Say what you want, but football goes way back, not interested in todays would be heros, talking about all time, even if you just read about them, or your dad told you. spelling not a priority players must be home grown. Charlie buchen the charleton brothers brian clough alan shearer stan cummins the clown prince. will leave it there, your turn.
Why don't you rename the article Sunderland's greatest ever footballer, as that's obviously what it's going to come down to
Can you clarify please. Greatest who ever played in the north-east, or greatest born and bred in north-east?
Bill, if your going to start posts like this , at least try and spell the names correctly, it's the least you can do without showing your lack of education, or is that the cloggy way of spelling. From memory, I think it was Charles Buchan, and it was definitely Charlton. Greatest ever N.E. payer has to be between Raich Carter and Jackie Milburn surely, both led their teams to glory in the FA Cup. Shack was the greatest entertainer but Sunderland didn't win anything when he was playing for them, and I don't think Newcastle did either. As for Shearer, his greatest achievement was taking them down.
"Stan Cummins"? Nippy little bugger though he was, I'm not sure he would get anywhere near the top 10!
I don't think you can count the greatness of any one player by what the team won. The great Wilf Mannion, for example, never won a thing in his entire career simply because he played for the unfashionable Middlesbrough. But put Mannion or Shackleton in an England shirt, and they were very, very big men then. If we're looking at winners, Raich Carter won the league in 1936 and the cup in 1937. But that is overshadowed by three Newcastle players of the early 1950s - Jackie Milburn, Bobby Mitchell and Bobby Cowell all won cup winners medals in 1951, '52 and '55. Milburn's second goal in '51 was arguably the greatest ever cup final goal since finals were filmed. But back in 1913, Charlie Buchan had taken Sunderland to within one goal of the double! They lost the cup final to Villa 1-0 at Crystal Palace, but won the league, four points clear of Villa. Even Buchan's own team mates held his skill in awe. (Oddly enough, Tommy Barber, who scored Villa's goal in the 1913 final and deprived us of the double, had been signed from West Stanley and was a lifelong Sunderland fan !!! He died on the Somme three years later, both legs having been blown off). In recent times, there has been nothing in the north-east remotely comparable to Paul Gascoigne. In the 1990 world cup, Ruud Gullit had tried it on with 'the big kid' (as he always called Gazza). It didn't last long - after 20 minutes, Gullit vanished onto the right wing and became a nonentity for the rest of the game, having been left in no doubt who the better player was! In his Tyne-Tees interview in '96 or '97, Shack was asked if he liked any of the modern players - Gascoigne was the only name he mentioned. He was one of Wilf Mannion's pall-bearers, too, the two having been good friends. Gazza was held in high esteem even by the greatest of them all. When Maradonna was preparing to leave Napoli, he told the club's President "There's only one player who can replace me here, the Englishman, Gazza". A sad character off the field, rather like Hughie Gallagher, but on it, Gascoigne was The Boss.
lack of education come off it this is about sunderland football not an english lesson we have gone over this subject many times give everyone a chance of there opinion no one questions the long and elaberate essays some people post if you are not happy with not 606 so be it
Got to be Raich Carter. He captained Sunderland to the Football League title in 1936, at that time the youngest man ever to have captained a First Division title-winning side. He followed that up with victory in the FA Cup final a year later, scoring the second Sunderland goal in a 3–1 win over Preston North End. The Second World War, like many great players of his age, left him bereft of many of his peak years. Afterwards he picked up another Cup winners medal with Derby in 1946, becoming the only player to win Cup winners medals both before and after the war. Carter was also capped 13 times for England as an inside forward. Amongst his many admirers was the great Stanley Matthews, who said about him "I felt [he] was the ideal partner for me... Carter was a supreme entertainer who dodged, dribbled, twisted and turned, sending bewildered left-halves madly along false trails. Inside the penalty box with the ball at his feet and two or three defenders snapping at his ankles, he'd find the space to get a shot in at goal... Bewilderingly clever, constructive, lethal in front of goal, yet unselfish. Time and again he'd play the ball out wide to me and with such service I was in my element."
