To: admin@nufc.co.uk

Subject: Sale of Newcastle United

Dear Mike Ashley,

I have just spotted that you have put Newcastle United FC up for sale at £100 million, and that this is the e-mail address for interested buyers.

So I thought I'd let you know that I have taken a look under the mattress and although I am £99,999,999 short of the asking price, what I do have is a quid. Which is just about what Newcastle United FC is worth, give or take. Are you interested?

Sorry if the offer sounds a little on the low side, but if we are being real (assuming there is a semblance of reality still lingering on Tyneside), the club is in a bit of a state. You have been ditched from what is commonly known as the top flight after a season in which the team looked less like a football outfit and more like an ensemble cast of the Keystone Cops.

You are haemorrhaging cash: according to reports, more than £200,000 per day just to pay the players' bloated salaries.

And, perhaps most worryingly of all, the person who has been identified to revive fortunes is Alan Shearer, someone with no managerial experience whatsoever except, of course, for his feeble attempt to keep the club up towards the end of last season when he managed a derisory one win in eight games.

I know what you are going to say, Mike. You are going to tell me that Newcastle is a Big Club. But what, precisely, does that mean? Yes, you have a big wage bill; yes, you have an assortment of big egos; yes, you have some big (and rather rotund) fans who like to take their shirts off in wintertime and sing songs ever so slightly out of tune. But is that so very enticing for a would-be buyer?

Lest we forget, Newcastle have failed to win a single important trophy for more than 40 years, which is neither big nor particularly clever.

And why is that? Could it be that the dodgy-singing, shirt-removing, shoe-waving fans are a part of the problem? Could it be that their inflated expectations, emotional incontinence and insatiable appetite for messianic managers who know very little about management is at the root of the serial failure? Could it be that hard-nosed commercial imperatives have become lost amid the ever-present fog of whimsy and surrealism?

If so, a quid is actually pretty reasonable. I mean, that was what a Russian businessman paid for the Evening Standard. Let me know your answer soon, Mike - because if you leave it too long, you may find that you are unable to sell Newcastle at all.

Regards, Matthew

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