JOHN CARVER has urged Newcastle United supporters not to carry out their threat to boycott the club’s next home game against Tottenham, and has claimed he will walk away if Mike Ashley and Lee Charnley renege on their promise to invest in the playing squad this summer.

With Sunday’s Wear-Tyne derby defeat to Sunderland having crystallised the frustrations of many fans, there is growing support for a campaign aimed at forcing Ashley out of the club.

A website, SackAshley.com, has been set up by the same supporters who initiated the Sack Pardew campaign that was credited with playing a major role in the former manager’s departure to Crystal Palace, and a series of demonstrations have been planned for the day of the home game with Spurs on April 19.

As well as calling on fans to boycott the game, which is being televised live on Sky, protest organisers are also planning to demonstrate in Leazes Park from 30 minutes before kick-off (3.30pm) to full-time, with a post-game protest under the Milburn Stand also due to take place.

Previous demonstrations involving Newcastle supporters have failed to garner widespread support, and the club has a history of supporters’ groups splintering off into a variety of different factions, but there appears to be a high degree of organisation behind the latest initiative, with most supporters’ groups onside.

Carver acknowledges the right of the fans to make their feelings heard, but with the Magpies in danger of being sucked into a relegation battle after a run of four successive defeats, the interim head coach has urged the St James’ Park support not to turn their collective back on the team.

“All supporters pay their money, and they’re entitled to do whatever they want,” said Carver. “The one thing I would say is we’ve had this in the past, and the fans have got behind the team. That’s important.

“Especially with the situation we’re in at the moment, we need that. We need as much help and support as we can get, to drive the players, the squad players who are in the team at the minute, to drive them over the line and get more points on the board. As we all know, nine points can be eaten away very, very quickly.

“It’s an important part of the season now. We’re at the business end, and I’m pleading, ‘Get behind the team and give us your support, because it makes a difference’. It does make a difference, we’ve seen that.”

Whether Carver’s words soothe the increasingly poisonous atmosphere remains to be seen, but the former assistant is hardly speaking from a position of strength given his poor record since replacing Pardew and his deep association with both the former boss and the boardroom regime.

Rightly or wrongly, most supporters appear to feel that Carver was complicit in the failings that were apparent under Pardew, and his subsequent promotion has done nothing to dispel the perception that he is unwilling to challenge those above him.

Carver has already accepted that, if he is appointed on a permanent basis, his input into this summer’s transfer dealings will be limited, but having held discussions with Ashley and Charnley about the club’s future direction, he insists he will walk away if promises made to him are broken.

“I can understand (the fans’ frustrations), but we’re already addressing it behind the scenes,” he said. “Mike and Lee Charnley know what they have to do.

“I’m telling you now, if I was sitting here and I thought they were giving me lip service, I would say, ‘Thanks very much, I’m off – I’m walking away from this’. But I’m not because I know what we have to do, and I know what they’re saying to me is right.”

When asked to clarify his pledge to quit, he added: “I know what work is being done, and they’ve said it, they’ve gone on record. They’ve said that we need to bring players into this football club, first of all to boost the size of the squad, but also to improve the quality, to take us on.

“Let me tell you something, if I didn’t have enough belief in what they were trying to do and the promises they’ve said about the summer, then yes (he would leave).”

It is now five days since Newcastle were beaten at the Stadium of Light, but Carver claims the pain of yet another bitterly disappointing afternoon remains as intense as ever.

“I’ve never, ever felt like this in my life,” he said. “It’s the lowest, darkest feeling I’ve ever had because I’m suffering twofold, one as the head coach and secondly as a supporter.

“The fact it was five in a row makes it even harder to take because it could have been a different situation. Even if we could have come away with a 0-0, we would have stemmed those defeats.

“It still wouldn’t have been good enough mind, but we didn’t and we lost the game. I’ll be hurting for a long time now, well into the summer, because of this situation.”