Following on from developments at the SOL yesterday evening, I would like to pose this thought and ask an open question to any football fans as well as my fellow Sunderland ones. Is football for you governed by the head or the heart? At 46 years old and a battle hardened veteran spanning some 5 different decades of unswerving, passionate and loyal support of my club, I wake this morning not regenerated by the events on the pitch but more the events off it and thats maybe a first for me in my time following the club. I couldn't be more excited if I had woken to hear that it was Bruce himself that had moved on and not Quinny, or that we had just signed a top striker. This got me thinking. For almost 37 years I have watched SAFC from the 70's through Cowie in the 80's and then Murray for best part of 20 years until the Quinn revolution and the Drumaville and Short regimes in the 2000's and in all that time its been a roller coaster but one I happily rode with my heart not my head. For the first time in our history, in 2006, the Drumaville lads came along and bought the club, taking it into ownership outside of the local ' NE Businessman' role and into the harder corporate world of the money men. In Ellis Short, for the past 3 years we have had a real big player as owner but still in all of this, the soft image and feel of one of our true legends has fronted the whole thing in Sir Niall. A man for whom nothing but love and affection is felt, even outside the realms of his domain here at Sunderland and that nice warm touchy feely sense has been prevalent throughout. However, this is where I may upset a few people now (for a change). I think we have not best utilised the Drumaville Consortium, or the Short investment personally and maybe some of that problem has been Quinn himself. He picked Keane, Sbragia and now Bruce (inside 3 years we had 3 managers remember) and none have exactly set the blue touch paper alight. No three managers could have had better opportunities to turn the clubs fortunes around after decades of decay, with a settled regime throughout, yet we sit here this morning (or I do anyway) and still worry about relegation again this season and not the building and improving we want. I think Quinny pulled off a masterstroke with Keane, as it had a great effect initially but we all new it would end in tears and tantrums, as it did at Ipswich later and will do at any club he manages. Quinny knew his volatile nature better than anyone, having witnessed it first hand in Japan and should have factored in that he wouldnt be here forever but he didn't. He thought with his heart not his head and when Keane walked out and left us high and dry, he went and appointed Sbragia and the whole thing nearly fell apart after just 2 and a bit years. He gambled and won that time, just. Then we appointed Bruce and although he didn't have a brilliant c.v. he certainly seemed the right man for the job at that time. However, it was painfully obvious to me at least that by March of this year, Bruce was out of his depth and struggling to cope with the demands of a bigger club than Wigan or Huddersfield, not a Man Utd or Liverpool, just a Sunderland. Instead of cutting his losses in the summer, Quinny offered an extended contract and gave Bruce the summers budget and freedom to sell and buy. Bruce, under no pressure form above, has simply extended the failures of the previous 6 months into this season and we are very much up to our knackers now in trouble. Quinny has stuck by his man here and has in part damaged his own reputation for picking managers and developing the club. Short is no mug and no matter how much they (Quinn and Bruce) have both told him it will all be okay, he has seen now first hand this season for most of the games, that all is not well at all. Attendances have collapsed to 15,000 under capacity; team performances have been awful; performances and results this season and for the last 4 months of the 2010/11 season, have been awful; and worst of all, he has seen how we have capitulated in 3 derby games to a club supposedly in disarray. Short is no mug. He knows a busted flush when he sees it and obviously he has decided to step in and take full control. Quinny is best suited to the PR role although he hasn't been without his gaffs either. Promises of world class coaches and players that never materialised. Appointing Sbragia showed a complete lack of planning and decision making at the top of the tree. Slagging stay away fans off for not wanting to come to the SOL to watch the dross served up by Bruce's charges last season, was a particularly poor decision imo. You're a good salesman Niall but a pretty poor administrator or CEO. AS a figurehead I'm happy to see Niall stay within the club, of course I am but I am equally pleased to see the business side of the club now in the hands of an individual well versed in the hard, cut throat business world we operate in these days. We have been a soft touch too long for players and clubs taking the piss out of us with the likes of the Keane spending sprees, the Bent affair, Gyan just walking out when he felt like it and now Bramble-gate. Where we go now who knows but the club no longer is ruled by the heart, its ruled by the head and for me, thats just fine. The club has been ruled by the heart for the past 76 years, owned by local lads but since our last and final league championship in 1936, in all that time we have been pretty crap barring a period in the 50's/early 60's. We were relegated for the first time in the late 60's and have been relegation fodder ever since. 50 years of relegation fodder and Ive seen 7 of them first hand. I'm sick of it. All the successful clubs are run by ruthless money men who have a hard nosed approach to the way things are done. Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and now Man City are owned and run by big global money men not local lads done good. Jack Walker was the last of his kind and we may never see the likes of them again. Some may mourn that but I say lets embrace what we have now not what we all may have dreamed of. I always wanted to see a team of local talent, run by a local businessman but thats a pipe dream. In reality, we have been left way, way behind because of the local ownership of Cowie and Murray. Maybe the hard businessman in Ellis Short will rub off onto the club now and we can become ruthless and harder. Its what we need imo if we are to really shrug off this yo yo club image and become the force to reckon with our stadium, fan base and aspirations second to none and fully deserve. Thanks Niall for everything and especially rescuing us from oblivion when we were on our knees 5 years ago but like all things, its run its natural course and its time to move on now. You've done your bit for the club and earned your rightful place in its history but upwards and onwards in this new harder world for me now. Don't be afraid of the unknown. Embrace it and look forward with real optimism and hope.
"Is football for you governed by the head or the heart?" Heart obviously. If we used our heads we'd all support Barca.
Great piece Cest and well argued. There is no doubt that Quinn has facilitated the growth of this club to the point where maybe it outgrew the man himself. A victim of his own success in many ways. There are few Chairman who have been responsible for the appointment of three managers and never been responsible for sacking any. I would think that the last time this happened would be with Liverpool in their hey day of Shankly, Paisley and ***in. It is unprecedented I suspect in the modern game. Quinn was THE man for THE time when he arrived in the board room. That single fact allows us to infer a lot about his approach and indeed his weakness. Quinn's transformation from player to Chairman was nothing short of miraculous. The fact that a man who had done nothing but play football from a young boy was able to step up to the job of running a football club without any formal education or business experience was nothing short of miraculous. It remains to be seen how the immediate days pan out for the club and what lies in store for Quinn in the coming weeks, months and years. Good luck to the man, and thanks for the journey Niall. It's been something special and we wouldn't have got there without you.
I kind of forgot the topic here. Quinn arrived with hope in his heart. He fulfilled that hope and now his new position was decided by his head.
C'est. One of these days I'll read a whole article of yours! To summarise it must be heart. If it was head we'd all be thicko's 'cos we follow SAFC. x
For us fans it is obviously heart. Head has nothing at all to do with it. If it was the head then we'd all be following Man Utd or Chelsea or whatever. What a horrible thought! Those glory hunters use their heads and that's why proper supporters like us have little respect for them. Their hearts are not the same as ours.
Heart, obviously, for those in the stands, or in front of the TV, or however else you follow the club. At boardroom level, maybe it used to be heart as well, but as I suppose our club has proved, that can only get you so far these days. For those at the top, it has to be head.
Both really. The heart obviously governs which club I support and my feelings when we're two down in 5 minutes or winning (if I remember the latter correctly). But for 90 minutes, it's head all the way - who's turning triangles into diamonds to allow the through ball? how is x slipping off the defender so easily? who's creeping up late on the blind side? which defenders look most uncomfortable when our winger goes for the bye-line? It's a 90 minute roller-coaster of ideas for me. Somebody once told me football's all about geometry - if you don't understand that, you understand nothing. And he was right. Argentina v Serbia (2006) - wow, it was like a kaleidoscope, the shapes were changing so fast. Beautiful to watch, not to mention bloody exciting! And there's your answer - both.
It must be the heart, why else do you feel like **** all week when we get beat, even when the head says it was going to happen.
I think most BOB's would go with the heart, whilst most BIB's, being realists, would go with the head
A heart is an organ that pumps blood, with NO ability for thought or logic, the head contains the brain which IS capable of thought and logic. GOT TO BE HEART THEN. Excellent article by the way.
