• The forums will be unavailable for a few hours on Saturday 6th June, when they do return they will initially be in a degraded state with some features missing, but normal posting/reading will be possible. The main website will not be affected by these updates.
    New user registrations are currently disabled.
    Some other features of the forum are also currently disabled.

NUFC Sportswashing 2022

Status
Not open for further replies.

Redandwhitedust said:
As someone who lives away from the NE, meeting people, inevitably talking football, and saying you support Sunderland, is a sense of identity. Sure I take a bit of stick, but more times than not, it leads to discussion. Supporting Sunderland now, is saying you are a genuine fan, with a pride in the area you come from.

Once you get plastic fans, and kids all over the country wanting the shirts, saying you support Sunderland would have less meaning. You'd just be another gloryhunter who has to justify why they support the team. In the same way that when you meet a Man United fan in a pub in the NE, your reaction is not "I bet hes from near Manchester and goes to a few games a season"
Click to expand...
I can relate to that mate, try living on the other side of the world, every fucker asks why?
 
Vicham said:
I see mags already starting to lose faith in Howe. Has he already gone from being a manager they wanted to sign, to a manager to turn the boat around and build a foundation to stop fighting relegation, to not having changed a thing and not bringing anything to the club meaning transfers will have to save them?

And a few Everton fans asking them to take Rafa back 😂
Click to expand...

Not surprising. They backed themselves into a corner with him, and (like Rafa) built him up to be something he isn't. They did the same with Graham Jones, peddled this "look how his influence has transformed the team", and then when they realise its still not yeilding results, the more rational ones will call it out, and the rest will (for a time) defend him, because they were the ones singing his praises before a ball was kicked.

Then if it all goes wrong, you wont find a single mag prepared to say they ever thought he was the right man. Its what they do
 
jlaws said:
To play with the big boys NUFC need to grow revenues. TV is growing for all but they need to grow match day and commercial. They are all pinning their hopes on sponsorship deals but that will only take them so far. NUFC like SAFC and many clubs are hamstrung in the sense that the same people turn up each week and likely buy one shirt a season. The Liverpool model is they have the loyal support but then have 000's of tourists, potentially there once in their life, who spend lots in the club shop. Man City is an absolute soulless experience also surrounded by asian students wielding ipads. They have their club back which is all they wanted apparently but I am not sure they will enjoy the bi-product of what comes with trying to compete at the top...albeit that is some way off.
Click to expand...
As soulless as all that sounds, most fans would be more than happy to accept that to be competing at the top.
 
I've struggled since the 90s with what PL fans are all actually supporting. Before the 90s, the majority of us supported a local club, with a local business man at the helm who wasn't so much an owner as he was a fan/custodian of the club. When supporters thought he wasn't running in the best interests, they were forced out - I suppose like Cowie. The club had identity in the local community of which the fans played a part, but without the fans the club was still Sunderland. Local owner, often a fan with local players coming through and supported in part commercially by local businesses.

Now the vast majority of fans are really just customers of a PLC or investors trying to make money or other commercial gain. We all say we're supporters, but I really struggle with trying to explain what we're supporters of exactly - the shirt, the badge, the history? Take away the fans, and what's really left of the identity of any of the big clubs?

I suppose the conclusion I've come to is you have to like the owner enough to want to support what they our doing with 'your' club, and they'd have to be putting something back in to the local community to keep the bond. If I didn't think that was the case, I'd want to walk away from supporting 'their' business. If I was a Newcastle fan, I'd genuinely really be struggling with what the owners wanted to get out of it.

TL;DR: They've sold their soul. I'd be devastated if they were our owners.
 
tynevalleyblackcat said:
I went there one Friday night to see Newport play and knock off the ground while doing the 92 (still not finished). Went to Exeter City v Grimsby the next day then stayed with my brother in London on the Saturday night.

Stayed in an airbnb which was a spare room in a blokes house and he was clearly gay. He was a nice enough bloke mind. Had a bit chat with him when first turning up and then went to the game had a few pints and a pizza after the match and went back. Its seems an ok place on a par with many other places in the UK.
Click to expand...
Aye its alright tbf. I've lived here 5 years
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top