The Bank Of England Club! One for you old folk!! ;)

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In the north-east, when the far-fetched rumours stop, you're finished
Steve Bruce's fate was sealed when Sunderland supporters failed to invent a salacious justification for Darren Bent's sale

When it comes to giving hope to the desperate football fan there is an advantage in the Irish manager, who can always be imagined to have slept with a poster of some club stalwart gazing down at him from the wall. "Supported Sunderland as a boy," a bloke said to me on Sunday. "Hurley was his hero." And then he did that gesture that involves screwing up one eye, keeping the other wide open and turning your head slowly to the side as if scanning the horizon through an invisible telescope. I was pleased to see this gesture again as it was the one my grandfather used to make back in the 60s when we were sitting in the Bob End at Ayresome Park and he had just said: "There's 28,000 in here today, but they'll announce 22,000."

It is the gesture of somebody who is on the inside track, the possessor of secret knowledge. In truth, of course, Martin O'Neill's support of Sunderland is genuine and was hardly fresh news. It's a matter of public record that the Northern Irishman has a soft spot for them, one that began back in the days when they were "the Bank of England Club" and Len Shackleton (of blessed memory) was entertaining kids outside Roker Park by tossing a coin in the air, catching it on his instep and then flipping it up into the breast pocket of his jacket. The former Celtic manager has talked about it in interviews. I didn't say anything to the bloke though, because, to be honest, it was a relief to see a bit of the old I-know-something-you-don't swagger returning.

At one time the north-east crackled with football gossip. You could barely cross the threshold of your house without somebody assailing you with a gaudy rumour, usually one picked up on an intelligence network that apparently included everyone from the cousin of the Catholic bishop of Middlesbrough to the bloke who fitted Faustino Asprilla's satellite dish. Naturally, then, when Darren Bent was transferred from Sunderland to Aston Villa last season I expected something juicy to come my way. Possibly even an allegation so salacious that it might top the byzantine nonsense that inevitably followed a dozen or so years ago whenever anyone from the region said: "Well, you know the real reason the Toon sold Andy Cole, don't you?"

When nothing whatsoever emerged, I approached a longtime Sunderland supporter of six decades' service and asked him what lay behind the deal. His answer was in many ways more shocking than anything I could possibly have imagined. The man simply frowned and said: "Good business. And, at the end of the day, you can't keep a player if he wants away."

Behind this bald statement lay something even more worrying for Sunderland's then manager, Steve Bruce, than events involving performing snakes and a cabinet minister's daughter. Because when fans in the north-east don't react to the selling of a star by concocting a justification for it involving a trio of Brazilian lap dancers, an industrial quantity of baby oil and a trained parrot, then whoever is responsible for the sale is on wobbly ground.

And so it has proved, with Sunderland's poor finish to last season and shaky start to this one rapidly bringing unrest at the Stadium of Light. The explanation advanced in some quarters for the behaviour of those fans who shouted for Bruce's removal last weekend is that they are fickle, forgetting the progress the club made under his guidance eighteen 18 months ago when they threatened a top-six finish. This is to misread the situation. At any club that has struggled to fulfil its potential for as long as Sunderland the attitude to the management is always likely to mirror that at a TUC rally. Fans were not reacting to 12 months of frustration, but to six decades of it. It is not that they have short memories, but long ones.

Back when Martin O'Neill was a boy, Sunderland were one of England's best-supported clubs. In the 1949-50 season, for example, the aggregate attendance at Roker Park topped the million mark. Sunderland and its supporters didn't experience relegation until 1958. Widely held responsible for that debacle was the manager, Alan Brown. A man whose name is still so commonly prefixed on Wearside that a visitor might go away with the impression that the club was once coached by someone with the unusual rhyming name of Thatclown Alan‑Brown. Since then it has been an uphill struggle for anyone taking charge. And as the years of underachievement have gone by the gradient has got ever steeper.

The situation is aggravated by the close proximity of bitter rivals Newcastle. Newcastle has a comparable population to Sunderland but somehow always appears bigger to the outside world. The same is true of the football clubs. The Magpies attract publicity, whether good or bad, almost effortlessly. The other clubs in the region meanwhile feel they have to do the sporting equivalent of jumping up and down naked yelling "Me! Me! Me!" to merit even the most cursory of attention. And just when Sunderland had enjoyed one of their best seasons for years off went Darren Bent, and along came Alan Pardew and a spell that has seen two home wins since New Year's Day.

The captain of Sunderland during the club's last truly successful era was Raich Carter. Carter was a tough man, as anybody who grew up in a Durham pit village with the name Horatio would be. Recalling the crowds at Roker Park during the 30s, however, he softened. "They sacrificed so much to come and see us," he told an interviewer late in his life. "We were their only hope" – and tears rolled down his cheeks. Nowadays people talk of the pressure created by the vast amounts of foreign cash that has flooded into the game and the media attention. Yet there are old‑fashioned burdens that are less tangible, but just as heavy, as Martin O'Neill may, or may not, soon find out.

 

Excellent thread, great read

 

Brilliant read mate. 6 decades of hurt and disappointment.

We don't demand much to rectify that, just a comfortable EPL team that can challenge the notion we are just a **** club punching above its weight.

This is the first time in my 36 years I've been so excited at a managers appointment but as a Sunderland fan I still half expect it to in tits up.

That's the biggest thing Martin o neill must overcome the most. Not our over expectation but rather our own inner negative view of our own club. We expect it to go wrong not right but after 40 years of failure, can We really be blamed?

Come on Martin, take us back to those heady days of the 50's when you where a young boy with red and white in your heart as well.

 

Well, Mr O'Neil has all the right credentials imo to put a stop to the many years of under-achieving and disappointment. Here's hoping to a long, successful reign at the helms!

 

A great read....nice one!

[video=youtube;fxfJ1is417I]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxfJ1is417I&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL02F0B9237763D4F4[/video]

 

Len Shackleton (of blessed memory) was entertaining kids outside Roker Park by tossing a coin in the air, catching it on his instep and then flipping it up into the breast pocket of his jacket.


love this bit, i wish i could of seen this bloke play!!!

 

Good article Mr Flag but I have my doubts about your comments on Raich Carter , I was always told that he was a pure bred mackem and tackem and indeed attended the same school as I did, Hendon Board, a fact which we were made aware of from our first day at school, if anyone knows any different I would be interested to hear.

 

I only saw him at the end of his career. But I watched him play a friendly after he had retired. In goal was a fat retired player who was too unfit to play any where else. Shack collected a bobbing ball on the edge of the box, lobbed it forward with spin. It landed a yard ahead of the goalie about a yard from the goal line, and spun at right angles along the goal line with the fat player chasing after it. I couldn't believe a ball could be played that way deliberately, but I saw it with my own eyes.

 

Brilliant thanks for that, I am not old enough to have seen Raich Carter play but it reminds me of the stories my Dad used to tell me.

Alan Brown was the manager in 1969 when I went to Sunderland for trials, I spent a week getting the bus there and back each day. I arrived home one day and Mr Brown had been to see my parents to tell them that I would not be offered a contract, all I could think was he could have given me a bloody lift home.

 

Doing some research, as i have never lived in Sunderland (and I was born in 1972), but Sunderland and Hendon was County Durham until 1974, then it changed to Tyne and Wear, Newcastle was Northumberland until then as well. So when Carter was growing up, it was County Durham, not sure how old you are, but guessing when you were growing up (and me for that matter) its been Tyne and Wear.

 

No mate, when I grew up it was County Durham and I still put that on my address in Sunderland( just my little way of protesting ) its just that the article said that Carter grew up in a Co Durham pit village, I know Sunderland isn't a big city but I would hardly call it a pit village.
Carter may have been from the outlying area , I don't know , I was just asking if anyone knew for definite, I'm sure some of you computer whizz kids could find out.

Also, talking about Shack, I had the pleasure to have met him on quite a few occasions when he had his paper shop not far from what used to be the Royal Infirmary ( now a block of flats) and I also saw him play in a testimonial at St James' for Jackie Milburn and he was quite old then but still an absolute genius with the ball , he was doing that trick where he kicks it forward with that much back spin that it bounces back to him, completely bamboozling the defender, great to watch.

 

What a great read for someone who remembers seeing Shack play;there was never a dull moment when he was on the field.I never thought then that I would have to suffer all the horrendous ups and downs but it's now time for us all to look on the bright side but also be patient as the good times don't come at the drop of a hat.