Why all Newcastle fans should boycott Mike Ashley's plan to rename St James' Park: Simon Bird's big lunchtime read

Published 11:00 28/10/09

And the latest from SportsDirect.com Park is that Mike Ashley couldn’t sell Newcastle United. So instead he’s decided to sell it’s history.

Taking Newcastle off the market last night was a blow, but not a huge surprise. Chris Hughton got the manager’s job full time - no shock there either.

But here’s the real stunner. Prepare for St James’ Park to become the Popular Airline Arena. Or perhaps the Well Known Chocolate Bar Bowl. Or the High Street Bank Stadium.

Tucked away at the bottom of his statement last night announcing Hughton as boss , and saying Barry Moat couldn’t raise the cash for a takeover, Ashley blundered (that word again) into making the kind of provocative, insensitive, ludicrous statement he has made his trademark as a football club owner.

He tells us that the club are exploring ways of maximising new revenue streams next summer. And that means St James’ Park, the name that is, will soon be no more. Replaced by a soulless corporate label.

Ashley is ready to trade more than a century of tradition for a few quid.

To sacrifice the name of the city’s most famous landmarks to swell the coffers with a sum that will hardly buy a decent new striker if United do get promoted.

Ask a football fan anywhere in the world what they know about Newcastle United and they’ll say St James’ Park, Alan Shearer and black and white stripes.

Well, Ashley’s already cast Shearer aside, now for the name of the ground. What next? Out with the black and white, and in with an all new red and white home kit?

Let’s not give the man ideas. After all this is a club who asked for potential buyers to bid via an email address in June... only to be deluged by hoaxers.

His latest brainstorm will be met with the kind of anger that accompanied his treatment of Kevin Keegan in September last year.

It is as if he sat back and thought: How can I rile those Geordies some more?! How can I take away a bit more dignity from the club?

Does he not see that putting the name of St James’ Park up for sale, on the same night as he decided to extend his massively unpopular regime, is so deliberately provocative as to incite new levels of frustration/rage/disillusionment at his regime?

Hang on a minute, you are thinking. It is those Geordies getting all sentimental again. Just like they did about Keegan. They’ll be crying on the telly next.

Plenty of other clubs have successfully renamed grounds. Look at Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium, lovely place. Yes, but it was a new stadium.

Actually it is a lot about being sentimental. When your club has been reduced to a shadow of its former self by the mismanagement, incompetence and lies of an owner with no more credibility, then you cling to the solid foundations of its history.

The strip, the ground, the legends who have served it faithfully in the past.

St James’ Park is as massive part of Newcastle’s history. Generations of families have walked to what Sir Bobby Robson used to call the “cathedral“ on the hill.

My first visit to St James’ Park was in the early ’80s. Newcastle 4-2 QPR. Peter Wythe scored twice AND rescued a black and white collie dog that strayed onto the pitch.

The main stand was nothing much more than a tin shed. There was a small window masquerading as a ticket office. The tickets cost £2.50 each, for the best seats. (Well it was a birthday treat.) I was actually at ST JAMES’ PARK.

If your dad took you to St James’ Park for your first match, you want to take your lad, or lass, to St James’ Park to see his first match.

So yes, perhaps that is a bit sentimental. But it is also about not selling out and turning a historic ground into just another corporate entity in the glitsy, everything is up for grabs, world of soccerball. Or whatever it will soon be called.

I sincerely hope that finally a crazy plan mooted by a crazy owner will be defeated. Already the Geordie fans are mobilising, and they’ll vent their fury.

I plan one small protest.

I vow always to refer to it as St James’ Park in my MirrorFootball dispatches.

I would urge others to follow suit and show any new sponsors they’d be wasting their money buying a name that belongs to the stadium and the fans.

Toon fans: what do you think of Mike Ashley's latest brainstorm? Let us know by leaving your comments below...

Click here to follow Simon Bird on Twitter.

Fancy winning £3,000 for FREE this month? Play Mirror Football Streak for your chance to win cash prizes! Start predicting now!