S.A.F.C. - the future

I can't bloody wait mate. My first season ticket back was with the bairn for the Charlton game at home in L1 when Goochy got the last minute header. The bairn was hooked from then. I felt guilty as **** (not!). A few (long) seasons later and he was bouncing at Wembley with me dad and me watching us go up. I still don't know how to explain to him that......"he hasn't seen anything yet"

 

I hear you. My lad's 1st SC was the BSA season so it went rapidly downhill from there. I've apologised many, many times to him but in reality it's my long dead Grandpa who should be apologising - he started all this

 

Bet your lad loves it though . Tbh, my dad wasn't a regular at Roker. My Uncle was though, it was more the lads from school that I went with at first. There was about 15 of us who made a full day of it. We all had season tickets and a fair few went to the aways back then, even at 14/15yrs old. Brilliant stuff.

 

A couple of my good mates a collectors. They have got some absolute belters. One of them has just sold a few on Twitter recently. There is a big market for the old strips tbf.

 

People will pay a few hundred quid for the right shirts. They don't have to be player worn or signed or anything, iconic designs, certain seasons go for more.

 

Spot on. He has a few long sleeve ones that you tend not to get these days. They go for a pretty penny

 

My Grandpa was a young man in the 30s when we were the best team in the league. He hailed from Jarrow so used to go to Roker Park one week and Castle Grayskull the other. He settled on Sunderland when his kids came along. His 4 sons chose Sunderland, his daughter chose the dark side.

I grew up in Edinburgh so only really knew about Sunderland from my Dad who used to go a lot in the 50's and 60s - Charlie Hurley was (still is) his hero. He was there when Clough did his knee, but growing up he always worked Saturdays so I can count on one hand the number of games he took me to as a kid, but somehow (and bearing in mind I have no affiliation to the City of Sunderland) my addiction grew and I started going to games on my own when I was 13.

I've fallen in and out of love with Sunderland over the years, but always kept up the obsession and have passed it on to my Son who is absolutely obsessed to levels that I don't think I was at the same age (although my Dad argues differently). He's currently buzzing because his mate at school's brother (Spellman) has just signed for us

 

its the feel aroumd the club thats making it exciting for me, feels like thevReidy days building an exciting young side

 

The club is being run completely differently now, the recruitment is way beyond anything we have seen before.

Look at the Clarke signing and apparently we are trying to get a deal over the line for Broadhead, we even got Dajaku permanent after his loan. Previously we used to loan as a temp fix and make no attempt to sign them afterwards. Look at Alonso by all accounts he was happy to sign if we paid the fee for him, didn't bother, didn't try for Ki and i won't even start on M'Villa.

Beyond that we are now signing players who have potential to get getter with us rather than players at our level (at best and being generous to some)

 

I am in my 50’s and still buy shirts, I like to collect them and agree with what you say, the only one I never got recently was the butchers apron adidas top we had in our first season down in the championship, I just couldn’t bring myself to buy it, that was horrid

Some of these strips are worth decent money and are good to look at now and again to remind you of the season we had in them.

 

I understand that some people think they are just for kids but then, some people think that of model making and the excellent thread that's been on here recently shows otherwise. There's a lot of people on Twitter, ranging in age from teens to 60s, who get on there to talk about and compare their collections. It seems to be really popular.

I think I've got around 90 shirts. I started off collecting our shirts, obviously, but I like them as objects, from a design point view so I started collecting them from foreign clubs I'd seen play, then extended it to clubs from places I'd visited. Then I extended it to any club I could find a link to. I've got a couple of other Football League clubs due to mates supporting them (and having been to their games regularly). I've got a handful of non-league shirts from clubs I or a family member have been involved with and one from a club that was selling off matchworn shirts to raise money during lockdown. I bought a Hellas Verona top because I read a book called A Season with Verona and because I had work links with Verona for a while. I've got a Zamalek top because of a family member living in Cairo. I've bought a couple just because they're iconic clubs (River Plate, Inter Milan, Accra Hearts of Oak) and occasionally I'll buy one just because I like it. I've got a handful of classics that are probably worth a few quid which I tell myself I'll sell when the time is right but I probably won't.

These days, 95% of my working life is from home so I wear them sitting in the home office. They're comfortable, dry quickly, and don't need ironing. Never wear them out in public unless I'm going to a game though.

 

Spot on. It's great to see and always the plan. It's equally as good to see the usual doom mongers be very quiet.

Long may it continue. HTL.

 

Quite a few men are happy to pay for a good strip.

 

Enjoy it while it lasts, they're like pigs sniffing out truffles ...

... they'll always dig up something to moan about.

 

Even when things are as a good as they've been for a long time. I'm proud of the club again. They've brought the hope and excitement back.
But you can't please all of the people all of the time as they say.

 

I'm a measly 54 years of age and have only (due to distance) seen the lads play twice in the flesh. 1976 in NZ, 1990 play off semi.

I blame my grandad for cursing me with the love for this club and bless him at the same time. **** it feels good to have some faith in ownership and direction back

 

Cracking post marra and thanks for sharing. Yours is a similar story to mine. My granddad from Dundee had the pick of where to locate and the lads had just won the cup in 37... its been downhill ever since. My dad took me to some games in 74 when I was 11 and I was hooked from then on. A school friend and I would watch the lads one week at home and the mags the following week if we were playing away (when I was 14/15, games and travel was so cheap and we enjoyed watching the fights at St James's as this was at the time when Harry Roberts was our friend (apparently)).
So proud to get my son a SC for the past few seasons, broke my heart when we lost at Wembley v Portsmouth and Charlton, but May 21st changed all that and I've never been happier since Reidy, Phillips and Quinn and BSA. Off to the club shop when it opens on Friday for 5 tops... my boy and his two sons are hooked too... hhhaaawwwwaaaaayyyyyyy the lads

 

Just what is KLD up to, we have gotten used to being **** the piss take from tiddly little teams in the damnawful league 1 and KLD comes long gives us all a lift and hope for the future. I dont know if i can take it.

 

Looking forward to this…