As seen as though it’s the end of the “noughties” and the beginning of the tens, twenty-tens, whatever they are going to get called; there are ten things I’d like Sunderland (team, fans and club) to sort out starting with the game against the Trotters: 1. Sunderland has a stray dog problem as the joke goes, because they keep throwing       away leads....

    After a breathtaking start to the season we seem to be hitting a bit of a rough patch recently – hopefully not giving any signs of a repeat of the woeful second half of the season experienced last year. The game at Blackburn cruelly showed our lack of depth at the club with the bench consisting of mainly teenagers with no first team appearances. With the January...

So baffling was Steve Bruce’s decision to bring on two defenders when chasing a two goal lead deficit, that the Stadium of Light spoke its mind by emptying despite 15 minutes remaining of what appeared to be a decent performance against a strong Aston Villa side.   Individual errors resulted in both goals being conceded, with one being an exceptional strike from James...

In the current day and age, footballers lead a mostly sheltered and secreted lifestyle. Not mixing with the public that much and spending lavish amount of cash on ostentatious and luxurious play-things is the name of the game (and it would be for me as well if I was earning what they were.) As much as this is just a symptom of the laws of economics that ultimately cannot...

  Housewives and girlfriends alike will hastily concur when I say that in recent times season ticket holders must have acquired a degree of insanity as our breed will nonchalantly conform to months of pitiless torture which we consider worth a few hundred quid. In essence it’s not logically viable to attain the understanding of 25,000 people eager to purchase a pass...

After the euphoria of drawing at Old Trafford and beating Liverpool (pause to enjoy the feeling of saying that), it was something approaching business as usual this week. With all due respect, up against a well-organized but hardly world-class Birmingham team, we tried to win it by phoning in a performance and were two down before we got past Directory Enquiries. Even...

The booing of referee Andre Mariner during and after Sunderland’s draw with West Ham could not have been more undeserved and more misplaced, and the fans who adopted this stance clearly watched nothing of Saturday’s game.   Regardless of how theatrical Herita Ilunga’s fall to the ground was, people should not be ignoring the fact that Kenwyne Jones was stupid enough...

OK, let’s get this out of the way. The rules require that the game should have been stopped when the match ball hit the beach ball, and a drop ball held. But it wasn’t. The goal should not have stood. But it did. A win’s a win. Just for a change, we got the rub of the green. No more ‘moral victories’. No more good performances but poor results....

Seldom does a match pass by when I do not appreciate my surroundings as I stand, palpably tense from curled toes to wrinkled forehead, watching the scene unfold. This appreciation is multiplied further when greeted with grounds such as Fratton Park, Molineux and even Goodison Park; the latter providing the away spectator with an ostentatious viewing experience: that of...

On the 17th October 1879 James Allan, a Sunderland based schoolteacher, founded the Sunderland District & Teachers Association Football Club. Little did he know of the accolades, feats and legacy the future was to hold. The club was re-named Sunderland Association Football Club, how we know it today, in 1881 due to various professions other than simply teachers being...