Match Day Thread Sunderland AFC v Sheffield United – Championship Play-off Final - Saturday 24th May 2025 - KO 15:00

Is this you singing lead

https://x.com/i/status/1927466469841047706

 

Please do not spread rumours of this nature… Never get another gig if people actually thought it was

 

I always thought SD Had his heart in the right place. Even after it went tits.
I think he got Methan involved as an influencer etc but in hindsight he was a bit of a chancer tit.
I must admit I put faith in him at first.

To be fair to Stuart Donald. He threw his hat in the ring. It didn't work out and he sold us to KLD.
The rest as they say is history.

The way the club was going once Ellis pulled the plug could of ended a lot worse.

I think we will stay up next season.
But I won't be that disheartened if we go back down. We will of had a years experience of the premier League. We'll get parachute payments and we'll pìss it as champions the next time of asking.

I loved that when we failed to win the playoffs under Reidy then smashed it.

Patience is a virtue.

Our club is in good hands now. And I'm fooking savouring this time right now.

 

Was it Alan Hanson that said Kevin Phillips would struggle to get 2 or 3 goals when we went up ?

Golden boot

 

It was Rodney Marsh.

Before Sunderland's move to the Premier League, Rodney Marsh, a pundit, famously doubted Phillips's ability to adapt to the higher level. He suggested Phillips would find it difficult to score more than five or six goals in the Premier League.

 

Ah yes. Thank you for correcting me .

And we shall adapt to the premier League.

 

The best most honest post on here, great post mate.

 

The only thing SD did well was sell us to KLD

Him and CM were shocking owners that were so far out of their depth it was unreal

They are in the past now, thank God as the club was f**ked under them

KLD is a legend, love the bloke and KS deserves so much praise

Onwards and upwards with those 2 involved

 

Looking forward to going to see Sunderland story at the weekend think it will be extra special being the last one and following last week, hoping a few players make an appearance at the end, haven’t stopped grinning since Saturday, this stupid bloody football club man

 

Aye I’m with you on this one. He had no business buying Sunderland, he couldn’t afford it and he gambled our future thinking it was a slam dunk promotion so he could flip it once we were back in the championship.

Parachute payments taken away so he could buy the club. Then academy assets sold time and time again. We were on the brink with him and we’re very fortunate KLD came in when he did.

He may be a decent bloke, I’ll never know but I can never think his heart was in the right place when I look back at what went on when he was owner and how he came to be owner.

 

4 days

still smiling

 

We have shown how well we can recruit and play not spending millions,

I think we might actually surprise a few people next season

 

that is rather superb

 

Absolutely not having this Stewart Donald love in mind. Should be banned from our games not taking up a seat at one of the biggest moments in our recent history. Shambolic behaviour anyone being ok with him.

He tried to sell the lad that lifted the trophy before he'd even played for the first team and succeeded in selling a load of young talents before we got a chance to see them, just to keep the lights on.

Took the club to its lowest ever position.

Employed Phil ****ing Parkinson.

Employed his mates from Non-League to run our academy which nearly cost us our CAT1 status, we wouldn’t be a PL club right now without our CAT1 status as Speakman would've never came, Rigg would be gone and players like Jobe/Mayenda wouldn't have joined.

Lied continuously about SAFC fans. I mean the whole kidnapping thing, does nobody remember that???

Going on podcasts and saying stuff like 'the piss taking stops now' and then giving the fans the biggest load of pisstaking they've ever seen.

Used the biggest cheat code in the EFL (parachute payments) to buy the club and never repaid them.

Employed nobody who actually knew how to run a football club. I'm sorry but you can't have your heart in the right place but then proceed to run the club like he did.

**** him. Should be spat on, not praised. He's a genuinely disgusting person.

 

Absolutely accurate, but I think the sentiment of the post was correct.

SD wasn’t a bad bloke and he genuinely did want to do something here, he simply didn’t have the funds, or the nouse to do so.

He was nothing like Methven who was a ****, a chancer and a conman.

I wish SD success, to a point. Can’t love the bloke but no harm to him. I hope Methven gets the clap.

 

When you look at the Donald situation....He saw an opportunity, a club in free fall with little value at that time. The playing staff were very substandard, BUT, Had great infrastructure, and most important had a hard core supporter base that would return in droves IF he could bring the slightest improvement. It was a risk, but a risk worth taking in his eyes for a short term financial gain...I'm convinced he was only interested in a short term "financial transaction" his ability as a football owner was laid bare in the Netflix documentary. He was offered a great deal by Short, who just wanted the club off his hands, and with no one else prepared to take a risk, Donald was the only show in town. He saw an opportunity to make a few quid. THE END
Thank god that era has now ended. We now had an owner with a plan and strategy for our clubs future and we all (well, most of us) are so happy with where we are. I love the way Sunderland are now organically growing with a self sustaining plan rather than selling our soul to anyone who will use our club for their own agenda.

 

stop sitting on the fence mate!

I met Donald once at a home match and thought “what a ****ing prick… total glory boy chancer”.

 

I can see both sides mind.

Way Patch lays it out there, it’s hard to argue with, then again, if they hadn’t come in would we have a club?

Either way, the universe brought us KLD, and here we are , Lions on our sleeves again.

I refuse to back down on that being an incredible gesture from SD that I shared. That is not the act of a heartless man.

I’ve certainly done self serving things when I was younger to get on in life that would have been detrimental to others to advance. I wouldn’t do it now but that doesn’t mean a) I didn’t and b) I’m a bad human being, I absolutely am not.

 

I’d hope he fares a bit worse. An absolutely odious **** of a man. Would sell his granny for a few shiny coins, and some salmon pants.

 

Businessmen, like those two, are perfectly entitled to speculate and pursue financial opportunities ...

... no different to many others who buy, sell and profiteer by it on the Stock Exchange, etc.

But this was playing with people's lives and risking the future of a vital part of an entire city/region.

Sorry, that's just wrong whichever way you try to spin it.