I’m pretty sure this lad will be drummed out the cloon army. Nee beer belly, nee appetite and nee stains on his top.
**** when I went to Paris I must have just imagined it - or was it I wasn't sad enough to wear my Sunderland top on my jollies
Don’t think I’ve ever seen a Mackem behead someone or chop off someone’s hands either. I’ve never lived.
I've recently come to the conclusion that, no matter who you support, unless you are going to the match, playing 5 a side or jogging or anything else sporty, then wearing a football top makes you look, at the very least, slightly more stupid than you already are. You dont have to already be stupid. Whether you are a university professor or a knuckle dragger, you just end up looking somewhere between slightly less intelligent, through daft, to a ****ing idiot. I would put myself somewhere between daft/****ing idiot.
**** me, the tips business is sad enough! What the **** is the mackem is Paris bit? It doesn't even make ****ing sense, a grown man wearing a footy shirt in Disneyland (made worse by having a name on the back imo!) tries to have a joke at the expense of mackems cause he is sad enough to wear a footy shirt in ****ing disneyland and he didn't see any Sunderland tops!
I find people wearing colours, outside of match day, generally do it to encourage conversation with strangers ... ... I just don't get it tbh, strangers are the last people I want to talk to.
The first thing a mag does on any morning is think about Sunderland. We honestly seem to live rent free in most of their heads.
I had a bit of a chat a couple of weeks back, with a mate in the legal profession, quite high up and has done work for Ashley. I repeated what he'd told me to Grumpy Old Man at Plymouth and again to a couple of 606 lads at the Museum on Saturday. Because it was slightly 'in confidence' I didn't post it on here. But I've just seen it mentioned elsewhere today so it's 'common knowledge' as far as I'm concerned. I was told, when the Saudis bought Newcastle to forget about them because 'they're committed to winning big trophies'. That held until now but he's noticed a change and they're losing interest in the whole thing he reckons. The stadium is a shambles and they can't find a pragmatic way to redevelop. Compared to their own Saudi stadiums SJP looks like Eppleton tbf. They've explored various options, for a new ground, and have only identified one possible option on the Scotswood Road, miles out of town. So, after this and the financial restrictions, they're becoming irritated by what could be a long grinding process which isn't what they're accustomed to. They're not attracting the coverage and admiration they'd expected and the football is generally boring. All good fun and it's looking like the Mags have sold their souls to be little better than Villa, Brighton or Fulham. Decent craic, just a shame I no longer get any Sunderland info and probably never will now.
I heard from an agent a couple of months ago Newcastle was up for sale, £600m. I didn't really believe it, still not sure I do. But maybe there is some truth to it.
To be honest Smug, a lot of that fits with stuff going on around them. There's been a few whispers that the Saudis aren't happy how things are turning out for a few weeks/months now, though nothing concrete. But just enough recent circumstantial stuff to make you think it's possible. If you consider, in a deeply conservatively religious country the goings on at the Vermont won't impress them very much. Prostitutes meeting members of the team in a suite the club hires? Alleged drug taking with said call girls in said suite? It could easily be seen as the club paying for and facilitating it. Then the way Staveley's husband tweeted that picture of their new shirt with his name on the back, only to leave the club a few weeks later, less than a month if I remember right. That felt very sudden and odd. Then the rumours about Ashworth looking to jump ship, which started quite a bit before Man U started looking at him as DOF. Now rumours that Howe is clashing with the recruitment team and his friends in the press touting him for the England job. It's not a stretch to think that things aren't well there and that the Saudis have lost interest if it's going to be harder work than they thought and they aren't getting the positive attention they want from it. And as they have the World Cup in 2034, they might see the mags as an unwanted, irritating distraction now, or that they served their purpose.
This will be Paul Mitchell who Howe fell out with and wouldn't talk to. Apparently Howe asked for a centre half but said not to concentrate on Marc Guéhi because he wouldn't come. Mitchell did just that, failed and they didn't get a centre half. It's all a big mess
I'd heard it was Howe that wanted Guéhi and was the one keeping pushing for it even though it was unlikely to happen, though I may be wrong. I had heard, though, that Howe wanted his mate from Bournemouth, Richard Hughes, to come in to replace Ashworth, but he went to Liverpool.
I basically did forget them (as much as i could) but that stavely leaving/pushed out episode did not settle right, seemed a very strange call. now the stadium improvement chat has gained a lot of speed recently, now i know i tend to forget things these days but i am confident that when Hall tried to do it and failed to find a new site he pushed the stadium to it's absolute limits (possibly a bit further) to make sure they had a bigger capacity than the SoL...the latest 'plan' i have seen involves moving the north end up a few yards with everything else having to catch up and building it all up to a single level, it is at different levels because they were not allowed to go any higher. now, there were a few plots that were looked at back then but all were vetoed by the public etc as far out as gosforth which was pretty much decided to be too far out, the difference now is that these guys have some serious money to throw around and we all know little brown envelopes speak volumes when it comes to swaying councillors or so it is alleged so one never really knows but i have always thought that a new stadium would be the one thing that kept the current owners interested, if that falls flat, who knows. PS: remember this is all from a wee bit of a cloudy memory bank so anyone wishing to put me right, please do, but i think i am quite close.
If they'd been a success in the Champions League things might have been different, because it would have given the owners the global recognition they want, but it didn't happen. It always seemed likely that if success didn't happen quickly the Saudis would lose interest. I can't imagine them being super keen on building a new stadium and playing the long game.
