I remember getting the Football echo from a guy going round our street after getting home from Roker Park, it was pink then turned green after one of our relegations iirc. Those days you listened to the results on the car radio if we were lucky enough to get a lift off somebody who had a car, 5pm sports report. Otherwise it was the echo or nowt, how times have changed thanks to technology, obviously not for the Echo it would seem.
It was pink in the top division. It did go green on relegation and iirc Mc Enemy managed to get it to turn blue for the first time ever. I seem to recall a few years ago the editor (in her infinite wisdom) gave the job of reporting on the Sunderland games to a staunch mag There was hell on and he got moved. Hardly due diligence.
Brings back happy memories, can remember standing outside paper shop on Stockton rd around 5 to 6 on Saturday nights waiting for the echo van. Can't remember the green echo but I think early 90's it went to white and became the sports echo
TALE FROM LONG AGO. On a Saturday afternoon at about 5.15 my dad would send me off to the paper shop in Suffolk St to get a Football Echo. A crowd would build up, all looking out for the van. You would see it belting along Tatham Street, under the railway bridge and up the little bank. The driver didn't bother to slow down and the back door was open. The crowd quickly parted and a bundle was hurled out as the van continued on to the next shop. Job done. Looking back I wonder what 'Health and Safety' would make of it all today?
They had it all ready to print all except for the match report which would be phoned in by Argus (one for the teenagers there !). Once he put the phone down it went to print!
Loved the footy echo back in the day. More measured than the after match modern world social media reactions x
Without checking wasn’t his real surname Butterfield? In fact I’m sure his daughter still watched the lads
Living in the USA I try read the Echo and Shields Gazette (my home town)online versions. The websites are awful and Sunderland coverage is repetitive and uninformed. I hate to say it but the mag-centered Evening Chronicle is more readable.
I would only buy the football echo if we had won . Would call in Glendennings at either Southwick or Witherwack to get it. I never buy any papers now. You can usually have read all the news that will be in the Echo, the day before it's published.