We’ve all reacted differently to events swirling round SAFC in recent times. Pete Sixsmith couldn’t resist curling himself up in a ball to hide away and contemplate, though he did emerge to watch Gateshead fans getting disproportionately cross about not winning every game …

If you were expecting a report on last night’s 3-1 win over Wigan Athletic at Hetton, read no further. I decided against it and went to watch Gateshead’s top of the table Conference clash with Wrexham. The ‘Heed lost 4-1, of which more later.

There was another reason for where I spent my evening, and it goes far deeper than just choosing fixtures. Those who know me well are probably aware that when bad things happen, I tend to turn away from it.

This explains piles of unopened bank statements, credit card notifications and final demands from Television X – sorry, the National Geographic Channel – which are currently clogging up the billiard room at Sixsmith Towers.

For me, this has been a bad week as a Sunderland supporter. Saturday’s draw was a disappointment, despite the fightback. I take no pleasure in the endless speculation about Bruce’s job and have found some of the abuse hurled at him on various sites and in newspapers and saloon bars, intolerant and, at times, lacking common decency.

Peter Reid was speaking on the radio this morning about fans’ expectations and I sometimes wonder what ours are.

Reid said the two seventh places that he achieved a decade ago were about what Sunderland should be prepared to settle for. Sometimes I think that a vociferous minority of our fans seem to expect a Champions’ League place, an FA Cup win and Best In Show at Crufts.

Consequently, any manager failing to achieve these is vilified. Bruce is by no means the finest manager in the firmament. I have criticised him and I don’t regard him as being tactically aware but I do think that he has decent relationships with players and that he may well supervise an improvement as the season ticks on.

The abuse heaped on managers and players at the moment is almost out of control. I can’t say that I am looking forward to the return of Darren Bent – partly because he has reached the same level as Joey Barton in my estimation and partly because of the awful insults that are going to be hurled at him.

A section of the Arsenal support reached new depths at White Hart Lane on Sunday with the dreadful chants aimed at Emmanuel Adebayor regarding the shooting incident in Angola. Some Spurs fans retaliated with their usual sickening rants about Arsene Wenger. Two wrongs do not make a right.

Then we had the news that Niall Quinn had stepped aside from the chairman’s role at the Stadium. Here is a man of the utmost integrity who came to the rescue of the club in 2005 after that disastrous relegation. He has stood aloof from the idiocies of some chairmen, the likes of Bates, Gillette and Hicks and Ashley/Llambias. But now he has moved over to oversee the clubs “international development”.

He did say he would probably spend no more than five years at the helm and his time is up. The man he brought in has taken over and, seeing as he has pumped over £100m. into the club, has every right to dictate the way the club goes. But I doubt he will ever have the impact that Quinn has had on Sunderland fans.

So, a night at the Reserves would have been a reminder of the disappointments that I have experienced these last few weeks. It would reinforce the disillusionment that I am feeling with regard to Premier League football in general. I am tired of reading about Arsenal, Chelsea etc in The Guardian and seeing clubs like us, West Brom and Villa being ignored.

I opted for a night at the International Stadium, hoping to restore some of my faith in football. It didn’t.

Gateshead were well beaten by an impressive Wrexham side, but to listen to some of the Gateshead fans, they were “useless”, “chickenhearted” and “absolute sh…”. They were top of the league before the game and, even after their first home defeat of the season, are sitting in third place with 27 points. Another club where expectations have been created and where impatience is running at a far too elevated level.

Back to Northern League tonight and Shildon’s home game with Newton Aycliffe. I bet there will be moaning at Dean Street as well!

The mischief makers are at work already. Jeremy Robson naturally found ways of interpreting the Niall Quinn announcement in a quite different way than presented by SAFC …

There has been a widespread discussion following the news that Niall Quinn has stepped down as Sunderland chairman to pursue other duties. Much of this debate is about the truth in the statement. But in reality, can a man in Ellis Short’s position actually afford to tell the whole truth?

What would the reaction be if the news reports following the press release said the following:

Niall Quinn has been forced to step down by Sunderland AFC’s owner, the Texan billionaire Ellis Short.

“Niall is one of the nicest guys that I have come across during my time in football. He is very popular with the followers of this club, and it’s with great reluctance that I have had to remove him from his post as chairman.

As he is such a genial and well loved gentleman I have created a position for him in the Far East, developing the SAFC brand in that part of the world. I haven’t the foggiest idea what that means and neither does he, but we all feel better about the changes we have to make by telling everyone that. I’ve invested a fortune in this club and it’s as clear as day that we are getting worse and not better.

Steve Bruce was a terrible appointment, which I grilled Niall about at the time. He insisted that Steve was the best that we could get. I regret taking Niall’s lead on this but he was the football guy and I am the businessman. I made a mistake in trusting his judgement and I regret that.

Niall said to me: “If Steve goes then I go.” I know that he meant leave altogether but I’ve sent the pair of them to Korea which is far enough away. The website we were on couldn’t issue tickets for Timbuktu anyway.”

Quinn will be heading off later this week to the Far East as part of his new role and will be accompanied by both Steve Bruce and Mike Farnan who until Quinn’s change of role had some post loosely described as “National and International Marketing Manager.”

When quizzed about the longer term future of manager Steve Bruce, the London based financier said: “Steve Bruce is the manager of Sunderland football club and will remain as the manager until I sack him.”

When asked to elaborate on whether Steve Bruce would still be in charge for the upcoming Arsenal game, Short told reporters that he is “Still waiting for Martin O’Neill to respond to my text messages and voicemail,” and when probed about the possibility of Steve MacLaren (who earlier resigned as manager of Nottingham Forest). taking the reins at the Stadium of Light he responded curtly with “It’s a manager for a football club I need here. If could get somebody better than him at Burger King!”

The words will flow thick and fast about Niall Quinn and his departure from role of chairman of Sunderland AFC. No one beyond his immediate circle can really know what to make of the new role “spearheading international development”, though there are theories aplenty on that, too. But nor should anyone forget all Niall has done for SAFC. Here is one tribute, with sharp injections of realism, from Eric Sweeney …

Niall Quinn is a Sunderland legend. As a player he formed one half of the most potent strikeforce we ever had. A gentleman on and off the field he will be remembered for his love and affection for the Sunderland faithful and more recently his commitment to the club in spearheading much needed investment and leadership.

The Drumaville Consortium takeover in 2006 was the beginning of an amazing adventure.

Vast amounts of money were spent backing Roy Keane in the transfer market in order to make the club a premiership force. Everyone connected to the club believed we were on the cusp of greatness, that something magical was on the cards. Some had the the dream that Sunderland’s future would be similar to that being enjoyed by City fans, maybe afraid to say it outloud in case the dream would die.

Unfortunately, a world recession occurred and but for that I wonder where this club would be today?

The consortium didn’t seem to care about how the money was being spent by Keane.

They had placed their full confidence in Quinn to oversee the revolution of SAFC. The recession ended that dream and in came Short to pick up the pieces. Clearly he had the finances we needed but without question it needed to be justified and likely to yield a return.

Short moved quick to sack Keane who he regarded as wasteful and underqualified for the role. I truely believe Bruce was appointed for his record in the transfer market. Short still wanted Quinn and early signs were positive the club would still move forward. Bruce was making progress, Bent in particular was great business.

Recent transfer activity seems to have ebbed away at the confidence of both Short and the fan base.

Attendances are way down, performance are way below par and some of the tactics used by Bruce have left many baffled. This is likely to have been the main reason why Short now wants a more active role in the club by pushing Quinn aside to take the role of chairman.

I suspect Quinn won’t last long in his new role as this time next year he gently steps aside.

Short seems intent to listen to the restless fans who want a more tactically aware manager. He will remove Bruce and who know what the next manager will be for this great club? My only hope is that the next five years would bring the same emotions as the last.

The Quinn era will live long in the memory. It brought hope and despair in equal measure but allowed us to dream, if only for a while, that we were about to achieve something impossible. I will be eternally grateful to the big man for that. Ha’way the lads…

Niall steps down as chairman, Ellis Short takes over. Quinn becomes head of international development. Apologies for a rushed post but it is important news – already mentioned in comments – and needs to be passed on properly. Make of this, from safc.com, what you will:

Sunderland AFC has announced that Niall Quinn is to spearhead international development on behalf of the club.

This new remit means that Quinn will relinquish his day-to-day chairman’s duties as he focuses on developing Sunderland’s profile and business interests overseas. To allow Niall sufficient time to devote to the challenge, owner Ellis Short has agreed to take up the reins as chairman.

Speaking about the changes, Niall said: “This is a great opportunity for us to make the club stronger and I’m delighted that Ellis has agreed to support the plan.

“He’ll be a fantastic Chairman and taking this role on speaks volumes about his ambition for the club.”

Ellis Short said: “I can assure our fans that it’s the same group of people continuing to lead the club.

“With financial fair play rules coming into effect it is essential for the long-term success of the club that we develop interests on a global scale and there’s no-one better than Niall to sell the ethos of Sunderland to an international audience.

He has been keen to drive this change for some time and I agree that it’s the way forward for us now. Assuming the position of chairman is a great honour and I will treat the role as guardian of this club with the utmost respect.”

Image: Mrs Logic

It has nothing specifically to do with Sunderland AFC, or whether we/they should stick with Steve Bruce in the belief that for all the unpromising signs, things are still more or less on the right course.

That is a related but different argument which is endlessly debated here and at many other places (I remain in the Bruce In camp, but only just and also because I have come to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, that his hand has been forced in one or two key decisions that have adversely affected performance and prospects).

My attention was drawn today to a Sky report headlined Black Cats Dismiss Bruce Talk. It was top of the list of SAFC-related stories at newsnow.co.uk – we were in the exalted slot earlier this week with Gyan: the truth? – and cried out to be read, especially by those of us who do not necessarily see the UK media each day, because its implied meaning was so clear.

I had read of rumours that Niall Quinn had talked about stepping down as chairman, rumours he had denied, but nothing about speculation that Ellis Short was losing patience – or had already lost it – with Bruce.

The Sky report is, for the most part, a routine lump of he said/she said denial journalism, albeit punctuated by mention of betting odds putting Bruce at 3/1 to be the next Premier League manager to go:

Sunderland are vehemently denying newspaper reports that they are considering the position of manager Steve Bruce, Sky Sports News understands.

It had been claimed that after their defeat to Chelsea at the weekend, club owner Ellis Short was seriously considering making a change.

It went on to say a newspaper report had stated that Sunderland were considering Bruce’s position, but that the club had told Sky Sports News this was far from the truth: “Sources (this is usually an exaggeration and means one source – ed) have said that there is ‘no question about the manager’s future’.”

These sources (or this source) then added something I have never before seen.

… and the club wanted to emphasise that this was in no way a ‘vote of confidence’ but just a dismissal of the claim.

There you have it. Someone within SAFC , authorised to brief Sky on what the club wants to say but will not or judges it can not say more openly, feels the need to admit that one of the biggest lies in football is the boardroom “vote of confidence” because announcing such a vote actually means confidence has evaporated and dismissal is imminent.

And what if Bruce is sacked after all?

How would that affect the way we approach club statements about the future of managers?

We would need to devise a reliable formula for establishing a distinction between a simple “vote of confidence”, which could safely be assumed to be fraudulent, and a denial of planned action that included the assertion that this did NOT amount to a vote of confidence, especially if experience went on to show that it led to the same conclusion in any case.

You couldn’t make it up. No, that’s wrong; Orwell pretty much did.

But none of this is of SAFC’s making.

The form of words chosen by the source, sorry sources, simply reflects a recognition that if people have stopped believing all that they read in the press, they most certainly have no more reason the believe everything they see in an official or semi-official statement.

And don’t worry. There is no immediate need for confusion anyway.

Bruce is going nowhere. He will lead SAFC to victory at the Stadium of Light on Sunday and Carrow Road eight days later – that was not a pig I saw flying past the window – and all, once again, will be well in the world.

Watch this space.

Niall Quinn speaks out on the Asamoah Gyan debacle …

Once and for all, let Salut! Sunderland remind SAFC, and the chairman most of us hold in such esteem, that when misleading information and speculation are presented by the media, from newspapers to TV and online sources, interested parties and even supporters, the clubs often have themselves to blame.

Football clubs, in common with politicians, public agencies and business generally, like to control the release of information as best they can. If this means a little manipulation over timing, or a degree of economy with the truth, you can bet your bottom dollar that is how it will be.

But as shown yet again, this time by the Asamaoh Gyan saga – which the dumbest boy in class could have predicted would cause more than the odd ripple – those who mould the truth to their own, often respectable agenda are eventually stung into making more open public statements than they ever intended.

It is a function of the age; nothing the most secretive entity chooses to do about it can stop, for long, the flow of unwelcome information – and, yes, disinformation and misinformation.

Niall Quinn has now made a full statement on the quite extraordinary events surrounding the departure of Gyan, events that have rightly preoccupied all with SAFC’s best interests at heart as well as those merely looking on.

Courtesy of safc.com, this is what he had to say:

“I’ve heard and read all sorts of nonsense over the last few days and it’s important that our fans are in possession of the full facts on this, not hearsay, rumour and media speculation.

From the moment Asamoah returned for pre-season training we could tell that there were people trying to move him on. We hoped it would pass by, rebuking approaches from the Premier League, France and Turkey and felt the player would settle back down and continue to help our cause.

Throughout this time we were also receiving real interest from Al-Ain, but it looked as if that too had lost momentum by last Wednesday.

Steve spoke to Asamoah on Thursday morning, asking him to knuckle down and we were all set to move on. Later that day however Al-Ain began a prolonged effort to get the deal back on track and this turned the player’s attentions once more to a possible move.

Come Friday, the chairman of Al-Ain and his advisors had flown into Newcastle and arrived at our training ground to discuss a potential deal for Asa. They were very professional but determined to sign the player and at this point we took a number of things into consideration:

1 The player’s obviously negative demeanor in and around the training ground
2 The fact that the transfer window in the UAE had over 50 days remaining, meaning this was unlikely to go away.
3 The clear desire of the player to leave.
4. The forthcoming African Nations Cup, which would have meant losing Asamoah for up to six weeks in the New Year.
5 The obvious economic benefits to our club in the terms of the final deal laid out to us.

In the early hours of Saturday morning chief executive Margaret Byrne and myself agreed a loan deal to allow Asamoah his wish to move but that would also, and more importantly, protect the club should things not work out for the player.

Steve Bruce, our owner and the Board all found the football decision that Asamoah wished to make baffling but I as chairman, with everyone’s full support, decided that this deal was in the best interests of our football club.
There was a lot of things that needed to happen before the deal was fully secured, such as a medical, which has in fact only just been completed today. Unfortunately, word of the deal came out ahead of our game against Chelsea.

Steve’s frustrations towards the player, expressed minutes after the Chelsea game, were understandable at such a time but I can reveal that since then Asamoah and Steve have made contact and they are on good terms.

The olive branch is now there for Asamoah, but he will need to convince Steve, the Board and every Sunderland fan of his commitment to this club if he is to return. I am delighted however that he has agreed to make a sizeable donation to SAFC Foundation for each month that he is away on loan.

This is the first opportunity that I have had to talk publicly about the deal as we now have confirmation that all the formalities are complete and I hope that our fans will appreciate that the decision was taken in the best interest of our club – which will always be my remit. It also goes without saying that this puts Steve and his recruitment options in a far stronger position for the January window.

As the dust begins to settle we hope to concentrate everyone’s minds on our forthcoming games, getting our squad to blend and kick-start our season. I understand our fans’ frustrations at the moment and I thank them for their patience and understanding.”

Plenty there – I have left it intact save for correcting a couple of wayward apostrophes (and I’m sure that by “rebuke”, he meant “repel” or similar) – to chew on. Plenty to enable us to sympathise with Steve, Niall and indeed everyone with the glaring exception of Gyan, who rides a short way to his own rescue with the pledge of money to the SAFC foundation but has betrayed club, management and fans in disgraceful fashion.

However, there is nothing to ease our entirely reasonable concerns about the curent predicament. Wins against Stoke and Norwich would, of course, give the start to the season a different look, but can anyone seriously complain that eyebrows have been raised? Are we meant to be grateful for two points and two goals from four games, a lamentably early exit from the Carling Cup and a squad now desperately thin on Premier-seasoned strike power?

I would like very much to know whether Gary Bennett was right in saying at the weekend that a move for an experienced striker – as glaring a need as could be imagined – was vetoed at a somewhat advanced stage. More on that and how we propose to stem the outward flow of attacking talent, and less on the routine but, in fact, meaningless gripes about “hearsay, rumour and media speculation”, would have been welcome. Even if Niall Quinn’s comments, broadly speaking, are illuminating and fair.

Monsieur Salut

Two abrupt departures from the club and no, we don”t mean Cristian Riveros off on loan to Kayserispor following Jordan Henderson’s sale to Liverpool. Pete Sixsmith ponders Sunderland AFC’s announcement that two boardroom figures are “stepping down” but is already too late with his cry of “gizza job”* …

I did intend to write a jolly little piece on the delight of pre-season friendlies – Little Titterington Wanderers v Great Bumstead Athletic, that sort of thing, when I saw the news that Steve Walton and Lesley Callaghan were leaving the club.

So I immediately turned to the club website and read the usual bland, corporate statement that all institutions give when there is a change at the top. They are “stepping down” from their positions, their “professionalism and commitment” have been invaluable and “we are sorry to see them go”. All said in the name of Niall Quinn, although I would be surprised if he had actually written the press release.

The departing pair spoke warmly of their time at SAFC, with Steve Walton saying it was “an honour and a privilege to serve” the club he had always supported and Ms Callaghan expressing “deep gratitude to the exceptional professionals I have worked with in my 19 years (here)”.

Which raised the question: if they have enjoyed it so much, why are they leaving?

Neither I nor the site proprietor has any insights into the machinations that go on within the football club. M Salut was a distinguished journalist for many years – steady on with the past tense, Pete – ed - and would fabricate, er, sorry, write stories without recourse to rummaging through dustbins or hacking into mobile phones a la News of the World.

There may be perfectly good reasons, but it does seem a little strange that 66 per cent of the board have just left in circumstances that can only be described as less than transparent.

What can we read into this? The answer, of course, is whatever we want to read into it, because as sure as eggs are eggs, the club will say nothing else and the Departing Two will have a silence clause to accompany not inconsiderable pay offs.

Has there been a falling out with the owner? Does Ellis Short want to bring his own people in as Lerner has at Villa and Ashley did at Newcastle? How secure is Niall Quinn’s role? He said five years was probably long enough to stay as chairman when he headed the Drumaville consortium in the summer of 2006.

The transfer policy over the summer has been sensible. The Henderson money was impossible to turn down and we have brought five players in for that fee. But are there problems behind the scene? Is the owner looking for some kind of return on his investment – except that owning a football club is not an investment, it’s a great way to spend an awful lot of money extremely quickly. I am sure that all of us hope our recent stability is not threatened

As for the new CEO, I am dusting down my CV and forwarding it to the club. A career change is called for as I approach retirement and what better way than dealing with agents and owners. Can’t wait to have a go at Harry Redknapp …

* the official statement can be found here. And learn about our new chief executive, not Pete Sixsmith but the “talented legal director Margaret Byrne … a rising star in both legal circles and the football industry and short-listed for the UK’s prestigious Solicitor of the Year award” here

Does this amount to strikebreaking, a scabby edition of Soapbox? Pete Sixsmith is meant to be on strike. Truth is he couldn’t resist upping tools long enough to tell us he likes what he has seen so far in the close season transfer dealings …

Many years of my working life have been spent working with 18-year-olds. Some went on to be doctors and lawyers. One has produced a bestselling novel. Some went into the caring professions – nursing, social work, comforting Newcastle fans. And some hit the depths and became teachers. But I have never taught one with an £8m price tag around his neck or hers.

I remember when Liverpool spent the then astronomical sum of £100,000 on a teenager from Wolves called Alun Evans. He spluttered brightly and then faded away, yet another youngster who failed to live up to great expectations. Some are already saying that Wickham will be the next one to crash and burn.

But he looks the part. Big and strong, he runs well with the ball and scores on a regular basis. Roy Keane rated him and gave him every chance to seize his place in the Ipswich line up, which he took. He played at 16 year, just out of school, books put away, dinner money replaced with a full time contract, and scored in his fourth game. Not bad for someone who was little more than a bairn.

So, why did he sign for us? Had he taken the advice of that professional gobs****, Adrian Durham on TalkSport, he wouldn’t even have spoken to Quinn and Bruce. Durham made it clear he thought that Sunderland was a dead end for players and that he (Wickham) would be much better signing for Liverpool and sitting on the bench and playing at Hetton, Southport and Morecambe in the Reserve League. Sunderland was a club with no ambition, he opined, and the crowd turned on young players. Evidence for this: Jordan Henderson was booed last year by his own fans, according to this London-based professional oaf.

Connor himself says it was the vision of Niall Quinn and Steve Bruce that sold the club to him. Their ambition matched his, he said. He thought the ground, the facilities and the players at the club were top notch and would help him progress. He sounds a very intelligent young man to me.

I am sure Grant Leadbitter and Carlos Edwards will have put a good word in and Jack Colback played with Wickham in his two loan spells. He is not coming to the club blind and as he moves from one provincial town to another, he will surely have little difficulty in adjusting. His background screams stability and discipline (father was an NCO in the army), so he should not have the problems Anthony Stokes had to face when re-locating from the flesh pots of London to the fleshpots of Gilley Law.

That is three players in, with Craig Gardner and the young Korean striker Ji Dong-wan to come. Larsson and Westwood are good players who will strengthen us in key positions. Gardner got 10 goals from midfield last season – more than our entire engine room has achieved in three seasons! Maybe two more to come in, another forward and possibly a defender, with some leaving. It is an interesting time.

That we have managed to sign a player described as a great prospect is a tribute to Niall Quinn, Steve(s) Bruce and Walton and the ever open wallet of Ellis Short. This deal has gone through smoothly as did the Larsson and Westwood deals – as indeed did the sale of Jordan Henderson to Liverpool. In the case of Henderson, we stated a price and stuck to it; if you want him, you pay what we think he is worth. Tom Cowie would have taken the first offer and thrown a set of car mats in as well.

Steve Bruce will regard this as a huge vote of confidence from the owner. The player is a potential game winner and if he does well, he will make money for the club with success on the field and with a huge transfer fee if (and probably when) he moves on. The manager probably realises that if he gets it wrong this summer window, he will not get another chance to spend the Man From Missouri’s money.

The first warm up game is now two weeks away. York City will be rubbing their hands together at the prospect of a couple of thousand Sunderland supporters descending on Bootham Crescent. The Wetherby Whaler Fish and Chip restaurant and the Minster pub near St Mary’s car park will give me excellent value – I’m hoping that Connor Wickham, Seb Larsson et al. do the same between July and May. I’m quietly confident …

This, the second extract from our near-complete set of the lamented fanzine It’s The Hope I Can’t Stand is a classic mixture of retrospective wisdom and downright mischief-making. Back we go to the 1997/1998 season and the origins of a fabulous Premier League strike pairing …

It is not the sort of thing anyone wants to be reminded of: even the slightest hint of hesitancy in initial thoughts on one Kevin Phillips, and a distinctly undecided assessment of Niall Quinn.

That, however, is how Ithics saw things back then. There are strong mitigating factors, and we will get to them, but Salut! Sunderland cannot resist the temptation to dip into edition No 2 – when the writer of each article was still anonymous – and repeat these snippets from a piece entitled: “Reid’s Transfer Record – Hit or Miss?”

* Niall Quinn

The North East’s ever-inventive press corps devised a number of extremely dubious nicknames for the big man (who dreamt up Quininho?), before injury struck hm down. Quinn renewed his season ticket on the Roker Park physio’s couch. His performances to date have veered from reasonable to Ormondroydesque.

Verdict: The jury is out

* Kevin Phillips

Most recently, Reid has bought Lee Clark, Kevin Phillips, Chris Byrne and Chris Makin. It’s too early to say whether or not these players will enjoy successful careers at Sunderland.

Verdict: none delivered

And in a later edition of Ithics (No 6, published in March 1998 as we headed towards playoff disappointment at Wembley), Mark Egan, co-editor and author of the marvellous spoof contract negotiations between John Ficking (then chief executive) and Allan “Magic Johnston”, wrote this:

Kevin Phillips

Super certainly deserves a crack at top-flight football. His pace, invention and confidence have delighted us this season and I think he can scare the wits out of some Premier back lines. But he will need to convert a greater percentage of the chances he creates in order to become a truly top-class striker.

Hang on, I hear Mark say, wasn’t that an overwhelmingly positive appraisal? And he’d be right. What’s more, the same edition that contained the “hit or miss” squad ratings had a double-page spread on SuperKev that concluded: “Kevin Phillips has, in only six games, established himself a top-quality striker. The like of which we haven’t seen on Wearside since Marco Gabbiadini. Obviously, the lad has yet to establish hismelf in the Premier League but we like what we’ve seen so far.”

Not many people would have quarrelled with the doubt about Quinny either. It took the remarkable success of treatment to his career-threatening injury to turn him from a lame has-been into one of the most effective No 9s, in so many ways, that I have had the pleasure to watch in Sunderland colours. Hindsight, of course, is easy. But mine tells me Niall Quinn was most emphatically 50 per cent of the NQ/SKP partnership.

I did warn there might be mischief afoot.

But it is a treat to look back, recall the qualified acclaim and recall just what a “truly top-class striker” SuperKev showed himself to be, so ably complemented by Quinn, and how many Premier back fours the pair of them terrorised when we eventually did gain promotion.

Look out for more from the Ithics Files …

Monsieur Salut

Birflatt Boy pulls no punches. Monsieur Salut may have urged caution on SAFC’s inability so far to announce a single new acquisition, amid rumours that this or that target could end up elsewhere, but our hard-hitting contributor defends the right to aim robust criticism at the club we love …

What does it mean to be a Sunderland supporter? I’ve always regarded it as a lifelong lesson in humility, and in so many ways. After all, there’s never that much to get really excited about is there?

As the number of blogs and fan sites has propagated it’s become a lot easier to access and understand the widespread and perhaps not so widespread mix of opinion and attitude held by fans of any club, on just about anything. We all love SAFC, but have different ways of expressing that devotion, I suppose.

On some sites today you’d find some of our fans enthusing about the positives of signing players like Liam Ridgewell and David Ngog.

If I were a fan of, say, Wigan or Swansea I don’t think that my cap would be flying through the air at the prospect of cheering these boys on next season. Cold rice pudding or last Friday’s fish would hardly be less appetising.

There is one thing that has really struck me in recent years, and that is the rift which appears very quickly between our fans when any criticism is aimed towards the club, manager, chairman or players.

There may be few issues which unite all of us, but I am constantly disappointed by the mantra of “just get behind the team” or “you’re just like that lot up the road” when someone’s credentials or performances are called into question.

I’ve never been able to understand why criticism of players or managers who frequently fall way short of what’s reasonably expected should be received in such a negative fashion. Blind and unrelenting faith is the alternative which is as close as to stupidity as you can officially get without resorting to some form of psychological assessment.

It’s as if criticism through the written word will automatically transcend into name calling from the stands, booing and generally getting on players’ backs.

All too often, the result of legitimate comment and questioning is a response that, in its own way, impunes the integrity and allegiance of the questioner.

Personally I had little faith in Bob Murray, and I had even less in his predecessor Tom Cowie. Did that mean I had deserted the club? Of course not. In many ways it reinforced my support during a (lengthy) period when I was convinced neither of these chairman had the wit, intelligence, contacts or other attributes with which they could raise the fortunes of SAFC beyond the mediocre.

By and large, my lack of faith in those custodians of our beloved club was proved justified as – two decent finishes under Peter Reid excepted – mediocrity became our byword. Substitute the term “lack of faith” with “expectation” and Niall Quinn’s personal albatross has been the weight of expectation that increased when he took the helm.

Let’s take the Quinn example further. The burden of expectation that he carries is the price of the “faith” we have all bestowed upon him, to a greater or lesser extent.

For some, Quinn’s actions are beyond question. For the more intelligent fans (and Salut! Sunderland shows that SAFC have a great many), judgement on performances, behaviour and appointments falls directly or indirectly upon that chairman; he or she carries not only the weight of expectation, but also the responsibility and authority to manage outcomes that meet those expectations. To accept blindly, without question, is a notion belonging to the Middle Ages, as puerile as it is out moded.

That brings me to the question of “cause and effect”.

There are those who argue against debate on forums such as Salut! Sunderland, in the mistaken belief that negative comment will somehow translate itself into an evil curse that hampers the performance of individuals or indeed the team if “we don’t get behind them”.

For those misguided fools (thankfully few in number), “Getting behind the team” is actually what most of us have done over the course of our lives. And let me tell them this: it makes not one iota of difference to outcome. Not a jot.