Any toon fan out of short pants knows that the club resembles a lunatic asylum at the best of times. Terrible PR, silly wages, sillier transfer fees, maverick directors, mental players, bizarre team formations, players played out of position, crazy managerial appointments and dismissals and so on. We’ve had plenty of humiliations over the years, like Kieron Dyer’s bust-up with Lee Bowyer, and Freddie and Doug’s broadcast to the Geordie nation from a whorehouse; but we’ve been able to laugh them off by and large and move on, haven’t we? However the events of the last few days take some beating, they really do, and are totally baffling and disappointing even by NUFC standards.

When Mike Ashley took over, we all thought he would inject some much overdue professionalism and intelligence into the running of the club. However the wheels have well and truly come off now, to the extent the club resembles one of those rickety clown cars at the circus, where everything falls off the car before the fat clown gets out and trips over his feet. Except no-one on Tyneside is laughing right now, Mr Ashley. We are well and truly a club in crisis, with the Board and fans at war, and the season’s only 3 matches old! You really couldn’t make it up….

You have to wonder whether the club’s hierarchy understands much about our club at all. Like the deep affection and respect for Keegan is held in by those supporters who remember his years of service to the club on and off the field. Or the deep hole we were in when Keegan took over from Allardyce. Or the terrible impact that his departure will have on the club, the supporters and the playing staff. And don’t even get me started on Dennis f*cking Wise, a man deemed more important to the club than Keegan! It seems to me the club basically doesn’t care about the average supporter. The lack of communication with fans, the lack of significant signings, swingeing price rises, and now the forcing out of Keegan all show a basic lack of respect and appreciation for the club’s support and its traditions. As a result, for all his man of the people act, his motives in buying our club remain suspect and his failure to support Keegan in the course of this crisis has created an impression of South East vs North East and alienated supporters against him. I wouldn’t stand with the fans again in a hurry if I were you, Mike.

The fact is, we’ve been a club in decline for a long time now. Successive inept managerial appointments from Souness through to Allardyce have left the club with a mediocre and thin squad, faltering ambition and a reduced standing in the game. These issues have not really been addressed, despite the much heralded changes in the set-up. Against a bleak economic outlook, is it any wonder that people are reconsidering whether they want to spend a fortune to be bored rigid by a bunch of underachieving and overpaid self obsessed ’stars’? The cracks in our support were starting to show even before this debacle. The lack of sustained investment in first team players hasn’t helped to put bums on seats either.

In my opinion, Keegan represented far more in many people’s eyes than just another manager: he represented the hope of better things to come, and most importantly a bit of craic and entertainment on a Saturday afternoon, something to look forward to. He understood that people want to go to the match to forget their troubles, not to add to them. Now that dream has been shot at dawn, presumably we can look forward to some lickspittle Carlos the Coach-io coming in from a second rate La Liga team to rescue our season. With Dennis Wise’s players. Because this fits our wonderful ’system’. Brilliant.

Now I realise that I’m overlooking the plus points to Ashley’s tenure. He’s paid off the debt (so we’re told), so no Leeds style financial melt down for us (not that other clubs somehow manage to cope with high levels of debt and invest in their teams). And we’ve got in place a great scouting system which means in 5 or 6 years time we may or may not have a great crop of Wenger style foreign youngsters to bring into the first team, or more likely to sell to a really ‘big’ club. And we’ve got in place a fantastic management set up which means no manager will ever have to worry about finding and signing his own players ever again (well it works for Barcelona, doesn’t it?). Forgive me if I’m not creaming my pants at this point in time at all that as I survey our understaffed and mediocre squad, with our best manager since Robson in the dustbin, and another season of struggle ahead.

I’m not so naive that I don’t imagine there was fault on both sides with the Keegan debacle. Keegan is a notoriously headstrong and stubborn man for all his qualities and has a track record of threatening to walk if transfers aren’t going to his liking. But my point is this: why employ him in the first place, knowing the man he is, if this was the plan? Why employ him in a system where he would have no say in major transfer decisions, how many older style managers would tolerate that? And why put Dennis Wise in charge of the whole thing, a man who as Sir Alex Ferguson said could start an argument in an empty house? Surely all of this was totally predictable and ultimately avoidable?

However for me the craziest thing about this episode is that at this point in our history, Keegan has been allowed to walk away. For the sake of club, the players and the fans, in my opinion Ashley should have swallowed his pride and done whatever was necessary to keep him. Because this club, at this time and given its recent history, desperately needs Keegan far more than it needs Dennis Wise. Not only because of his standing with the fans, players, the media, not only because of his talent and his understanding of and love for the club, not only because of the stability that he would have brought if allowed to get on with his job, but because of the hope and energy he represented. Keegan was a man to be trusted, Ashley isn’t, it’s as simple as that. Instead we’re a laughing stock again, and we’re left high and dry without a decent manager and with the transfer window closed. And the lingering suspicion we’re owned by an asset stripper who doesn’t understand football.

In the aftermath of the announcement of Keegan’s departure, it’s natural to start a hunt for the guilty. Was it Llambias’ fault (God knows what he adds to the club by the way, it’s not as if we’re a casino)? Or Wise? Or Jiminez? Or was it Ashley who pulled the trigger or failed to step in? Or maybe even Keegan himself? But honest to God, as I sit here, I don’t care anymore, it won’t make things better. We’re in the clarts, we’ve managed to make a mess of a promising position yet again, and God knows who’ll touch the job of manager (or should I say coach) with a bargepole given what’s happened. And without the right choice of manager, and some sustained success in the near future, you’d expect our better players to move on as fast as their feet will carry them (which is not very fast in Nicky Butt’s case).

My biggest fear is, once the anger and disgust at Ashley and Wise subsides, the club will drift further into decline on the back of apathy and boredom. Prudent value for money signings, a continental style management structure, a foreign coach and La Liga style tactics, living within your means, the offer for x player was too good to turn down, anyone want to buy Michael Owen, look at our excellent balance sheet blah blah blah – not really things to get the pulse racing are they? It speaks volumes that many people are praying for an Indian billionaire to rescue us from our current billionaire owner - so much for Ashley’s brave new world.

For me, that’s why letting Keegan go was an act of madness. Football isn’t a business like any other, it’s about hopes and dreams, fun and passion. For me, that’s what Keegan stood for, he was passionate and honest and knew what the fans wanted, and you knew he wouldn’t let the players short change the fans. Instead another period of decline and disappointment beckons. The fall out from this disaster could be long and sustained, and I really wonder whether this will be the last straw for many toon fans, I hope I’m wrong. The lunatics have taken over the asylum and God help us.