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Greg
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a quick google came up with this...

 

 

 

"For the majority of its history, Sunderland AFC never had an 'official' nickname.

 

However, in 2000 there was a vote on the official club website; as the available alternative names were "The Mackems", "The SOLs", "The Miners" and "The Light Brigade", it's not too surprising that Blackcats came out as the clear winner in a poll of over 11,000 people. A smart new logo featuring a rather sleek and muscular cat was introduced, and the Blackcats brand was born.

 

Notwithstanding some scepticism over modern marketing methods, there is a genuine historic SAFC connection with the nickname "Blackcats", definitely going back over 90 years and possibly longer.

 

In January 1909, Sunderland were going through what was for them a relatively lean spell. It had been seven years since we had won the League, and the team which was to win the Championship with a record number of points and get to the Cup Final in 1913 was only just starting to come together.

 

A 4-1 home defeat to Liverpool on New Years Day 1909 left the club in the bottom half of the First Division. When the players came into the dressing room the following day before the game against Bury, they found a stray black cat in residence.

 

Sunderland won 3-1 that day, despite Harry Low missing a penalty, and this coincidence started the "lucky black cat" story. A fortnight later when we went to Bramall Lane and won 3-2 in the FA Cup after being 0-2 down in the second half, the feline mascot was offically adopted by the players.

 

By the end of January 1909, the Sunderland Echo reported of the cat: "there has been a big demand for its portrait, more having been disposed of than of all the players put together". The thousands who went to Newcastle for the FA Cup quarter final that season had black cat mascots adorned with red and white ribbons.

 

The "lucky" tag didn't last for the remainder of the 1908-09 season; Sunderland lost 0-3 at home to Newcastle in the FA Cup replay, George Holley missing a penalty when the score was 0-0.

 

However, the club mascot remained popular and was featured in many cartoons and drawings of the period, particularly popular on Wearside when victorious against a magpie (a verminous creature reputed to have been the mascot of some lesser local rival).

 

For Sunderland's first FA Cup Final appearance in front of a world record crowd at Crystal Palace, many supporters wore badges and pictures of black cats, while the cat featured on much of the souvenir literature of the event.

 

A picture from 1913 of what is believed to be the original black cat is pictured left, complete with ribbon; there have of course been many variations on this over the years.

 

Ever since then the black cat has featured as part of Sunderland AFC at all times, whether in early portraits and badges, oversized cardboard cutouts (particularly popular between the wars), the Supporters Association since its formation in the 1960s, the Roker Park club suite, those plastic inflatables of the late 1980s, or of course the Sunderland fans mailing list, which started in 1993.

 

So, it's certainly not a "made-up" nickname, though for most of its history it was an unofficial one."

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9,000 free tickets a match has to be bollocks surely like.

 

It isn't. I posted something about that on here last year. My cousin who worked in the Commercial department at SAFC at the time told me that.

 

The genius of it is you don't even need to then get those people through the turnstiles. The very act of handing out the tickets, even if they go straight in the bin, means you just add them on to the attendance.

 

I think this year they're probably doing just that - Not giving them out to punters so they don't lose revenue, but at the same time leaving a pile of 9,000 of them in a box somewhere that is accessible but nobody will ever find, and then claiming that as those tickets are potentially in circulation then they can just whack that number onto their "crowd" for the day. :lol:

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9,000 free tickets a match has to be bollocks surely like.

 

It isn't. I posted something about that on here last year. My cousin who worked in the Commercial department at SAFC at the time told me that.

 

The genius of it is you don't even need to then get those people through the turnstiles. The very act of handing out the tickets, even if they go straight in the bin, means you just add them on to the attendance.

 

I think this year they're probably doing just that - Not giving them out to punters so they don't lose revenue, but at the same time leaving a pile of 9,000 of them in a box somewhere that is accessible but nobody will ever find, and then claiming that as those tickets are potentially in circulation then they can just whack that number onto their "crowd" for the day. :lol:

 

given all the talk of giving shit away for years, how poor their box office take is, and basically looking at the empty seats on the telly for years i'm amazed its only 9,000 personally

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a quick google came up with this...

 

"the available alternative names were "The Mackems", "The SOLs", "The Miners" and "The Light Brigade"

 

:lol: howay man

 

SOLs would have been good.

 

S.O.L.

Acronym for the words of "Shit Out of Luck." It is used in reference to the state of having run out of all other options, wherein the remaining situation is less than desirable.

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Such denial on RTG

 

Fake news. Claims the club gave away 9,000 tickets last season for games which comes across as nonsense so it's hard to take the rest of the article seriously.

 

I certainly don’t believe the 9,000 tickets a match give away

 

9000 tickets?Mag loving Mirror will now use this to highlight the passion of the Geordie Nation

 

Nothing more than a mag rumour.

 

And that's just page 1  ;D

 

 

Their obsession with us is unreal. Any time a negative comment is made about them, even if its true, they just start calling everyone Mags. :lol:

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Going back to the discussion about having to bail them out and being asked if I would put my hand in my pocket. I have to say that I would, there isn't a real football fan who deserves to see his/her team to go out of business. Ok we get a huge laugh out of the RTG lot, and those who make themselves a fool of youtube etc. The thing is every club has it set of morons, go on any football forum (this is probably one of the best out there), or even look at the idiots showing themselves up on Arsenal Fans TV and similar each week. It's only because he stopped commenting on our games and managed to get interviews with well known sportsmen that stopped the True Geordie from being a laughing stock. Anyway what we forget is that Sunderland still does have some loyal fans, one of my uni mates is one of them, still turns up game in and game out. Fans like him a hurting, and it's true, it could easily be us, in fact if Ashley stays and continues his way of gambling our safety then one day that gamble won't pay off and it will be us.

You know it was only a few years ago that these true Sunderland fans put their differences aside, and their hands in their pockets to pay all that money for flowers for Sweeney and Alder, which turned into so much more. You had fans putting in not just £5 or £10, but some of them putting in £100's, and Sunderland isn't exactly known to a be wealthy place, it's likely that this was large amounts of money for a lot of them. So if Sunderland were on the verge of going bust and the only way to save them is by putting in £5/£10 in a bucket outside SJP or on crowdfunding page, then yes I'd put my money in, not for the idiots, but for the real fans who despite our allegiances, deserve to have a football club.

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We are nothing like them though to be fair and neither is our business model

 

Spending nothing > Gambling millions and losing

 

Edit - I would also contribute.  You can't base your view of an entire club on the social media presence.  There are some really sound Sunderland fans who I am happy to have a drink with

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We are nothing like them though to be fair and neither is our business model

 

Spending nothing > Gambling millions and losing

Thing is so long as he's here Ashley is going to continue spending as little as possible, hoping each time we come straight back up. The only time he'll stop is either by him selling up, or by us not coming straight back up. Ok we may not drop to League 1, but we'd be stuck as a team doing nothing the Championship.
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We are nothing like them though to be fair and neither is our business model

 

Spending nothing > Gambling millions and losing

 

Edit - I would also contribute.  You can't base your view of an entire club on the social media presence.  There are some really sound Sunderland fans who I am happy to have a drink with

My point entirely.
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Couple of my best friends are Sunderland fans. They just have some really weird views sometimes, like putting the failure of Newcastle above their own success. They would rather go down to League One and have Newcastle relegated than have both of us stay up, for example. I find it strange.

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Guest firetotheworks

That's probably the most extreme example of Hate Newcastle> Love Sunderland that I've ever heard of like. Are you absolutely sure that that's what they mean? That's utterly mental.

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9,000 free tickets a match has to be bollocks surely like.

 

It isn't. I posted something about that on here last year. My cousin who worked in the Commercial department at SAFC at the time told me that.

 

The genius of it is you don't even need to then get those people through the turnstiles. The very act of handing out the tickets, even if they go straight in the bin, means you just add them on to the attendance.

 

I think this year they're probably doing just that - Not giving them out to punters so they don't lose revenue, but at the same time leaving a pile of 9,000 of them in a box somewhere that is accessible but nobody will ever find, and then claiming that as those tickets are potentially in circulation then they can just whack that number onto their "crowd" for the day. :lol:

 

Surely with the current state of their finances they would be looking to reduce the official attendance figures

They would pay less tax on a 20,000 crowd than 25,000 due to the reduced turnover

 

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9,000 free tickets a match has to be bollocks surely like.

 

It isn't. I posted something about that on here last year. My cousin who worked in the Commercial department at SAFC at the time told me that.

 

The genius of it is you don't even need to then get those people through the turnstiles. The very act of handing out the tickets, even if they go straight in the bin, means you just add them on to the attendance.

 

I think this year they're probably doing just that - Not giving them out to punters so they don't lose revenue, but at the same time leaving a pile of 9,000 of them in a box somewhere that is accessible but nobody will ever find, and then claiming that as those tickets are potentially in circulation then they can just whack that number onto their "crowd" for the day. :lol:

 

Surely with the current state of their finances they would be looking to reduce the official attendance figures

They would pay less tax on a 20,000 crowd than 25,000 due to the reduced turnover

 

 

Can you explain how much tax they'd pay on a ticket they'd given out for free?

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