We did a piece with The Times last week and since we’re on an international break and there’s not much going on we thought we’d re run it here…
Paul Dobson has long gone by the nickname of Sobs, apt perhaps, for a Sunderland fan in the club’s present times. He is standing in front of a version of Edvard Munch’s The Scream, arms folded, a tattoo of Sunderland’s badge from the 1970s and 80s sneaking out from underneath the short sleeve of his polo shirt.
We are in the Roker End Cafe. Across the road, on a true, damp Wearside morning, is the statue of Bob Stokoe, tearing across Wembley to embrace the goalkeeper, Jimmy Montgomery, after victory in the 1973 FA Cup final. Behind him is the Stadium of Light. He could be interpreted as running away from it, and with reason. It is year four of Sky Bet League One. And who could blame him? This is the club’s fourth year in League One — the third tier of English football. Roy Keane last month turned down the chance to return as manager. Stewart Donald and Charlie Methven, of Netfilx’s Sunderland ‘Til I Die fame, have only just revealed the price for the 39 per cent shareholding in the club that most fans thought they had already sold. It is £11.7 million. Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, the 25-year-old son of a billionaire, it turns out, purchased only 41 per cent of the club in February last year.
It is quite the mess — quite the fall from grace for a club who, eight years ago, led big-spending Manchester City at half-time in the League Cup final and were established in the Premier League. The Roker End Cafe is situated inside the building which houses those working on the Sunderland fanzine, A Love Supreme. In the background of The Munch painting — adapted for a A Love Supreme cover — is the Stadium of Light. It is from the 2005-06 season. Misery is not a new sensation at this club, but the length of the present malaise is. When the badge on Sobs’ arm was on the front of the Sunderland shirt, there was another foray into the third tier of English football, in 1987-88. That lasted just a year. This time, the purgatory is starting to feel more like a permanent decline.
Alex Neil, not Keane, ended up succeeding Lee Johnson last month, after a protracted managerial search. Johnson was sacked with Sunderland third in League One, but he could not survive a 6-0 hammering away to mid-table Bolton Wanderers. “Sacking Lee Johnson was a knee-jerk reaction, 100 per cent,” says Sobs, who has edited the award-winning fanzine for the past eight years. “The last five weeks have been strange. Lee Johnson got the boot after he won 40 of his 78 games, which was almost exactly the same as Jack Ross [his predecessor].
“They were probably the most successful managers since Keane’s short spell [from 2006-08, during which Sunderland were promoted to the Premier League]. The expectations are different in the third division. We went from taking 4,000 to Bolton and having a horrible time in a 6-0 defeat to taking 5,000 to Wigan and beating them 3-0. That month probably sums up Sunderland.”
Seven members of Sunderland’s board of directors were at The Belfry golf club, near Birmingham, on Monday, February 7, for the second round of interviews for the managerial position. Louis-Dreyfus was there, as was Kristjaan Speakman, the sporting director. It is not thought Methven, who was pushing Keane’s claims, or Donald, were, however. It is said that Dreyfus, too, fancied the energy of Keane — overlooking his lack of experience of the third tier — but all parties from Sunderland’s disparate board wanted a short-term, shot-in-the-arm for the club. Except Keane, that is. A contract to the end of the season was not for him. It seemed that there was almost a parallel process going on. At The Belfry, where it is thought Keane did not attend, Neil emerged victorious ahead of Grant McCann, who ended up at Peterborough United, and Sabri Lamouchi, the former Nottingham Forest manager. The deal offered was a 12-month rolling contract and Neil, the 40-year-old former Norwich City and Preston North End manager, accepted it. “It gets hard and you get tired of change,” Sobs says. “There were six managers before I was born and there have been 47 since, and I’m not that old! I started going after Sunderland had been relegated in the back end of the Sixties. I’m used to it, but it’s a hard grounding.”
Sean Mackie, who runs the A Love Supreme shop, was aged seven when Keane arrived at the Stadium of Light in 2006. “I thought it was exciting it could be Keane [this time],” he says. “He was the first manager I had seen. I do think he would have provided a kick up the backside.”
Neil’s record is solid. He took Norwich to the Premier League in 2015. He might prove to be a better long-term candidate than the rabble-rousing Keane, and there has been a decent start. Sunderland are back in a play-off place, but the board remains fractured and clubs in that predicament rarely progress. Louis-Dreyfus was the big hope, the Swiss-born French son of a billionaire who had owned Marseilles, someone who loved the game and had studied in Leeds. For six months, however, the club would not elaborate on the structure of the shareholding.
Two weeks ago, came the admission that Madrox (the company formed by Donald and Methven to buy Sunderland) still hold 39 per cent. Juan Sartori, who The Times revealed in 2020, acquired his 20 per cent for £1, still holds the same stake, and Louis-Dreyfus has a fraction over two fifths. It was another blow. Donald admitted two weeks ago that he would sell. Later that day, Methven said a price of £11.7 million would be enough to end their controversial time at the club. Louis-Dreyfus has said that he is open to new investment but there is presently no arrangement for him to buy them out. “It is a concern that no one owns the club outright,” Sobs says. “If you look at a club that is getting 30,000 every home game, £12 million is not a great deal for nigh on half the shares. “We don’t want to become entrenched as a League One club. It’s nice going to places where they really appreciate you being there, like Accrington and Cheltenham, but there comes a point, like at Arsenal in the Carabao Cup [quarter-final in December; Sunderland lost 5-1 at the Emirates Stadium] where you think, ‘This is where we should be’. It was like the good old days. It is a long way back.”
Sean adds: “I don’t know what the club is worth but if we have to take a hit to get rid of them, I want to see them gone. It does worry me. I said when we went down it will take ten years to get back up. I think that was being optimistic. The Championship is an incredibly hard league to get out of. I just hate this division.”
The impasse, the managerial uncertainty, and the continued League One football has not deterred Sunderland’s supporters. There were 30,036 at the Stadium of Light on Saturday, on another blowy day in the North East, for the visit of the bottom club, Crewe Alexandra. Only two late goals saw Sunderland to victory. “There’s winning ugly and there’s winning hideously,” Sobs says. Both he and Sean are happy with Neil — three wins and two draws in the past five — and unhappy with Methven and Donald’s continued presence. “Where would I like the club to be in two years?” Sobs asks. “In the Championship with owners Louis-Dreyfus and family and hopefully Neil as manager. In terms of set-up and fanbase, we should at least be mid-table in the Premier League but no club deserves to be anywhere other than on its results.”
