the club was £552,954. News of the World exposé In March 1998, Shepherd and Douglas Hall were the target of a News of the World exposé, led by the "Fake Sheikh" Mazher Mahmood. The pair, believing Mahmood to be a wealthy Arab prince trying to set up a business deal, were caught mocking the club's own supporters for spending extortionate amounts of money on merchandise, calling female supporters "dogs", and mocking star striker Alan Shearer by calling him the "Mary Poppins of football", all while frequenting a brothel. Amidst heavy media coverage, the Newcastle Independent Supporters Association and the then Minister for Sport, Tony Banks, called for the resignation of the pair. Although reports from sources close to Shepherd initially indicated he was contractually unable to resign, he and Hall had both left their posts within two weeks of the scandal breaking. His general approach to running the club, as well as the ongoing fallout from the News of the World story, earned Shepherd a number of unflattering nicknames such as "Fatty Shepherd", the "Fat Controller" and "Baron Greenback". Only ten months after resigning, Shepherd and Hall, the majority shareholders at Newcastle, voted themselves back on to the board. This led to the immediate resignation of the PLC chairman David Cassidy, who had taken the position just six months earlier. Shepherd then went on to take over as PLC chairman. Sacking of Bobby Robson In August 2004, Shepherd fired manager Sir Bobby Robson four games into the new season. In the week before the sacking, Shepherd was quoted as saying that Robson would not be offered a new deal at the end of the season, and that Robson would be "in the Guinness Book of Records" if he were still the manager at 73 years old. It is unclear if Shepherd made his statement after consulting Robson, but Robson admitted that he had an agreement with the club that he would retire at the end of the season. Robson also stressed that there was an agreement that he would not be sacked. Shepherd said that sacking Robson was "the hardest thing I have ever done in my life", adding "I didn’t want to be known as the man who shot Bambi." In his 2005 autobiography Sir Bobby Robson provided detailed criticism of Shepherd's chairmanship, claiming that while manager he was denied information regarding the players' contracts and transfer negotiations. He