I have supported Newcastle United for more than sixty years.
During that time I have seen players, managers and owners come and go. Supporters have remained.
We carry the memories, bring our children into the ground and keep faith through seasons when faith is hard to justify.
A football club belongs to that continuing story.
This is why I am drawn to the idea of stewardship.
To own a club is to hold the legal rights. To steward it is to understand the obligation that comes with them.
You have been entrusted with something built by other people and your task is to leave it stronger for those who follow.
Newcastle United fans know what it feels like when that obligation is neglected.
We also know how quickly hope can return when ambition does.
We should welcome that ambition and demand that it lasts.
A club cannot call itself well run simply because it wins. Its foundations, its conduct and the confidence people place in it matter too.
The reports concerning Manchester City raise a question for the whole game. Man City deny wrongdoing and the Premier League’s financial case has yet to reach a public, final conclusion. Judgment must wait for that process.
But if serious breaches are ultimately established, their cost cannot be measured only in penalties or points. Football asks supporters to believe that every club competes under rules with meaning. Damage that belief and you diminish the achievement of winning, even for those who had no part in any wrongdoing.
The same principle reaches beyond football.
Societies become more prosperous when those in charge build institutions others can trust. They become more sustainable when leaders think beyond their own tenure.
Newcastle United’s ambition gives us every reason to insist on both. I want NUFC to win trophies but I also want the next generation to inherit a club whose success they can celebrate without having to explain it away.