The Thoughts of a Branch Secretary on Cloud Nine

Well who would have thought or even predicted where we would have ended up at the end of the season?
We started with optimism as Bob "Mr Sunderland" Murray had departed his throne and Niall and his consortium had moved in, but the big question was who would be the manager? As the consortium was mostly of Irish nationality we all expected Martin O'Neil to walk in and be our saviour. When I was in Germany with Miller watching the World Cup I remember Miller telling everyone O'Neil was the man and that he had SAFC tattooed on his arse. Then there was Big Sam in the frame but Bolton insisted he would not drop down to a smaller club (is he not going to do that now!). With no real movement on the management front Niall announces that he will take the helm until the right person comes along. I think we all agreed that Niall was taking alot on and this proved correct as we struggled to win and get the "we will never win" mentality from the minds of the players. After the game against Bury we were all low and some questioning why they had renewed their season tickets. Then a master stroke happened - Niall made a call to the person that un-known to all of us was the consortiums first choice as manager of our club. The story was that he was contacted and made aware that if he didn't take the job now Quinny would have a heart attack. His reply was "Oh I 'll make him wait another 24 hours". So 24 hours after our defeat against Bury it was announced that Roy Keane was to be the new manager of SAFC. We were on every TV station, in all the newspaper headlines - Sunderland were back - well at least in the news for the right reasons.
Just by his presence in the stand we beat WBA and we all thought this was the turning point. New faces appeared - one of them being Graham Kavanagh who I thought should have been a target before he went to Wigan. Keano officially took over for the Derby game and we secured a win there and then trounced the once mighty Leeds - we played brilliant at Leeds and I thought this is it we have gone through the change mentally and would at least be in the top half or even reach the play-offs by the end of the season. Then bad results against Ipswich, Preston, Stoke and Cardiff started everyone thinking we would only make the top half and next season we would be a stronger force and get promoted. I remember thinking at this time Keano had not brought the fans back as we were still struggling to fill a 33 seater coach and one trip back from a home game Thomas and the constant moaner on the coach Steph were saying they had doubts over Keanes management ability. Keano started to show the exit door to some players that did not follow his ethos and were not showing pride in wearing the shirt. We then saw a phone video of a few of the players giving more energy to a young girl than they had done on the pitch all season - wankers the lot of them and as predicted they were shown the door very quickly.
2007 started better - good signings and loans got us to a great start - who would have thought we would have remained un-beaten for so long in 2007? Against WBA, Birmingham, Wolves and Southampton we showed we were back and looking for that play-off place .... or even better!
So we were beaten by Colchester - probably the one we feared the most if we were all honest, but we went on to secure wins against Burnley and Luton and entry into the promised land was made and as Champions. What a season and what highs and lows during a season that started with so little but finished with so much.
The highs for me was the players, staff and management giving us our pride back and showing again that SAFC are the caring club. The away support was fantastic all season I believe we played better away from home when the pressure was not as intense as the atmosphere at home. Finally a high was the branch performance we started to struggle with low attendance sometimes below 33 on a small seater coach to finally having a near full 51 seater coach for the last few matches. At the end of the seaon we did not have to dip into our bank account and I believe we are in a better picture now than we were at the end of last season.
Only one low for the season was the sad and sudden loss of one of our branch OAP's a loyal supporter to the branch and SAFC, Tommy Mitton. May he still be watching the lads from above and is smiling and having a half of beer to celebrate our promotion. God bless you Tommy you will always be remembered by the branch.
So what does the future hold as we enter again the promised land? We will be associated with everyone from Keanos past as transfer targets. I hope we can secure the services of the two loans from Man.Utd, Evans and Simpson they must either be on board next year as loans or as SAFC players, a goalkeeper and we also need a front man of consistent goal scoring ability, sorry I can't predict who we should get but I am sure that the plans have started and we should leave the building of our club to Quinny, Keano and the consortium after all they have not done a bad job so far.
As I sit down to watch the first play-off game today, I do hope that Derby can make it as they also deserve it but as we all know football is a funny old game; as an outside bet I also would watch Southampton as on a good day they can do well.
I have also looked at the Premiership and who may be left after tomorrows final games. I went through the list to see what away games and the prices of the ones I would like to attend. After doing this I realised I had ticked off all the teams in the Premiership so I hope Mrs G and my bank manager is understanding as we seek better things to come. Am I mad to do this next season or is it just a fact that I am a loyal and proud Mackem who has SAFC running through my veins?

May I wish all of you a good summer and look forward to seeing you all aboard our coach next season. H'away the Lads!

Regards

Jim Gilling
Branch Secretary