OTD: TONY MOWBRAY APPOINTED

On this day in 2022, Tony Mowbray was appointed as manager of Sunderland. He led us into the play-offs as a newly promoted Championship team in his first season but was sacked in December 2023 following a run of just two wins in nine matches. He is regarded is good terms by the vast majority of SAFC fans due to his likeable persona and willingness to work with the team's young squad.

As a player, Mowbray, also known as 'Mogga', began playing for Middlesbrough in 1982. He played in defence at centre-back and after four years he was captaining Boro at only 22. During his time there he led them from liquidation to the topflight in only a couple of years, that, plus the fact he’s a local lad, warranted him a legendary status at the club. After nine years and 348 appearances he left to go to Celtic.

Four years at Celtic was followed by five at Ipswich Town where he retired. With Ipswich he won promotion to the Premier League through the play-offs, he even scored the equaliser to make the play-off final 1-1 and Ipswich went on to win the game 4-2. This was his first and only game at Wembley as a player.

Upon retirement at Ipswich he joined the back room staff as a coach, and when the head coach spot became available he was the temporary boss for a brief spell. He later joined Hibernian and did a remarkable job, getting them in the top four of the Scottish Premier League and in Europe during his two full seasons in charge, he also won the Scottish Manager of the Year Award for 2004-05.

West Bromwich Albion came calling and he tried to get them out of the Championship and back into the Premier League, but in his first season he finished fourth, behind Sunderland. He got to the final of the play-offs but his side were defeated by Derby. That didn’t deter him from his mission and after a massive clear out of the squad he led the Baggies to the Premier League by winning the Championship accompanied by some impressive one touch football.

The return to the top flight wasn’t as he had hoped though, West Brom finished 20th and were sent back down, but the fans stayed by his side and remarkably wore Mowbray masks on the final game of the season!

Former club Celtic came after him and poached him from West Brom. At Scotland things hadn’t turned out as well as previous ventures. Rangers won the title and Tony once again made wholesale changes to his squad, but this time he upset some of the bigger players, despite bringing in talented players such as Robbie Keane. Mowbray was eventually sacked by the Bhoys in March 2010.

From one former club to another, Mowbray went back home to Boro, joining them when they were 22nd in the Championship but he turned their season around and led them to safety. The following two years he kept them up but they didn’t do too much other than that, he was keen to play some youth players and give them a chance.

On February 22nd 2017 Mogga took charge of Blackburn Rovers and he stayed there for five years, taking charge of over 250 games. When he first took over they got relegated to League One in the 16/17 season, but Blackburn kept faith in Mowbray and he got them straight back up. From there he turned Blackburn into a solid Championship side who could play some nice football at times, and also heavily relied on youth, taking in loans from big Premier League clubs to develop their best young talents. He was also the man who discovered Championship star Ben Brereton-Diaz. During his reign Blackburn made a pretty penny buying young players and selling them on for a hefty profit, for example he signed Adam Armstrong from the Mags for just under two million, and three years later he had sold him to Southampton for just shy of 18 million.

After five years at the Lancashire club, his contract wasn’t renewed and he was replaced by John Dahl Tomasson, but if it weren't for the Mowbray era they wouldn't be where they are today.

Three months after leaving Blackburn, he was appointed by Sunderland to replace Alex Neil (who had left the club suddenly and unexpectedly to take the Stoke City job). His first game in charge was against Rotherham United at home and we won 3-0 but he was incredibly humble in his post-match interview and admitted he hadn't been at the club long enough to really take credit for the victory. His job pretty quickly got much more difficult though, Ross Stewart went off injured in the warmup against Middlesbrough and one game later, our other striker, Ellis Simms went off injured against Reading. So, we were left striker-less for a few months. Simms returned before Stewart and we maintained some pretty consistent form before Ross came back in December. Notable victories included a 3-0 against Millwall and a 4-1 away to Wigan Athletic.

The Loch Ness Drogba came back and Amad Diallo became one of our best loanees ever. Alas, Stewart went off injured again only just over a month after retunrign and was out for the rest of the season and our injury problems multiplied by a million, it didn't help that Simms was dragged back to Everton by Frank Lampard either. Our sole striker was Joe Gelhardt from February onwards, he wasn't awful but he was moreso a second striker who needed to play alongside someone to truly flourish. We made a mad late dash into sixth place, culminating with a 3-0 win at Preston and some help from Mowbray's old club, Blackburn, on the final day of the season to just pip Millwall by a point. We had no fit centre backs for the first leg and didn't start any in the second and the squad was almost hilariously a bit of a plugging holes job (Trai Hume at centre half!). We fought well but we conceded three goals from corners across the two games against Luton Town and went out by a single goal. Another notable thing Mowbray did during this season was introducing a 15-year-old Chris Rigg to the squad via the FA Cup, incuding against Premier League Fulham.

The next season was nowhere near as good so I'll be brief because I quite like Mowbray but there was drama with some strikers. We signed four of them, none of them were very good but he also mismanaged them really (he gave Mason Burstow too many games to prove himself and threw Luis Hemir under the bus by giving him very few chances after a very good preseason) and our form after September was quite bad (it got a lot worse after he left) and he got sacked when we drew away to Millwall in December and we started drifting away from the top six and because he fell out with Kristjaan Speakman.

Since leaving us he's taken jobs at Birmingham City and returned to West Brom. His time at Birmingham was brief, due to his health, which he's talked about openly and his time back at the Baggies was short because for, whatever reason, it just didn't click. I'm pleased to say that he is now cancer free, he was first diagnosed with bowel cancer in February 2024 and declared cancer free in January 2025.