Nooooooo!! He’s only a kid. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s trying to flip the club as we speak. Speakman is really in charge. Dodds is going to be the next manager. Etc etc etc
Just as well SD was sticking around when he took over to give him a bit of guidance him being so young and inexperienced. That was Kevin Phillips' take on the takeover. I remember thinking fair enough if that's what he initially thought but it would take 5 minutes to speak to north east journalists or people to establish that SD had been running the club terribly and the biggest worry of anyone was that he was still involved!
Donald came from football obscurity and has gone back to obscurity ... ... Sunderland was, most likely, his one and only chance with a club of our size. And he clearly showed why.
I think he was genuinely excited about owning a football club of this size and would have liked to have done a good job. His record as owner/chairman of Eastleigh wasn't bad but SAFC was just too much for him and the people he brought in alongside him (Methven mainly) were not right for it and, I feel, had different ideas about what they wanted out of their stint at the helm.
It proved what I'd thought about Phillip's, whenever I saw him speaking about SAFC. He is an ex-player who did class for us but show little interest in what is happening now, don't blame him for that he isn't from the area, isn’t a fan and he was never a Balll or Quinn who seemed to put the club above all the others in their time. He probably knows as much as most neutrals, but as an ex-player and the most successful for us in the last 40 years or so he was getting paid to comment. He isn't going to turn that down is he? So far no problem with that. What I didn't like is he opinions often came across as someone who knew very little and wasn't really in touch with what is happening at the club. As I said would take him 5 minutes to have got the feeling on Donald. His comment could have been "I thought SD sticking around was good as KLD is young and might need a bit of help but I'm hearing fans what SD gone as he hasn't been running the club the way you would like as a fan and it's probably better if KLD does it his way!" I still like Super Kev by the way but wouldn't listen to anything he has to say on the club!
Yes,he was.I bumped into him in the Hilton the morning after a match..don't remember which one..had a chat and he was genuinely enthused and optimistic at that time,quite early in his time with us. He was like a cat with the cream,loving every minute,but,as it proved, just didn't have the necessary resources to deliver. He was there on a prayer really.
I loved Superkev as a player....gave me some of the best moments in my 60+ years of following this club....but I would never put him in the Benno,Bally,Quinny class.
I remember, as you do, the days of Ellis Short. Towards the end he needed to go and thankfully he did the right thing in that respect. But to sell the club to Donald and Methven showed he didn’t care that much. Even at the time, whilst pleased Short was going, I wasn’t that enthusiastic about the new regime. I’d never heard of Donald, never heard of Eastleigh and certainly never heard of Methven. It was obvious from the outset that even though the debt had been written off by Short, Donald and his mate didn’t have two pennies to rub together when it came to financing a club the size of SAFC. That said, looking back I have become a lot more critical of Quinny and Drumavilles involvement as well.
I don't think it was that tbh. He'd trusted the wrong people at Sunderland and repeated that with Donald. I'd say writing off all that money showed he cared about the club to a reasonable degree. We were seriously demoralised sitting ducks by the time Donald showed up. It was a low moment but we all had to hope Donald had attributes we couldn't see ... ... he didn't and the kidnap story showed him up for what he is.
To be fair,most of the Drumaville fellas were heavily invested in property,which,unforseen by them, fell down the toilet with the financial crisis,and they were literally battening down the hatches. It was that which led to Quinny finding Ellis,which,at that time,was a welcome lifeline. Donald was a fairy Godmother to Ellis,in that it got him out of writing substantial cheques every month on the say-so of the idiots he'd employed,for a business he didn't remotely understand. All he wanted to do was head for the exits and,by writing off his debt,he effectively took his final hit and left a relatively clean slate. The fact that Donald's ambitions for the club were built on sand,I don't suppose played much of a role in Ellis' departure....he was just happy to put the cheque book back in the drawer.
None of the Drumaville lot, like Short, like Donald, didn’t have any idea on how to successfully run a football club the size of SAFC. We could argue that Sir Bob didn’t when he bought the club either but at least he would have been more invested in wanting to make it work. I think all of the others I’ve mentioned liked the idea of doing it but didn’t understand how to. Ellis employed the wrong people whilst Donald and Methven were just rabbits caught in headlights when the reality set in. I’ve said it many times, I think that for the first time in decades SAFC is being run professionally and responsibly. Will it ever be up there with the top clubs of today? I doubt it as that ship started sailing in the 1960s but at least we can be fairly sure that given time SAFC can be a respected club in the top flight again.
