Colin Randall

So, then. A point at home to Arsenal on Sunday May 11 2008 and the championship should be ours.

Ok, we may also need to pick up a few points before then, starting with the opening game, against Arsenal’s north London rivals Tottenham and also at home, on August 11.

I am indebted to Mark Walton over at the Blackcats forum for the 2007-2008 list, which I discuss on the continuation page and can also be seen in full here.

But if you live a long way from Sunderland, or from the venue of that away game you’ve set your heart on attending, do not overlook the Murdoch factor. Think hard, therefore, before committing yourself to that EasyJet flight, cheap advance rail ticket or cast-in-stone day off from work/wife/whatever.

Several of these dates will change to suit the needs of television, and the changes will take absolutely no account of the interests (or pockets) of ordinary supporters.

That’s why our supporters found themselves having to get to Southampton for a 5.15pm kickoff on a Monday evening in April.

It’s manipulation of the fixtures list at its most cyncical, and leaves decent fans with feelings of contempt for the big business stranglehold on our game. But since it’s not going to stop happening any time soon, be prepared……

* Picture: Infactah

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That’s our man on the right
Picture:Jibba Jabba

Tasmin Archer fans will just have to wait a little. Salut! Sunderland feels duty bound to extend a warm welcome to Greg Halford, Roy Keane’s first summer signing and one that fills the heart with hope.

He’s 22, stands 6ft 5in and cost our moneyed Irish friends £3m from Reading. But he will be remembered by many at the Stadium of Light for his excellent performance in Colchester’s colours against us last season.

As a right back, he fits a slot vacated by the return to Man Utd of Danny Simpson and represents a great start to the team strengthening we all knew was necessary if we are to re-establish ourselves in the Premiership.

There is room for improvement in most areas, but Keano is sensible to start at the back – though a glace at Halford’s record shows he is a useful goalcorer, too.

The rumour mill is working overtime – frankly I’d be disappointed otherwise – and we have been linked with any number of other players.

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Maybe Keano could get Bono and The Edge to lean on Dave Stewart
Picture: atu2

Whatever happened to the Peter O’Toole interview? Why wasn’t I invited into Gina McKee‘s parlour, bought drinks by Dave Stewart or treated to a slap-up meal by Glenn Hugill?

This is my 2007 introduction to the very last piece to appear in the Celebrity Supporters series.

It was about the ones we didn’t nail. People who wouldn’t help, or didn’t feel qualified to. One who promised so much only to disappear from our radar. Others who turned out to be non-supporters or, worse, Mags.

Those failures, coupled with the misery of being a Sunderland fan in the dark days of 2003, could have given me something German scientists had just then identified as post-traumatic embitterment disorder. But the series was great fun to produce and when it came to an end, there were plenty of people to thank……………

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Look around and you’ll find loads of Bob Foxes, from complete unknowns to the moderately famous.

In the latter camp, there’s that journalist who pops up on BBC radio and Sky News, reviewing the papers or pontificating on matters of defence (great radio voice; great radio face too as it happens). But what about the unknowns?

The fence erector, the financial adviser, the lorry driver, the children’s entertainer, the double-glazing salesman?

Our Bob Fox (the article is essentially as originally published but will be updated) has been all of those things. He also happens to be a Sunderland-supporting Seaham lad widely regarded as one of the country’s very best male folk singers.

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Talk about keeping the faith.

Not even at the start of last season, but four straight defeats into it, Steve Cram – ace distance champion, BBC athletics commentator and president of the London and Southern England branch of the Sunderland Supporters’ Association – decided to have a flutter.

He did not put a fiver on when Niall Quinn might sack himself as manager, or on the identity of the man who’d replace him. He put his money (a bit more than a fiver, I imagine) – and this will strike a chord with our new sponsor Boylesports – on Sunderland winning promotion. And got odds of 25-1.

The winnings paid for a decent weekend away. Steve does not say what his fellow talking head at Radio Five Live, Mike Costello, did with his (and Mike, though not a SAFC fan, got 28-1 by shopping around).

Steve, as you might imagine, is thoroughly chuffed at the way things turned out. If you choose to read on, you will see how supporting the Lads has brought him much grief, too, entertaining as some of that grief happens to be.

I propose to leave the original article, as slightly amended by me when I posted it here, largely untouched. This is the update.

Steve kept the box he has had since Roker Park. He became gloomy, but not unduly so, in the miserable recent past, and he still admires Bob Murray for his legacy of stadium and Academy, while fully believing the time had come for a change at the top.

His dad, the retired bobby, is alive and well and is the box’s most regular user. Josephine – she would prefer me to call her Josie, I gather – and son Marcus are away at school, respectively 17 and 14 now, and both still follow the team, Josie rather more fervently than her brother.

In a school where not all her peers necessarily share her passion for football, she has persuaded an Everton-supporting head of house to make sure the common room TV is switched to Sky when Sunderland are on. She has also made Leeds her first university choice, to make trips back for games all the easier.

And Steve is buzzing about the season to come, but considers that, well as the squad did in the season just finished, Roy Keane needs to make several key acquisitions if we are to become a seriously competing top 10 sort of side.

“There are no guarantees people he brings in will perform for us as well as they have elsewhere,” he reminds us. “But Keane has such stature in the game that good players will want to come rather than having to be persuaded with the carrot of lots of money.”

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