I can see where our esteemed chairman is coming from. “Crime” of this nature should not be reducing Sunderland’s home gates. But Quinn is looking back to the time when “Kev Phillips and I were playing to crowds here of 48,000 every week” – see the excerpt from the Sunderland Echo appended below.
Two comments come to mind: first, the nation was not coming out of a hideously severe recession a decade ago, and secondly - that time under Peter Reid was a time of real sporting passion on Wearside. The club had been starved of success for many years, and some of the performances such as the 4-1 SSOL hammering of Chelsea, regular wins at Newc**tle, the 5-0 away win at Derby were totally compelling for the fans. True stars like Quinn, Phillips and Kevin Ball do not come along that often! I also saw more families in the crowd at the “new” SSOL in those days.
We have progressed as a club, and our chairman has made a good point, but to be fair the supporters did respond against Spurs, with 41,000 punters present. Yesterday’s news that Sunderland lost £25.5m in 2010, a year of 'development' shows how the economy has affected football. Turnover rose to £65.4million but operating expenses - including players' wages and utilities charges also went up, to £70.4million. This does not include the sale of Darren Bent or Andy Reid, but we can just be glad we have the owner we have.
Steve Bruce has also reacted this week to the complete disrespect shown to the club by England supremo Fabio Capello, as reported on Soccernet: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story/_/id/878836/sunderland's-steve-bruce-blasts-fabio-capello's-darren-bent-claim?cc=5901
The Italian came out with the statement that Darren Bent had improved his England chances by moving to Aston Villa! We are becoming familiar with such utterances, but these outbursts undermine the status of Sunderland AFC, especially after we did the double over the Birmingham club this season.
We could give Capello the benefit of the doubt, his English is not perfect, he made a U-turn after writing off Beckham's chances, and perhaps he has the same PR advisor as Silvio Berlusconi!
Maybe he was suggesting that Bent benefits from training with fellow internationals such as Young, Downng, Heskey and Agbonlahor, but the London-centric FA need to be more inclusive – we are a top 7 Premiership team after all, and Villa have been underperforming. What should Sunderland do - invest in Scottish Internationals? That was the policy in the 1950s and 60s. A couple of years ago we seemed to have most of the Irish team on board, and Andy Reid still did not feature for the Republic.
As written in my Jan. 17 blog: An issue with the geography of the club is that many talented players just don't want to live too far away from the SE of England, unless they are in a top six team with the chance of Champions League football. They get less exposure in the NE, which in the end will mean less international recognition, despite playing well for the Black Cats. This has been an issue for the club since the 1950s and even before that.
We can’t change geography; Tyne & Wear sometimes seems to be on a different planet from London, especially when the media tell us that Hull and Leeds are in the North East! Well done though to Quinn and Bruce, they stand up for our club. Geography can also provide the club with a great siege mentality and team spirit reminiscent of what drove Wimbledon to such success 15 years ago. One major difference though, we have achieved what we have achieved this season by playing good football, as well as spotting and bringing on promising players. The team is young, and can only improve.
The Quinn story as reported by the Sunderland Echo: SAFC Chairman Quinn was criticised - and praised in some quarters - after claiming he despised Sunderland supporters who choose to watch Sunderland home games on illegal pub broadcasts rather than at the Stadium of Light. But, speaking exclusively to the Echo after Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at the hands of Spurs, the chairman said his comments were aimed at starting a serious debate on the issue.
He said: “I’d tried for two years trying to get the message across, but it didn’t seem to be getting through. We are a club with a turnover that is a fifth of some other Premier League clubs. Our biggest strength is our home crowd. I sold a vision to the club owner about a tremendous, passionate following. I said that if this club was successful, if the money was invested in players and we became a top-six club, then the crowds of 40,000 would become crowds of 48,000. Well, the money has been invested, we have top players here and we’ve spent most of the season in the top six of the Premier League. But we’re 7,000 down. That can’t continue”. And he insisted that the debate was not about money.
He said: “Our strength is our home crowd. It’s a passionate crowd and opposition teams don’t like playing here when the stadium is packed with Sunderland supporters. “But what happens when we’re 10,000 down and we’re playing in a stadium that is only two thirds full. The atmosphere will drop and we’ll lose what has always been a tremendous advantage.” Quinn said he had received many letters criticising his stance during the last week.
He said: “Some have been supportive, but a lot of fans were not happy with what I said. I have to say that some of the reasons why people were staying away were just daft. I’ve had people saying they weren’t coming to games because of the plastic seats, or because we haven’t painted the concourses. I don’t understand these daft excuses. What the club has always been about to me is passion. We’re trying to get the passion back, we’re trying to recreate the passion and the success of when Kev Phillips and I were playing to crowds here of 48,000 every week. You couldn’t get a ticket. Well, we’ve got the same success, but where are the crowds of 48,000? We need them back to build on what we’re doing here.”
“Of course I don’t despise anyone, but I had to crack the whip, I have a duty to try to get the thousands who choose to stay away back into the ground. That is what I am trying to do and over the next few weeks I will be on the road, talking to fans about the importance of choosing to attend a live game instead of spending their money watching the game in the pub. This problem is an epidemic up here. It’s not as bad elsewhere as it is up here and it’s not hitting other clubs as badly as it’s hit us. There are some areas – like Seaham for instance – where it is particularly rampant. We’re going to look at creative ways of increasing the number of season card holders from 30,000 to 40,000. We’ll do everything we can, and people will see it’s not about the money”.
“I know some people think I’m just looking for more money but that is rubbish. Five thousand extra fans means an extra annual income of £1.9m. That will not make or break us, but the stadium emptying will. If no-one listens, as Chairman and protector of club and the shareholder I can’t say to him it’s a good idea to continue investing to the same level. We might have to start downsizing if they don’t start coming back. We have about 40,000 regulars, and we’re doing this for them, to give them the club and the success they deserve. If pub TV becomes legal, well it’s a different story and we’ll need another solution, but I can’t emphasise enough what a massive danger these people to watch games in pubs is to this club. I’m sorry I had to get so strong, but it needed to be said. People have to understand the debate, understand the threat. If I can stop the rot, if we can keep going at the same levels then I think we’ll have won the debate, but we will keep looking at new ways of enticing people back.”
Quinn was delighted with the atmosphere and vociferous home support during Saturday’s defeat against Spurs. “We know we can compete with and beat these teams, but if we can get the 5,000-7,000 fans back who we’ve lost, then the players will feel even better about playing against such great teams at home.” And Quinn had a warning about his continuing involvement with the club if fans continue to watch games in their locals: “If people continue doing this in such large numbers then I might have to question my role here.”
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Lars Knutsen was born in Sunderland of Norwegian parents across the Wear from the SSOL back when shipbuilding not car manufacture was the city’s main industry. His first game was in 1968 and he has followed the Black Cats since then, with great memories of the 1973 FA Cup. He hopes the “yo-yo” days are over and defines supporting a team by whether the result affects your mood (but maybe not in the way portrayed in the book “Fever Pitch”!) so has been cheerful recently. He endured school in Newc**tle, has a Ph.D. in Chemistry, a Professorship at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia, and works in the Pharma industry as a consultant Medicinal Chemist.
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