Sunderland’s decline under Short ‘more Accrington Stanley than Leeds’

Happier times: Malcolm Dawson with Super Kev

Monsieur Salut says: when I said Salut! Sunderland had perhaps been too kind to Ellis Short in the past, I should have made it clear there has been no collectively unanimous view. Malcolm Dawson, the deputy editor, has been much more critical. His comment deserves to be read as a self-contained piece …

While M Salut and others have perhaps been kind to our owner in the past I have been bleating on for years about how he was not the saviour that some thought he was. I have written articles and posted critical comments for years now and for quite a while got plenty of thumbs down.

He was, I was reminded, investing his own money and saying how much he loved the club. He sported a FTM badge that he bought from the Love Supreme shop and he was by all accounts “a nice guy”.

He is showing his true colours now. The truth is he has never cared about Sunderland AFC as a club or understood just how much of an important part of the community it is. He destroyed that link when he marginalised Niall Quinn and to a lesser extent Kevin Ball, two men who also came to the area and the club and fell in love with it. Now Short is bored he is just wiping his hands of it. He has so much wealth that even the massive debt the club is carrying is peanuts to him.

American sports teams are “franchises”. The LA Rams become the St Louis Rams and the St Louis Cardinals become the Arizona Cardinals, then the St Louis Rams go back to Los Angeles, while meantime the Oakland Raiders move to LA and back again. OK not all US sports teams are like that – The Packers, the Bears and the Steelers are three with long term associations to a city and a set of passionate fans but I can’t believe that foreign billionaires buying into English football will ever feel the same passion that the true supporter feels.

I have fallen out of love with top flight football and all that surrounds it. For a short time I was deceived by the great escape engineered by Big Sam, but even before the pre-season friendly at Hartlepool I realised I had been conned.

People are comparing us with Leeds and how they have fallen but I fear our descent will be more like that of Coventry City, Portsmouth, Blackpool and the original Accrington Stanley.

5 thoughts on “Sunderland’s decline under Short ‘more Accrington Stanley than Leeds’”

  1. We will do this in our own unique Sunderland style, each club is slightly different but you can only go down when things go bad.
    I believe Ellis did all he could ,just it was not enough to give us success or even stabliity.Hopefully he has not ruined the club forever,god forbid we go into recievership.Though Leeds did survive even that fate.
    Man City fell far from the dizzy heights they have attained now.

    Trouble is when things go bad we tend to say,

    “well its only a game”…

    Even though we know it is not.(ala the famous Bill Shankley quote)I

    If it was down to fans we would be premier league and that will never change whatever hopeless set of players turn out to play for the team.

    As the song goes….. where were you when you were sh**.

  2. Well, what’s the solution? More specifically, there are, understandably, many people saying “Short Out” but no-one seems to go on to say what should replace him.

    • The short term solution is for someone who actually gives a toss to step in and try and sort out the mess. Latest reports suggest Short is willing to give the club away to anyone who’ll take on the debts. If no-one comes along he’ll just let the club sink into oblivion. The problem is you, me and the majority of fans haven’t got anything like the resources needed to take over the club and so we are now reliant on someone, or some conglomerate who have to take on the sinking ship. There’s little most of us can do but sit it out and hope there’s a club left in a year or two.

      Moyes and Grayson were the recipients of fans’ anger and now Martin Bain is getting the flak but these, just like Coleman are operating under Short’s direction. Short has been badly advised – no doubt about that – but he has made some atrocious appointments off the field which has led to a raft of unwanted and substandard players being brought in on terms which have not been advantageous to the club. I am convinced that had he not taken over the Chairmanship from Niall Quinn we would not be in the mess we are now.

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