From the ground up the whole idea of changing St James' is flawed. Why would any potential sponsor want to sponsor a stadium where the potential 'sponsee' has arguably the worst board-fan relationship in the top flight of English football (regardless of on field results). A Stadium which's name is going to have to be reverted back to St James' and all corporate sponsorship signage removed/covered up for the 2012 Olympics. Where various media outlets/personnel have spoken out that they will always call it St James Park (i.e Jeff Stelling; see his blog on SS. The Chronicle called it SJP today (12/11/2011)). A stadium where the local council have also condemned it and stated that all according SJP signage (road signs, metro station etc) will NOT be removed/altered.
It just seems totally pointless to me. Why would anyone want to pay money to sponsor a stadium that will never be called after the sponsors brand? For me, the reason that no one wanted to sponsor the stupid '@' idea, wasn't because they wanted full sponsorship (as Lambias has suggested as the reason they couldn't find a sponsor back then), it was because they knew the backlash that would have occurred, coupled with the fact that no one would call it that, which ended up being the case; after the initial backlash faded, I never saw, officially or otherwise, SJP called sportsdirect.com@St James' Park anywhere!
One of the main questions that's been raised is why has he done it now; while we're riding high in the table, unbeaten in the league and playing good football. The first two reasons being, what I feel, as one of 2 main reasons; the other being our next home game not being until 3/12/11; 3 weeks or so after the initial announcement. In my view, he's hoping that because we're doing so good, because of the timing of our next home game, that it will all blow over by the Chelsea game comes around. Has the man not learned anything from his past experiences with pissing off the fans?
A final point that I will touch on, is this line from the official statement, 'We must make this club financially self-sufficient in order to deliver (that) success.' Was it just me or didn't Lambias say that the club was on stand to break even this year, only a couple a weeks ago? Breaking even for the first time in god knows will surely put us on a better financial footing in the first place? Not to mention the net income from player transfers being £40,250,000 (Incomings minus outgoings) since Ashley took over.
I understand the need to generate cash, regardless of any sports clubs stature in the world, from grass roots upwards. What makes Newcastle different is the fact that we never see the money being spent; apart from new showers for the training ground and then all mysterious amounts of money being spent on agent fees. If Lambias is saying that a potential £10m could be brought in to get a player, does that mean there's no money currently available? I mean, why would we need more money when (visibly at least) from last summers transfers (2010 - now) we should still have, by my reckoning, a tad over £20m left just from fees, not to mention any additional budget, if any?
At the end of the day, it will ALWAYS be St James' Park to all NUFC fans and the majority of football fans all over the world. Nothing could change that, regardless of how hard they want to try. History is something that is unchangeable, the future is what we make of it...
