I'll most likely never be in that end of the woods again n ow my sister has moved out of Bolton. Bolton is a proper **** hole.
Fair point. I'd wager it goes back further than just the Sky era though. I'm too young to know the ins and outs I'll leave it to someone like Relic to explain when it started.
The Wear-Tees Tyne-Tees 'derby' is a bit like the Wolverhampton vs Villa 'derby'... there's a semi-local rivalry, probably, but Villa/Sunderland/Newcastle all have bigger fish to fry.
It's not until I encountered message boards that i've ever really heard of Boro Sunderland being a derby, apart from N.E news of course. I think people are actually defining a region by what their local news covers which I think is ridiculous as it's basing locality on broadcasting transmitters.
I went for a coffee (decaf obviously), at The Rock, when my wife was at work. Haven't been back since, that was about 3 years ago. It depresses me that town.
Hahahaha! I really like Bury. Nice little town centre. For some reason me and our kid used to always end up drinking from about midday at a pub on the old train station platform. Good times... Queue homesickness.
Must admit, never been to Bury town center, but the parts I have been to was a mess and all of Bolton is a mess so just presumed.
Boro is more of a derby than Man City, Hull or West Brom. As it's our closest match, and was considered a derby in the past, I'd say it's a derby. There are lots of Sunderland supporters who live closer to Boro than the SOL. Brighton & Palace consider their matches a derby and it's 45 miles between them. Boro is a derby and, if NUFC didn't exist, would be our local rivals. Carlisle is considered by many Sunderland supporters, and most Carlisle, to be a derby. Boro's a derby ...... it's just that we use our indifference as a stick to beat them with.
You miss the times with your brother in the pub then, which is understandable given you're basically on another planet now. It's still a dump though. Gary Neville (from Bury) said recently, something like "People say you don't get scraps at the chippy anymore... maybe these people have never been to Bury on a Saturday night".