WOR GAMES
Going into the first Wear-Tyne derby for eight years, Sunderland fans had every reason to be upbeat about their chances of knocking bitter rivals Newcastle United out of the FA Cup. While their neighbours from St James’ Park play in the division above them, their record in the competition over the past two decades has been fairly atrocious and has not improved in recent seasons under the new ownership regime. While Newcastle may have rocketed up the Premier League since the arrival of their Saudi owners, their FA Cup woes have continued and even under the transformative hand of Eddie Howe, they have twice been embarrassed in the third round by lower-league opposition. Given their lengthy knack list and appalling away form, there is every chance that run of early exits could continue on Saturday when Sunderland welcome them to the Stadium of Light.
And what a warm welcome it was set to be. A welcome so extraordinarily hospitable and unprecedented that even if – and it’s a giant Hollywood sign-sized “IF” with flashing neon lights – Sunderland do beat their visitors on the pitch, any temporary humiliation visited upon Newcastle will pale into almost total insignificance compared to the ignominy long-suffering Mackems have just been subjected to by their own club hierarchy. Anyone who has sat through the excellent Sunderland Til I Die documentary series will know fans of the club have had to put up with no end of appalling boardroom decisions but that was all supposed to have changed with the most recent takeover two years ago. Alas it hasn’t and now whatever tin-eared dunderhead signed off on the utterly insane idea to redecorate a corporate bar and dining area at one end of the Stadium of Light with Newcastle colours and slogans surely deserves a lucrative Netflix comedy special of their own.
Confirmed on Thursday, having been swirling around as an unsubstantiated internet rumour for over a fortnight, the news that Sunderland were preparing to toady up to their neighbours in such a fashion has prompted understandable mirth on Tyneside, prompting jubilant Mags to celebrate the most generous gift to be bestowed upon them since a wealthy nation state took over their club. If they can stop laughing for long enough to board the coaches taking them to the derby, an army of 6,000 will still be stitching their split sides back together when they alight near the ground. Given the events of recent days, they can realistically expect to be greeted upon their arrival with a complimentary bottle of Brown Ale, all the better to help them enjoy the sight of their team running out to a stirring pre-match rendition of the Blaydon Races blasting out over the stadium PA.
In stark contrast, Sunderland fans have reacted with such white-hot apoplectic fury to this embarrassing misstep that their young billionaire owner, Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, quickly shelved plans to temporarily turn their ground into a Newcastle theme park and issued a craven apology. “Like our supporters, I was disgusted and hurt by the pictures circulating online of the inappropriate signs that have been ripped down,” he whimpered in an Instachat post that went on to tacitly suggest the hunt for a scapegoat – any scapegoat – is very much on. Whoever ends up shouldering the blame for this fiasco, the responsibility for it lies squarely on the presumably black-and-white striped welcome mat outside Louis-Dreyfus’s door. If he was genuinely unaware, as he suggested, of plans to plaster a certain part of the Stadium of Light with branding that rendered the local fanzine A Love Supreme “genuinely lost for words”, it is a damning indictment on the manner in which his club is run, that not a single person among the many locals who work for him felt comfortable enough to declare what an astonishingly stupid idea it was.
“Crazy,” posted Joanne Youngson, a Sunderland supporters liaison council committee member and just one of many fans to voice their displeasure. “Fair enough, take anything red and white down to minimise damage. But you don’t have to decorate the place for them. It’s just a real shame, their fans are going to be loving it – we would. That’s why I question whether Kyril knows what it means to us. He doesn’t get us, or the region, at all.” Asked about the controversy, Howe played a typically straight bat on Friday even if there were visible traces of a smirk loitering around his chops. “These things can happen,” he tooted. “It’s up to Sunderland what they do with their stadium, it’s nothing to do with us.” While understandably less successful and wealthy than their rivals, Sunderland have now achieved the almost impossible by somehow losing what passes for the moral high ground.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It is my one regret that he is not here now to see this. It was something that he said to me before he died: ‘Make sure you go and have a go.’ I said: ‘I will do, Dad, when the time’s right.’ I think he would be proud and you just hope he’s looking down somewhere now” – memories of the great Ray Clemence are shared with Ben Fisher as son Stephen prepares his Gillingham team for the visit of Sheffield United.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
Credit where it’s due to Sean Dyche. Having made his opposition to the winter break clear, he’s now avoided one by having an FA Cup replay in the middle of it. I reckon that makes him an innovator, roughly speaking” – Phil Russell.
Re: the Undertones and Subbuteo (yesterday’s Football Daily letters). Towards the end of last year, McTear’s – an auction house in Glasgow – were hosting an auction of a significant amount of football memorabilia from the family of the late, and very great, Bertie Auld. This included a number of signed shirts, both Celtic and opponents, that he’d acquired. One very attractive lot was the shirt worn by one of Bertie’s opponents in the European Cup 1967 semi-final second leg played at Celtic Park. It gave the successful bidder the opportunity to own a genuine Dukla Prague away kit. Unfortunately, despite my letter to Santa, no one got it for me for Christmas. Half man, fully despondent” – Ken Muir.
Like Jürgen Klopp, and seemingly 1,057 others, I’ve also lost my wedding ring (yesterday’s letters). I inadvertently sacrificed it to Njord, the Scandinavian god of water, in order to secure safe passage down a treacherous river (well, it sounds more interesting than ‘it fell off while white water rafting in Iceland’, doesn’t it?” – James Vortkamp-Tong.
Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … Phil Russell.
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