To say that last week was a tough one to take for Newcastle United fans is probably a huge understatement.
It probably wasn’t much better inside the walls of St James’ Park, either, although fans will always argue that they feel the pain far more, and that’s true.
In all honesty, it’s probably for the best that the players and staff don’t feel losses as much as fans do, or nothing would ever get done. We’d have a new manager every week, and top players would be benched and cast aside for having an off day. The over-reactions would be crazy.
But just what does go on inside the club after a week as bad as last week? Having been battered 7-2 by Barcelona and then beaten by bitter rivals, Sunderland, the mood around the club was at an all-time low since the removal of Mike Ashley, but just how is it being dealt with on the other side of the walls?
The Times has got hold of an email sent by CEO David Hopkinson to 500 Newcastle United employees, which contained a video message to rally the troops.
Once again, it seems that Hopkinson has reiterated that the goal of the club is to become a dominant force in the sport, and he insists that despite these setbacks, the club remains determined to make that happen.
“There is no point in pretending it doesn’t hurt; it does. We are building something very real here, a club that is consistently competing at the highest levels of sport.
“It hurts us because we care. It’s adversity, and adversity does not define us — it reveals us.
“There’s a great quote from Vince Lombardi [the legendary former American football coach]; it’s not whether or not you get knocked down, it’s how you get up.
“So we will have a tough day and then we’ll get up. We’re building something very real here. That journey is not a straight line.
“Yesterday feels heavy, and it is, but that’s OK — we won’t carry it for very long. Our enthusiasm and our conviction will remain undiminished.”
We’re not going to lie, we’re inspired. But they’re just words. We need actions. We need to see how we’re going to achieve these goals; we need some more from the higher-ups, more communication, more movement.
Where’s the stadium decision? Where are we with the new training ground? What’s the course of action in the summer? It’s all well and good sending out a video email to your employees, but where’s the apology to the fans? If The Times hadn’t got a hold of this email, we’d not even know that the derby defeat had even been acknowledged by the club.
David Hopkinson speaks very well. The interview he did on talkSPORT got us very excited to see what he’s going to do, but we simply don’t hear enough from him. Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi were far from perfect, but at least we never questioned their commitment or their passion, and they were always interacting with fans and keeping us up to date. We miss that.