The London Magpie Group is proud to be an independent collaboration of kindred spirits, far away from Newcastle, living in the south but still passionately keen to stand up & be counted and to challenge Ashley’s toxic regime. As Newcastle United supporters all we have to show after almost 12 years of Ashley’s catastrophic ownership is: no respect, no trust, no decency and no hope combined with broken promises and a lack of investment.

“One day”, as Keegan said, we “will get our club back”

While being part of the wider Magpie Group, we are an independent organisation ran entirely by our own members.

The London Magpie Group has been formed to give fellow Newcastle United fans living down South a chance to make a stand against Mike Ashley who, like a parasite, is killing the club we love from the inside.

Our rich and varied history is proof that any label of having delusions of grandeur is as fictitious as were the lies that led to Mike Ashley being publicly berated in court for deliberately misleading the press, media and public repeatedly. Something that as Newcastle fans we are all too aware.

Newcastle fans are a rare breed. Brought up on fleeting success regardless of the generation you were born into, we’re eternal optimists although you wouldn’t hear any Geordie admit it. Those years of top-flight success back when ration books were still part of daily life mean you’d have to be a pensioner to have first-hand recollection of us winning domestic silverware. If you experienced the elation of winning our last real trophy you’d be at least 50. That’s half a century ago, yet still we turn up in our thousands, home and away. Regardless of league or competition – we support our team.

More recently, we’ve been a heartbeat away from relegation to the third tier and almost certain extinction but for two men who had a vision to restore Newcastle United back to being a club the region could be proud of. Somehow they did it. Between them they captured everything this club is about and the Entertainers made us proud again. Not long after, the best striker in the world signed for us and he was one of our own. We’re a proud people and we love nothing more than seeing that pride in our city and our club reflected in the efforts of those wearing those famous black and white stripes. Do that for our team and you’ll be revered in the North East for life. Players who give everything regardless of the limitations to their natural talent are treated like heroes. Managers who tap into the psyche of the fans of the most northern club in the Premier League are revered as kings. Just imagine what would happen to the players, manager or even the owner if we had won something! That could have been you, Mike. That could have been you…

Newcastle United is the lifeblood of our city. It’s the reason we go to work with a smile on our faces on a Monday morning and a spring in our step building up to the next game. Or at least it used to be. Under the current owner, we’ve been embarrassed repeatedly over the 12 years of his tenure. Humiliating appointments at every level of the club, chronic underinvestment in every single aspect of the club from the antiquated training facilities, to the academy and right through to the current playing staff. Even the once-magnificent stadium has been neglected for too long in the attempts to repeatedly slash the bottom line of the day to day running of the club. All except the advertising. The state-of-the-art pitch side digital displays pump out a never-ending, demoralising, embarrassing reminder of where Mike Ashley’s true intentions lie.

The vulture of the high street is using our club to peddle his buy-cheap, sell-cheap tat that he acquires by swooping in and exploiting businesses in trouble.

We won’t be tainted by association to a man who has such dubious morals that he thinks nothing of having thousands of financially vulnerable people on zero hours contracts in Victorian workhouse-like conditions. We don’t want to be linked to the man who sacked a player who was in the middle of treatment for cancer. We don’t want to be connected to the man who has sold land belonging to the club to himself rendering future ground expansion plans unfeasible. We no longer want to be allied to a man who deliberately and repeatedly lies and misleads the fans.

If you want to be involved in the London Magpie Group or have suggestions or ideas to help us rid the club of Ashley, please contact us info@londonmagpiegroup.co.uk