What an exciting transfer window that was!
In fact, I’d go as far to say as it was an historic window, never mind a once-in-a-generation window. Many people have written about it and perhaps our readers might be getting fed up of reading about it, but I’ve just come back from holiday and I felt the need to add my two penneth!
I was lucky enough to be invited to the south of France by some good friends and on one of the days, we went across to Saint Tropez to see how the other half live. Of course,
it’s not really ‘the other half’ — more like the other 2%!
It was transfer deadline day, and I was itching to look at my phone as much as polite etiquette would allow.
The wealth on display in the form of yachts and super boats was awe-inspiring and although Sunderland AFC is never far from the front of my mind (luckily, my wife doesn’t read many of these posts!) seeing these multi-million pound vessels moored in the harbour did make me think of our transfer business.
I’d suggest that as far as ‘how the other half lives’ in the football world, our beloved club has been well up there with the Jones’ this summer.
Most of us knew we had to at least strengthen the spine of the team, bringing in four, five, six or even seven new squad members. However, what transpired has gone beyond everyone’s wildest dreams or thoughts: fourteen new players, most of them internationals, with a mixture of youth and experience and every position covered at least twice.
We have real depth and quality in our squad, and it got me thinking about seasons gone by and what the pattern has generally been during our promotion years, so I got my Sunderland tomes out and was initially surprised by what I found.
I thought that whenever we were promoted to the top division, there would be a higher level of investment and greater numbers of players coming through the doors, but generally speaking, I didn’t find this to be the case. Most seasons saw us add four to six new recruits for the first season back in the top flight, but that’s no different to the numbers we bring in most seasons — no matter what division we’re in.
Without a doubt, the sums of money now involved in the Premier League are close to obscene, but even before the advent of the Premier League, as was probably the case with most clubs, we were bringing in quite a few new faces ready for the start of a new season.
The difference that money has made has been in the quality of player being brought in. In the 1970s and 1980s, I remember standing on the terraces for the first game of the season in the hope that perhaps we might be able to challenge at the top of the league. Sadly, that’s now out of reach for all bar a handful of teams.
In 1996/1997 — our first season in the Premier League and our last at Roker Park — we brought in Niall Quinn, Alex Rae, Tony Coton, Lionel Perez, Jan Eriksson, Chris Waddle and Allan Johnston, but it didn’t stop us going straight back down again.
The following season, as we built towards our most successful period in recent history, we brought in a raft of players including Lee Clark, Kevin Phillips, Jody Craddock, Chris Makin, Nicky Summerbee and Danny Dichio, only to miss out at Wembley. That much-admired Peter Reid team mostly stayed together for the following season’s promotion push, with the addition of Thomas Sorensen, Paul Butler and Gavin McCann.
For each of the following four seasons, although we still invested and brought fresh faces to the club, it was perhaps the quality of those players that reflected in the league positions, and during the 2002/2003 season, over seven incomings couldn’t prevent a twentieth-place finish on nineteen points.
Despite Reidy’s era still being regarded as our most successful in the ‘modern era’, it was from 2007 to 2017 that we enjoyed our longest stint in the top flight. Of course, we can boast a proud history way before the Premier League bandwagon started rolling; indeed, we’d never been relegated from the formation of the club until 1958.
Getting back to my point of this historic window, there’s never been a time when almost the entire team that won us promotion won’t enjoy the feeling of playing for Sunderland in the top flight.
There’s always been new additions, but this time we’ve virtually replaced an entire team and by my reckoning, only Trai Hume, Dan Ballard, Eliezer Mayenda, Romaine Mundle and Chris Rigg have any chance of getting regular game time. Hopefully Dan Neil, Dennis Cirkin and Aji Alese will stick around to prove me wrong, but it’s a little bit sad that in this era of such a massive gulf between Championship and Premier League, this is what has had to happen.
Last year’s heroes are no more — long live the new heroes. I for one was sorry to see Patrick Roberts go, but we move on, and I wish him luck for the future.
I’ve been immensely impressed with the club’s foresight and planning, and I have a feeling this squad has been assembled with more than just survival in mind.
Other fans might be looking forward to playing us with little or no knowledge of the fact that this isn’t the Sunderland that got promoted from the Championship. People outside of our bubble won’t know of the research and care that the backroom staff have put into assembling this squad, and they’re all to be roundly applauded and thanked.
Once again, we have a big, strong, skilful team, one that can hopefully mix it with the best and can bring back the days of man mountains such as Emerson Thome, Kenwyne Jones and Steed Malbranque, and going even further back to Charlie Hurley and ‘Slim’ Jim Baxter.
These are exciting times to be a Sunderland fan, and I’m very lucky and proud to have a ticket to be on the big ship.
