If it bothers you that much you search for it, i did one, 1st article: (probably not good enough for you, but then again i'm not really arsed (not about you btw, about proving a point))

He was reclusive end of, in business and personal life.

https://www.journallive.co.uk/nufc/tm_headline=billionaire-s--133m-bid&method=full&objectid=19182749&siteid=50081-name_page.html

Philip Beresford, who ranked him 54th on the 2006 version of the list, said neither he nor his staff could ever manage to contact Ashley and described him as "easily Britain's answer to the late Howard Hughes".


&



He is thought to live alone in a large house on the edge of a Hertfordshire village.

The building is hidden by trees, and CCTV cameras keep watch over the locked gates at the entrance to the half-mile drive.

His neighbours say they never see him. At the nearby pub, nobody has heard of him. When the local newspaper attempted to find out more about him a few months ago, they eventually resorted to placing an advert in their own pages appealing for information - and no one responded.



Guess the guy wasn't reclusive afterall. 

Didn't Mort say he (Ashley) didn't like being in the public eye, shortly after he joined? I vaguely remember words to that effect in one of his interviews. It's a minor detail really, we can see he clearly isn't a recluse.

Aye, walking into the Strawberry pre-match is the antithesis of being a recluse.

Most probably.

PR isn't a dirty word so I don't understand people getting too bothered when it's mentioned.  Of course what Ashley and Mort are doing is PR, that doesn't mean that they are not acting natural in what they are doing.  Ashley not going mad about Sports Direct has no bearing on how he reacts to being our owner as football is a game which is based around passion.  I'm not surprised that Ashley has been taken in by owning the club and sampling the atmosphere which is associated with the club, city and area in general.

As for Mort, he's also doing some good PR but again that should be natural to somebody if they are good in business, it's a part of the job but doesn't make it any less genuine.

They are both doing very good jobs and I think we're lucky to have them, enjoy the ride as everything looks set to bring back the good times.  Everybody within the club seems to be fighting for the same cause, once again we are looking as if we all want the same thing, a bit of success.

If I had to mark the change that we've seen so far out of 10 I'd probably go for 8.5.

None of that makes him reclusive, it means no more than he had no interest in his local pub and he was concerned about his security.

Whats being discussed here? Whether he is a recluse? Or whether the whole team behind him have managed the public relations side of things enormously well?

Oh and the research i did on him when he took over the club suggested that the one-dimensional 'recluse' tag he had recieved in the financial press was a load of horse s*** dreamt up by overpaid analysts and journalists. His very behaviour since taking over the club (that has perversely been used in this debate) completely nails the perspective of him as a down to earth regular bloke with a healthy scepticism for the wankers who write for the financial sections. NOT the one-dimensional bollocks that was printed after the floatation. His engagement with the geordie public means that attempting to win some bizzare side argument about his PR strategy being 'just because he fell in love with us as he was a recluse beforehand' makes you look like a naive idiot tbh.

Oh and that 40 hours research and pov (posted on the main site here just after the takeover) sought of seems to be actually backed up by his willingness to get Blu Bambu the round in.

But yeah, you're right, he was a recluse and thats the most important issue at hand here.

PR is a bad word lately though.  Blame it on the cynicism of our times or a general mistrust of public figures, but those two letters conjure up images of spin doctors, damage control, deceitful manipulation and ignoble ends in the minds of many. 

edit: not that I think M&M are up to it -- I believe that while there is positive PR being generated by their actions it's not the primary goal of their actions to generate it. 

Whilst realsing Ashley isnt one of us, I reckon he can fall in love  with the club. From what I see the man wants to win, regardless of the context, be it clothing line, shop chain or football club, and if this is true then maybe, just maybe, he won't take failure with us and take us all the way to the top.

Seems like a good idea-make him a song TOON ARMY-i now you can,so go ahead make a good song for Mike Ashley-keep him in TOON,he`s great for the club and the future

He's fat, he's round, he owns the f****** ground. Mike Ashley! Mike Ashley!

FYP  The first one is better