Benwell Lad

Totally agree, back then the 1st Division was where the best British players played along with a few foreigners. Nowadays our 1st Division (PL) is where most of the world's best players play, meaning a lot of players who would have made it at that level years ago now play in the league below.

How come the "shit" strikers in this league only seem to play badly against us, as they seem to score plenty in other games ? Or do managers keep their good strikers for games when they're not playing against us ?

Brazil 1970 is about the only team I can think of who were more entertaining going forward than the class of 92-93 !

Before the season started I thought this was a department we'd struggle in with not having a proven scorer on the books. It's worked out pretty well so far and they've all chipped in.

Sorry to reprise this one lads, but it looks like the boycott may have already started. If it doesn't get released for Christmas look out for the tune in the new year.

Cardiff City have idiots that follow them and if they want to cause trouble they will whether it is a friday or saturday. However every club in the country has similar idiots. I am really annoyed about the ko time change as it means i cannot come to the game with my 2 boys. The local plod have requested the change because of the mackems v Wigan. Surely the NUFC v CCFC match will attract a bigger crowd. Top v 3rd with 3k visitors as opposed to a boring lower midtable clash with 30000 mackem chavs and 56 Wigan fans. I have been fortunate to have visited your great stadium with my eldest boy. I wanted to bring my youngest along as a joint birthday treat for them. Unfortunately due to Northumbria Police i now can't make the game. An astonishingly stupid decision by Northumbria police for the very reasons you have mentioned. Added to that, Newcastle City Centre is far more crowded on a normal Friday night than Sunderland would ever be, it really makes you wonder just who made the final decision ? P.S. What happened to the league fixtures computer - for decades they've always had us and the mackums at home on alternate weekends ? You need to modify above slightly Andover BB - got your gist though and it's a shame you'll miss out because of this stupid and probably not thought through decision.

Definitely the right type of club for a big bustling lad like AC, but the story is obviously bollocks. I thought the goal he scored at Stoke away last season was superb, not many score that type against their defence. I'm sure it would have left an impression on their management.

Cardiff City have idiots that follow them and if they want to cause trouble they will whether it is a friday or saturday. However every club in the country has similar idiots. I am really annoyed about the ko time change as it means i cannot come to the game with my 2 boys. The local plod have requested the change because of the mackems v Wigan. Surely the NUFC v CCFC match will attract a bigger crowd. Top v 3rd with 3k visitors as opposed to a boring lower midtable clash with 30000 mackem chavs and 56 Wigan fans. An astonishingly stupid decision by Northumbria police for the very reasons you have mentioned. Added to that, Newcastle City Centre is far more crowded on a normal Friday night than Sunderland would ever be, it really makes you wonder just who made the final decision ? P.S. What happened to the league fixtures computer - for decades they've always had us and the mackums at home on alternate weekends ?

Sheff Wed home was pretty decent, but the best I've seen hin strike was at home to Chelsea a few seasons ago. He had John Terry and A.N.Other center back tight on him, he was back to goal but spun and hit an unstoppable shot past the keeper. That is the enigma that is Shola. Enigma I'd say Shola was a mysterious or puzzling person tbh. Mercurial...and the centre back for the Chelsea goal was Desailly! Makes the goal more special in my opinion, even if Shearer did do better a bit later on... He is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Or is that Russia ?

Sheff Wed home was pretty decent, but the best I've seen hin strike was at home to Chelsea a few seasons ago. He had John Terry and A.N.Other center back tight on him, he was back to goal but spun and hit an unstoppable shot past the keeper. That is the enigma that is Shola.

I understand your point about the quality of strikers , however if that were really the case then every Championship team would not have conceded many, but that is not the case. So I would say it is mostly down to Harper and his defenders rather than terrible finishing.

Sunderland's biggest ever following in Europe was when they played Swansea away one season.

There's no point expecting it under this leadership. In a perfect world we'd have good owners with money who would not be afraid to sack players for such egregious behaviour. Thought it had taken a while for Ashley to be blamed for this. I think the NUSCT should issue statement about it telling us how it proves that Ashley and Llambias are not learning from their mistakes.

piss off with your sensible argument, we need rabble rousing rhetoric. THIS IS SPARTA!!!!!* ( south yorkshire*) I think it will be great for a lot of the young uns who may not have experienced one of these days before. Years ago it was the standard for games in South Yorkshire. I've seen some big away followings, I missed the Liverpool away 0-4 cup game but I think the biggest I ever saw was Sheff Wed away one promotion season when we lost 4-2. Estimates put our support at 16-18,000 and although it was harder to give an accurate number back then the gate was about 48,000 and we definitely had at least a third of that.

I can recall a lot of anti-climaxes in these types of games (Boxing Day, Good Fridays, big cup matches etc at Barnsley, Sheff Wed, Sheff U etc) when we took 10,000 plus and the team froze on the day. Hopefully this lot will be better prepared and not freeze.

Our travelling fans are legendary and as said if it was down to distance travelled X numbers then nobody would touch us. Best in the land - not sure ?? We're a club in a large catchment area with a huge fan base but that doesn't make us any better than the hundred or so who will follow Darlo, Accy Stanley or any similar club away. Maybe they're the best fans in the land. We'll see how good we are when we hit the inevitable sticky patch and lose a couple of games and whether we stick by the team and management or whether we start shouting for Keegan/Shearer again.

The club will have very clear rules on what it's employees and players are allowed to do and when they can do it, as will every professional club. Any breaches will be subjected to a disciplinary procedure. Apart from monitoring players 24 hours a day and locking them up, theres not much a club can do apart from implement the above procedures. Rich young men and city centre night life will find each other and things will happen. What really surprises me is how Sunderland FC allow their players to spend so much time in Newcastle night spots, surely it's only a matter of time before one of them is on the end of a drunken (or possibly non drunken) assault.

Simon Bird's trying to manage the trick of endlessly slagging off Newcastle while keeping the fans onside. What a c***. Although I pretty much agreed with JFK about Bird, I think that is a very good article and sums up what has happened under Hughton. CHRISSY HUGHTON'S BLACK AND WHITE AND GREY ARMY !!

They look like a better Footballing side but also a softer side then us with less quality individuals. I also thought we did well at their ground, they were the team at home and they couldn't beat us despite their goal being quite lucky. West Brom pass the ball better but we are far tougher as a team. We can pass the ball at times, and we can mix it with the more physical sides like Leicester and Sheff Utd if need be. We lack a bit of pace through the middle otherwise we are the best all round team in this division. sheff utd away could well turn out to be the turning point of our season as we fought whereas at scunthorpe,blackpool and forest we allowed ourselves to be out muscled/hussled out the game. I reckon the Doncaster penalty miss could be the defining moment of our season. I'm sure they'd have won the game and the crowd were right on the players backs and waiting to turn nasty post Scunny and Forest. Since that miss it could hardly have gone better for us.

Some of the tosh spoken about the Swansea game and how they were better than us is just laughable. It leads onto some people complaining about the poor football on show this season. Where were they during the last 3 seasons ? Certainly the standard is considerably lower than the PL, but as opposed to having crap teams like Bolton, Blackburn, Stoke etc coming to SJP and defending with 7 men and us not being good enough to break them down, we now have quite a lot of teams coming to SJP and having a go - but even if they don't we are good enough to break them down. The result is a much better game of football albeit in a lower standard league.

Well your right on the litter thing JJ. Thing is I'm not so much against the supporters buy out as I just think it's 20 years too late and may work if we'd been a Conference level club. I am actually a great proponent of the German football or sports club model which gives all fans real ownership - but they've always done it and didn't go down the PLC and "oligarch ownership" route BEFORE trying to turn it round. To date this campaign has displayed nothing more than a few of the usual suspects opportunistically using the present unpopular ownership as a means to get their bums warm in the director's box. I've seen or heard nothing credible or positive yet, but as I said earlier I live in hope that when they wheel out the serious institutions and business investors they claim to be working with, I'll be proved wrong and see this as a way forward. Right now though I just can't see it.

I see this as a (yet another) problem in Ashley trying to sell the club. Will any serious buyer think they have to appease this seemingly unappeasable unelected fan group or end up in the same situation as the current regime ? It may well put people off.

It's all about opinions, but I think littering the streets is anything but petty and I'd expect an organisation which wants to be taken seriously and take over one of the biggest football club brands in the world to have a bit more off than handing out leaflets which anyone with half a brain knows just get thrown away by most people. I hate litter ! I thought NUST were trying to take over Newcastle United, who last time i looked are currently a 2nd division club in England not Barca, Man U, Juventus or one of the other biggest clubs in the world. And yet in it's ads include, "Barcelona on Tyne". Which when you think about it is almost as sacreligious (and just as tacky and laughable) as trying to call the stadium sport-tack@stjamesstadium ot whatever they want to call SJP. One rule for one............

Which is exactly why I did NOT say we were one of the biggest clubs in the world, which as a 2nd division club, you correctly state we are NOT. We are still however one of the biggest football club brands in the world, despite our demise. Either way I think they are a bit out of their depth, but like many others I patiently await the introduction the "major businesses and institutions" they are about to unveil as backers of their scheme, who will give it credibility and prove me and many other doubters wrong.

It's all about opinions, but I think littering the streets is anything but petty and I'd expect an organisation which wants to be taken seriously and take over one of the biggest football club brands in the world to have a bit more off than handing out leaflets which anyone with half a brain knows just get thrown away by most people. I hate litter !