Newcastle United need to step it up from Shola Ameobi to Alan Shearer and Kevin Keegan

I have just checked and Shola Ameobi is still only 42 years of age.

He seems to have been around forever!

Born in Nigeria on 12 October 1981, Shola Ameobi and his family moved to Fenham (Newcastle Upon Tyne) when he was five years old.

Spotted by Newcastle United when playing for Walker Central Boys Club, the information online points to Shola getting involved with NUFC at the age of 12 back in 1995.

In another 12 months time, a 43-year-old Shola Ameobi will have had a 30-year association with Newcastle United, broken up by only a handful of years when he (eventually!!!) left the club’s playing staff and played in lower leagues, before then eventually ending up back at St James’ Park in June 2019 as a ‘loans co-ordinator’, mainly charged with sending younger players out to the right clubs for them to progress.

Five years on and I am not sure exactly what Shola Ameobi has in his job description now?

It reminds me of back in the olden days when I was at secondary school in the late 1970s or so, we used to have one or two teachers who filled in wherever, especially when your teacher for a subject was off ill. I was never sure what exactly their real job/speciality was, unless it was crowd control?

Shola Ameobi seems to do a bit of everything now and appears to be mostly club ambassador rather than loans co-ordinating.

He pops up regularly doing stuff with fans on behalf of the club, online interaction and in particular, meet and greet events, both at home and especially overseas.

Nothing wrong with that, seems a canny lad and all that, a decent representative of the club, but not exactly legend material. At least not for myself and everybody else I know who was around during his playing career.

Shola Ameobi showed promise as a young player but didn’t really progress from there, a delayed hip operation not doing any favours and seemed to effectively finish off any faint remaining chance of him becoming a decent-level player.

However, along came Mike Ashley and when things fell apart it was Shola Ameobi who remained at the club along with Dennis Wise, whilst Kevin Keegan left (in 2008) and took Ashley for £2m when proving constructive dismissal. Mike Ashley having promised KK he would have the final decision on all transfers and instead secretly putting that power in the hands of Dennis Wise.

It then descended into the realms of farce, as it seemed whenever Mike Ashley sold the latest star player, he then awarded Shola Ameobi his latest contract extension, as apparently a ‘feelgood’ initiative to make fans not feel so bad…

It wasn’t his fault, who wouldn’t turn down a new contract to keep playing for Newcastle United? However, Shola Ameobi getting contract extension after contract extension kind of summed up the whole malaise at the club and the lack of ambition under Mike Ashley.

Which brings us to now.

I am not for one minute saying Newcastle United should get rid of Shola Ameobi, I think he is an asset to the club.

However, when I see the club doing what they have done in Japan, quite obviously trying to promote and grow the club as much as possible on the back of the team playing matches there. Surely if they do have grand ambitions, the Newcastle United owners need to step it up and move on from Shola Ameobi, do whatever it takes to get the likes of Alan Shearer and Kevin Keegan to spread the Newcastle United message around the world, growing the fanbase and the ‘brand’ etc etc.

Whatever it would cost the club they would get back many more times in terms of growing their ‘brand’ and the fanbase. We all saw how brilliant our fans in Japan are, their enthusiasm and passion, imagine if it had been Kevin Keegan and/or Alan Shearer out there with the squad!

It would have generated massive coverage, both in Japan and around the world.

I do wonder at times now about the true ambition of these Newcastle United owners, if they do really want to try and compete with the best in the Premier League and Europe, both on and off the pitch, then we need those massive announcements.

A much-increased capacity stadium – whether that be SJP or a brand new site just up the road, the state-of-the-art huge new training ground project that was talked about before and after the takeover happened, getting the likes of Alan Shearer and Kevin Keegan onboard, as well as others, to help grow the club as big and as fast as possible.

Shola Ameobi can of course continue to play his part but the reality is that he should be on the subs bench, making fleeting appearances, that jack-of-all-trades 1970s teacher, not a first-choice off-the-pitch superstar…