Today in 2002 old monkey heed was sacked. The man who had created possibly the best few years, quite a few of us has seen. Reidy's legacy?
That era should have been the start of a successful spell in the premiership, instead it's been ****e apart from a few glory days.
Just have to hold onto them few years. Dont forget the young'uns dont even have that tiny morsel to grasp.
How many sides have had a 'successful spell' and built any sort of long term success off the back of it? Leics are obviously the stand out example here, won the league, yet to be seen if they establish themselves as a Premier League force or they fall back into the mix. Newcastle once assembled a team that was fearless, come very close to winning it, mid 90's, but poor management has since seen them fall to pieces and become a laughing stock of a club on many fronts. Southampton seem to have built a bit of a steady ship, will it kick on to the next level or is it just another flash in the pan? Villa had a good period under O'Neill, Leeds had a good few years under Graham/O'Leary. Sustaining that level of success is tough, building on it year on year, you need a lot of money and a brilliant set up from the ground up, at every level, one chink in the armour and the lot can come down.
Memories is his legacy. Apart from the Tore Andre Flop signing and a bit of a bad taste in the mouth when he left, Reidy's record with us was pretty good. It was up and down each year after he left!
Absolutely true - yet still my favourite season was the cup final year with Poyet! Reid assembled a very good team - including the best strikeforce the club has seen probably for a generation and the best football too. Biggest issue was not pushing at Christmas to challenge united at the top when we were second in the league. Rested on our laurels instead of spending money (Murray blamed Reid for that at a talk in I went to and Reid blamed Murray iirc) I reckon 2 signings could've seen us stabilise up their and, as we will never know, it could've been so different now. But, then again, it could've been exactly the same as it is!
My best ever memories being a Sunderland fan are the glory days under Reid. Unfortunatly as the team fell apart we didnt spend the money to replace the quality players we lost sufficiently i.e Don Hutchinson for example. We only had Steve Bould and Stefan Schwartz for a short spell aswell due to them coming to the end of their careers, if only we had them 2 earlier. We could and should have kicked on from finishing 7th 2 seasons running but unfortunatley Murrays finances were limited and the big Money from Sky wasnt available back then.
The unfortunate part of it all was that Reid could not match the team he built with similar replacements that he wasted a fair bit of money on. Losing Johnson to Rangers, bombing naughty Summerbee out, and losing Quinn within a season led to his demise. We were beginning to become an established club but his choice of replacements turned to ashes and he just could not regain a winning team.
We didn't. I had a night out with Mr Reid a few months back - the only time I ever met him - and asked him that question. He absolutely laid the blame that we didn't get him down to lack of money. Zlatan wanted to come to Sunderland - it was the agent and the club who couldn't agree.
Should have signed big in the summer of 2002, but went backwards after that and are still going backwards. Summerbee, Hutchinson and Kilbane were proper wingers who were always getting crosses in at a hell of a rate better than any of the players over the last 15 years at this club.
I remember Kilbane as part of the problem he never fulfilled his potential here, and there were a few disastrous signings apart from Flo,
Reid's downfall was when he was given money to spend as well as been a stubborn twat.. It was good for a couple of seasons though..
