Roy Keane

Terry Deary: Horrible Histories, horrible modern football

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Are you sitting comfortably? That was how I introduced an interview back in 2002 with Terry Deary, bestselling author and lifelong Sunderland fan.

It was, of course, part of the Wear Down South series on celebrity supporters; Terry may not be a famous-for-being-famous, Newcastle-style celeb supporter (Ant, Dec and Cheryl springing effortlessly to mind), but he does occupy a lofty position in the field of literature, specifically books for children. Those books, as I explained back then, sell or disappear from library shelves faster than Enid Blyton: 210 titles in 41 languages at the last count, with worldwide sales exceeding 25 million. And that’s just part of Terry’s success story, as you shall discover. The last time we updated the interview, he was warming to the Roy Keane regime, full of admiration for a “rare manager who makes no excuses (injuries, bad refs, bad luck etc.) and doesn’t whinge when things go wrong”.

Time for another catch-up, but now something has gone very wrong, wrong enough to interrupt Terry’s record of season ticket ownership. It starts harmlessly enough, but then gets blood-curdlingly sinister as he sticks a knife into the heart of modern football. Steve Bruce had best not be shown this …

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Steve Bruce: no oil painting? Quinny and Keano know why

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Owen Lennox* is a Sunderland supporter with unusual gifts. He is an author, as recently demonstrated on these pages with the story of his novel touching on Wearside history, he is an art teacher and he is an accomplished painter. Here, he describes how an attempted little sideline – painting SAFC figureheads in the hope they’d fork out to own the resulting masterpieces – slid slowly from the canvas …

As a practising portrait painter, when the commissions are few and far between I need to keep my eye in.

I am also an honorary member of the three little pigs’ society; I need to keep the big bad wolf from the door.

In order to kill two birds with one stone I use a ruse employed by the late John Bratby, he used to make portraits of famous people then contact them, on occasion they would buy their portrait, and this has proved a moderately successful ploy for me until it comes to famous footballers or managers.

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Soapbox update: the Keane era and its ripple effect

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This posting has been affected by technical problems but has still managed to inspire some lively responses comparing the Roy Keane and Peter Reid eras of the recent history of Sunderland AFC. The comments have also been re-posted (though the little thumbs-up marks already awarded are, sadly, missing!).
It is now four years ago – give or take a couple of weeks – since Keano signed his contract at the Stadium of Light. He took over a squad of misfits and underachievers who had lost their first five games, including a league cup game at Bury, then the lowest of all Football League clubs. No wonder that after being talked through the players’ strengths and weaknesses, he joked that he should have held out for twice as much money -and set about replacing as many as he could. Pete Sixsmith looks back on the appointment as right decision, right time …


When Niall Quinn and the Drumaville consortium took over, we were promised a “magic carpet ride”.
After dispiriting defeats at Southend and Bury, the magic carpet was distinctly threadbare and we looked like a team heading for the third level of English football.

Quinny then decided that managing footballers was not as easy as breeding racehorses and decided to appoint a world class manger”. We now know that O’Neill had been indecisive (I believe SAFC had something like seven meetings with him – ed) and Allardyce had bottled out of leaving his comfort zone at the Reebok.

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2002: screaming girls, Irish Troubles. World Cup memories (11)

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japan


Pete Sixsmith arrives at the penultimate stage of his journey to every World Cups from 1966 to 2006. From the 2002 tournament he remembers the McCarthy-Keano spat, wailing South Korean teenagers, Tommy Sorensen’s howlers and yet another Brazilian trophy …

It’s interesting that as you get older, the more recent memories don’t stay for very long, while the more distant ones linger. When speaking to Neil Martin a couple of weeks ago, I was able to picture the goals he scored in my boyhood far more clearly than I could those of say, Tore Andre Flo or Jon Stead.

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Salut! History (3): massacred by Middlesbrough, but Mick’s no quitter

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keane mccarthy

In the first two extracts from his book, Sing When You’re Winning, Colin Irwin trod the familiar path of Sunderland’s history: early glory, post-war turbulence and 1973 fairytale (with as much literary licence as the Brothers Grimm). He left us with the anxiety of relegation-haunted fans as kickoff neared in SAFC v Boro in Jan 2006 …

Not that the nail biting lasts for long. Sunderland forget that Emanuel Pogatetz, the big lad strolling into their penalty area when Middlesbrough are awarded a free kick just outside the box, isn’t there to discuss the latest bargains at B&Q and may have evil intent.

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This morning’s puzzle: name Kenwyne’s £40m day

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Kenwyne CharicatureTransfer windows open out onto a heap of speculation, some of it fuelled by wily agents, some of it appearing to be evidence of – shall we say – the imaginative powers of football reporters. In one window, during Roy Keane’s time, only half a dozen or so of the scores of names in the Sunderland AFC official website’s “rumour mill”, culled from media reports, were remotely in the club’s sights, and several actual targets had not been mentioned at all. What, then, is the truth this time round? …

First, the papers said Steve Bruce was ready to sell Kenwyne Jones.

Then he appeared to heap scorn on the claims. Now, on one interpretation iof his latest remarks, he’s practically launched a public auction.

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