Despite being a boyhood Newcastle United fan, hailing from Gateshead, John Andrew Hird insists that his team’s recent success is bittersweet because you can’t hide from the fact that the investment comes from “one of the bloodiest dictatorships in the world.”
Hird is one of the key figures in the NUFC Against Sportswashing movement, which was formed in reaction to the Saudi Arabian PIF that took the club over from Mike Ashley in October 2021.
The movement is one that aims for football democracy, to represent the values of the working class that originally founded the game.
Hird doesn’t incite a boycotting of the club, but pledges for the MPs, the fanzines and the local media to speak up like they promised they would before the takeover was completed.
“United with Pride, the LGBTQ+ supporters group, have a relationship with the club but don’t say anything about the ownership.”
“It seems as though the Saudi regime has silenced people.”
Hird expressed the importance of not “worshipping the accomplished fact”. He suggested that the stance that fans can’t make a difference is one of pessimism.
NUFC Against Sportswashing’s close relation with Saudi activist Lina al-Hathloul is supplementary to this view.
“We have been told by Saudi human rights activists that one occasion of raising banners for imprisoned Saudi women at St James’ Park would have a massive effect.”
Hird’s faith in the power of fan’s voices is clearly undeniable. He looks at how the proposed European Super League came to a collapse due to fan reaction back in April 2021.
NUFC Against Sportswashing also believe in the importance of figures in the public eye. Hird considers it acceptable to question Eddie Howe and “involve” him with the issues. “The chairman of the club is protected so who else can we ask?”
Hird scoffed at Eddie Howe saying he will only speak about football to then later answer questions about the Sycamore Gap tree that was chopped down. Hird recited some fans’ comments online: “you will talk about a chopped up tree but you won’t talk about chopped up people.”
Whilst the movement considers fans’ voices as important, it considers a voice like Howe’s or club legend Alan Shearer’s, as being able to make an immense impact.
“Fans have an unrealistic view of what one little statement from them could do and I don’t think they would ever sack Howe for it. It would prove that their ownership is about sports washing.”
Hird mentions the ‘Tyneside bubble’, and how rival fans aren’t as envious of Newcastle’s recent success as the Geordies may think. He instead thinks that fans are more concerned for the direction the game is heading if these ownerships continue.
Although the club’s upturn of results over the past two seasons haven’t actually manifested into any silverware, Hird speaks of how he and fellow member Andrew Page at NUFC Against Sportswashing believe future success would be “tarnished”.
“Winning in consciousness of what we know and the people we have spoken to, you can’t go along with it”, is the remark made by Page at a group meeting, as Hird describes.
These ardent beliefs which are held by the community are ones clearly strong enough to constrain their support. Whether some more of the fan base can replicate these beliefs if some silverware does come to St James’ Park in the near future remains to be seen.
