Many have ruled the kingdom of St James’s Park. A lot atrociously, one or two adequately, fewer still with flair and vision.
From Freddy Shepherd, Sir John Hall and Gordon Forbes, through Gordon McKeag, Stan Seymour Jnr and Lord Westwood to William McKeag and Stan Seymour Snr.
One Knight, one Lord and a Shepherd, two McKeags, and father and son Seymours.
However, out of all the great and mainly small, the worst by the length of Hadrian’s Wall has been Mike Ashley!
The gods who foisted an unclassy, undignified, reckless yet indecisive, shocking decision-maker upon Geordies who have suffered in the name of their beloved football club must be rocking with laughter.
Lord Bill wore a distinctive patch over one eye and William McKeag sported a monocle while purporting to rule with sharp and decisive vision, but Ashley in black-and-white replica shirt with a frothing pint in his hand plummeted new depths in attempting to be the common man when he actually had a distinctly uncommon touch of doom.
Twice Ashley has attempted to sell the football club but, like everything else, his timing couldn’t have been more disastrous.
The immediate danger is huge – United are wasting this transfer window just as they did the last one in January when, facing a growing fear of relegation, Ashley sold good players and bought inferior ones.
We all know the price we’ve had to pay for that folly.
Oh how the third best supported club in the land has been abused and humiliated.