10 Reasons Why Newcastle Fans Wish It Was The 1990s Again
8. The Board Wasn't Afraid To Spend Money
Five years after nearly slipping into the abyss of English football's Third Division, Newcastle United broke the world transfer record to sign the deadliest striker in the country. The £15 million paid to Blackburn for Alan Shearer in the summer of 1996 laid down a marker to the rest of the Premier League that Newcastle meant business.
Investing to strengthen the playing squad wasn't an alien concept to the Magpies hierarchy across the 90's era. Both Sir John Hall and Freddie Shepherd acknowledged they had to provide the necessary financial backing to ensure Newcastle were competitive at the business end of the Premier League.
That has never seemed to register with Mike Ashley. His statement outlining that Newcastle "may have the cart" and will now "bolt the horse on" was inevitably met with scepticism from supporters, who've witnessed more star players depart Tyneside than arrive under Ashley's watch.
Alan Pardew's refrain of not being able to get players "over the line" is even used by fans as a macabre running joke at the end of barren transfer window.
Even with £34m resting in the bank, Ashley's penchant for cheap foreign imports remains unwavering and his obsession for squeezing the best "pound-for-pound" value from every signing continues to undermine Graham Carr's job of earmarking players of sufficient calibre and experience - something Newcastle lacked at critical points last season - that don't conform to a limiting recruitment blueprint