There are few clubs that inspire such passionate support as Newcastle United FC. But at the start of a new Premier League season thousands of fans are vowing to stay away in a boycott of the club to protest against the owner, Mike Ashley.
The Guardian’s Joshua Kelly met supporters Michael Martin and Wallace Wilson who are angry yet resigned to another season of mediocrity brought about by a combination of low ambition and low investment. It’s a model of cost-saving and minimalism they see as having been lifted from Ashley’s other businesses, such as the discount chain Sports Direct.
The Guardian sports writer David Conn has been following the story of Ashley’s 12-year ownership of Newcastle and tells India Rakusen why fans in a proud footballing city are now in despair at their powerlessness to remove him.
Also today: Ammar Kalia on the Miss England beauty pageant.
Photograph: Richard Sellers/PA
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