nine Premier League triumphs, avoiding relegation
Interesting to see people reacting to Liverpool’s title success which was completed last night with Man City losing to Chelsea.
This is how things now look in terms of how many years since each Premier League club won the top tier (* have never won it):
16 Arsenal
39 Aston Villa
* Bournemouth
* Brighton
60 Burnley
3 Chelsea
* Crystal Palace
33 Everton
4 Leicester
0 Liverpool
1 Man City
7 Man Utd
93 Newcastle
* Norwich
122 Sheff Utd
* Southampton
59 Tottenham
* Watford
* West Ham
61 Wolves
Yes, give it another seven years and if he is still here, Mike Ashley will be organising a Newcastle United centenary of failure. If we don’t get new owners this time, it wouldn’t surprise me if Ashley sticks around, if he was still here in 2027 then he would have owned the club for 20% of the time since the last title win.
It is shocking how quickly the years flash by, 13 years since Mike Ashley bought NUFC, 12 years since he first promised to sell the club ASAP.
I have never met anybody, certainly in recent years, who remembers that last NUFC title win in 1927.
Well you would have to be 100+ now to be able in any way to have enjoyed it back then.
As for our other title wins, the complete set for Newcastle United is 93 years, 111 years, 113 years and 115 years.
Yes, I know it is ‘only’ 51 years since our European triumph and 65 years since the last FA Cup, but truly shocking how our football club has been ran down the years, particularly under Mike Ashley.
As well as the 11 current Premier League clubs who have won the title since Newcastle’s last one, there are another eight, making it 19 in total, who have been top dogs, since Newcastle United last where (years since their last one):
25 Blackburn
45 Derby
58 Ipswich
28 Leeds
42 Nottingham Forest
70 Portsmouth
90 Sheffield Wednesday
84 Sunderland
I’m not assuming we will be winning any trophy, never mind the Premier League in these next seven years, BUT if we get ambitious owners then I simply dream that over a period of time we will try to compete and get closer to winning something.
Deluded with unrealistic ambitions, Newcastle fans certainly aren’t.