TheBrownBottle

Howey’s injury problems are forgotten, unlike Woodgate’s. Howey wins 25 England caps without the fitness issues between 93-97, for me.

I don’t either - though again, an ageing Paul Bracewell came in and did an excellent job for us. There’s scores of Mackems who’ve played well in B&W.

100%. I’d much rather see Phillips in B&W first game in February.

Boyhood fan. I don’t think the same venom existed in the 1930s though. Makes sense for a pit yakker to be a Sunderland fan in the ‘30s rather than Newcastle in all fairness

Yeah, fair enough. It’s more than likely a load of shite tbf

It’s fair enough if you don’t think he’s got owt to offer football-wise. I think we need reinforcements in midfield and if Howe wanted to bring him in I’m ok with that tbh.

Agreed - I’m happy he’s signed on for another year, he’s an excellent player - but a young RCB would be a priority for me. I’d have liked to have seen one last summer tbh.

Have to say, Henderson being a boyhood Sunderland fan hardly disqualifies him from playing for us. The biggest stand at SJP is named after a Sunderland fan who played in B&W. Then there’s Venison, Waddle, Howey, Robson, etc etc. I wouldn’t be adverse to him coming in for six months.

Loved Howey me

Yep, he’s on a par with Rob Lee for me on that

A fully fit Botman gets game time at any club in the PL for me. Schar wouldn’t.

Yep. I am.

A new RCB is what we need in the summer if we hope to progress. Someone with pace, hopefully - we’ve got a particularly slow back line. Schar should be a squad player next year.

Woodgate, Albert, Howey, etc etc just in my time. Schar isn’t even our best centre half at the moment, let alone our best defender

Yeah, this is it like. Getting out of the second division is hardly impossible for a club like Sunderland. The automatics look beyond them this year, but the POs are a lottery, ultimately.

Hadn’t seen him before. Got light-headed with laughter when they ate the wraps and started gagging - fucking hilarious. Cheers all - I’ll watch a few more of them.

We’ll have to agree to disagree on the first one mate - I don’t think there is a trail from one to the next. ?

No, I’m aware of the above. That still does not mean that the Newcastle-Sunderland rivalry begins during the Civil War and continued through the centuries.

The only positive thing I can say about Joey Barton is that he’s not quite as horrible as his brother. Admittedly, that’s a low bar.

My hopes depend on who plays midfield. If we start with Longstaff-Bruno-Miley we’re getting nowt. Otherwise I fancy us to get something.

WKL is like James Joyce next to Lee Ryder mind

I don’t think so at all tbh. Hasn’t made Southampton-Portsmouth or Newcastle-Sunderland more cuddly. Man Utd-Leeds is nastier than Liverpool-Everton.

Sunderland wasn’t even a town during the civil war. It’s just ahistorical the whole ‘Sunderland was Roundheads, Newcastle was royalist, that’s why they don’t get along’ stuff. Same with the mercantile stuff from the same era. There’s nothing in the historical record to suggest anything of the sort, and logic dictates that there wasn’t a rivalry between a town with a population over 10,000 and a handful of villages with a combined population of the low hundreds.

The Rothmans Yearbooks were always nailed-on. And I’d be willing to bet that not one of them before the late ‘90s mentions ‘black cats’.

The English Civil War stuff is a Mackems invention mind. Sunderland didn’t exist in any real sense in the mid-C17th.