Mike Ashley could have been forgiven for thinking that things couldn’t get any worse - but that was before JJB Sports found themselves in a spot of bother.

Forget, for a minute, his problems at Newcastle United, the football club that he owns and whose famously loyal fans would rather he didn’t: in the midst of what he believes are the worst trading conditions he has seen, shares in his Sports Direct group have been ailing.

You’d think, perhaps, that a friendly face would be an ideal tonic: wrong. Chris Ronnie, the chief executive of JJB Sports and Mr Ashley’s great friend and rival, managed to send Sports Direct shares to a record low of 56¼p when they opened yesterday morning. They recovered slightly, and closed down 3½p, nearly 6 per cent, at 60p. With friends like these . . .

Mr Ashley is desperately seeking the sale of Newcastle after fans’ furious reaction to the departure of Kevin Keegan, the club’s messiah - sorry, manager - but the mire in which Sports Direct finds itself may turn out to be stickier still.

He will not be the only one to see irony in the fact that HBOS, his bank, are at the heart of JJB Sports’s woes. Mr Ashley is reported to be out of pocket to the tune of £200 million after a disastrous spread bet on the bank’s share price, taken in the spring. Mr Ashley reportedly placed a £300,000-a-point spread bet in anticipation of HBOS shares recovering. They didn’t.

Mr Ashley has denied that he was stung by the collapse in HBOS share price, which led to a £12.2 billion rescue by Lloyds TSB.

Mr Ashley’s friendship with Mr Ronnie previously was more problematic for the latter, as the City questioned his appointment as chief executive of JJB last year. Mr Ronnie and Exista, the Icelandic group, had to assure shareholders in writing that they were not in league with Mr Ashley.

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