Am reading Harry Pearson's book "The Farther Corner" on North East football. Published in 2020, so it will have been written before anyone heard of Saudi Arabia buying the mags. It includes this passage:
"It was true that the protests against the Ashley regime had been going on for a long time, or hadn't. Part of the problem was that there were so many different anti-owner groups. There was Magpie Group, NUFC360, If Rafa Goes We Go, Ashley Out, Mike Ashley Out, the Newcastle Supporters Group, the Newcastle Independent Supporters Group.... It all had a Life of Brian quality about it.
There was nothing new about fan protests at St James' Park either. I started going to St James' Park with my friend Steve when Gordon McKeag was running things. Back then the chants of 'Sack the Board' were to the Gallowgate End what Hail Marys are to St Peter's - it was an act of both faith and atonement. Much has changed at St James' in the thirty years since then, but the relationship between Newcastle supporters and the club's owners has remained more or less constant throughout."
It just isn't true that "any group of supporters would have reacted the same way to the takeover". No other fans go on the way they do. Only the mags would have done the petitions and tantrums pretending to have their mental health ruined to the extent that they did.