Sunderland fans are smiling – but no opens-top civic parade, say team bosses
Sunderland AFC reveals that following promotion to the Premier League the Club has been offered a civic reception and open-top bus parade by the City Council.
But … they have decided - regardless of the outcome of Sunday’s game and the potential to win the Championship title - to politely decline the offer!
Sunderland AFC Chairman Niall Quinn said, “Naturally we are delighted that the Club will be playing in the Premiership next season. Roy Keane, the staff and players have done a tremendous job taking us back to the top flight at the first time of asking, and of course our fans have played a huge part in the season’s success.
“We are immensely grateful to the City Council for their very kind offer of a civic reception and parade. However, we feel that this is only the beginning of our journey. We have simply got the Club back to where we should be – back among football’s elite.
“There is still a long way to go and it has therefore been decided, with the agreement of skipper Roy, to graciously decline the City Council’s kind offer of a civic reception.
“We hope fans will understand our reasons and don’t think we’re spoiling the party. This is a statement of our intent - we’re not content with what’s been achieved so far: this is when the hard work really starts.
“Top flight football benefits not only the Club but the City as a whole and we all agree it’s where Sunderland belongs. Everyone is now focussing on next season and beyond and striving to achieve sustained success for our football club in the future, with the continued backing and support of the City and our fans.”
Cllr Bob Symonds, Leader of Sunderland City Council commented: "We completely understand the Club's view and look forward to their future in the Premiership. In the meantime we thank the Club for putting the smile back on so many football fans’ faces in the city!”
Kavanagh out for Season
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| Graham Kavanagh |
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Sunderland midfielder Graham Kavanagh will miss the rest of the season after suffering an ankle injury in training.
Kavanagh, 33, was nearing a return to full fitness after a lengthy spell out recovering from a knee injury before his latest setback.
"It was touch and go whether he would have got involved anyway but he won't now," Sunderland boss Roy Keane told the club's website.
"It's a blow to the lad because he has worked extremely hard to get back."
Sunderland lead the Championship title and seem set to be automatically promoted with games against Colchester, Burnley and Luton left to play.
Keane added: "You are going to get injuries, especially when you tackle like Kav does.
"We'll just make sure he's ready for next season."
Football Derbies: Geordies v Mackems
By Richard Stonehouse
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| Tempers often fray in local derby |
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To over one million people in Tyne and Wear, and an additional million more from the North East’s diaspora, the Tyne-Wear derby is, by a phenomenal margin, the most important match of the season.
Yet, to the rest of Britain and Sky’s worldwide audience, the outcome is observed with profound indifference.
However, this is an understandable, and indeed, ubiquitous attitude held by the majority of football fans concerning the encoded history of the world’s local derbies.
Without generational inculcation or knowledge of regional contexts, it is psychologically improbable that anyone will derive passionate interest in a game detached from their own team’s welfare.
The Tyne and Wear derby may be perceived by the uninitiated as a parochial and unsophisticated issue, but like the world’s greatest derbies, it has a historical conflict as its bedrock.
And if anything, as a basis for a rivalry, the Sunderland-Newcastle derby is the most pragmatic and legitimate conflict there is.
Some of the great pan-national derbies are based on issues that are trite and irrational: the historical class differences, for example, of the Milan derby, where Milan were traditionally the unionist, working-class club; Inter the upper-class, conservative option, is now moot, given Milan’s chairmanship of the right-wing Silvio Berlusconi.
Any subsequent conflict other than league upmanship is irrelevant, and their previous, historical reason for difference has now been dissipated.
The Turin, Madrid and Athens derbies can all pinpoint their violence to the notion that Juve, Real and Panathinaikos were the more affluent, royal and successful-class of support in their city, whilst Torino, Atheltico, and Olympiakos, were the working-class others; but today, without any class-based discrimination on the gates, it’s all essentially irrational dislike emanating from past conventions – the type of narrow-mindedness that non football folk relish when brandishing football supporters.
Can the root of the Arsenal-Spurs conflict, which emanated from Arsenal’s move from South London to the North in 1913 - to within an uncomfortable and anti-local-crowd-monopolising few miles of Tottenham’s ground, (hardly the epitome of imperialism) continue to constitute reason for hatred?
The Celtic-Rangers rivalry has been written about extensively, and needs no elaboration. Other than to say, that if football can act as a metaphor for international and jingoistic warfare, then the Old Firm is the most articulate; but the Tyne-Wear derby wins in its secular and concise regional conflict.
The idea that the Tyne and Wear derby is the most pragmatic and legitimate of derbies is primarily based on the fact that it predates football by 226 years.
It is a conflict that has divided two cities, 12 miles apart, for over 2 centuries.
In the epoch pre the 1600s, King Charles 1st had consistently awarded the East of England Coal Trade Rights (try to contain your excitement) to Newcastle’s coal traders, which rendered the Wearside coal merchants redundant and without a means of living. People died because of it. Coal and ships were Sunderland’s raison d’etre.
But when, in 1642, the English Civil War started, and Newcastle, with good reason, supported the Crown, Sunderland, because of the trading inequalities, sided with Cromwell’s Parliamentarians, and the division began.
It became a conflict between Sunderland’s socialist republicanism, against Newcastle’s loyalist self-interest.
A purposeful enmity if ever there was one. The fighting was based on the necessity to live and feed one’s children, and benefit one’s city, and not on, like other derbies, oblique false constructs.
Why this has remained in obscurity across the country, and in parts of the North East region, for this long, is as inexplicable as how Sven earned his melancholy-inducing salary. It needs to be known.
The political differences between Sunderland and Newcastle culminated with the battle of Boldon Hill.
A loyalist army from Newcastle and County Durham gathered to fight an anti-monarchist Sunderland and Scottish army at a field equidistant between the two towns.
The joint Scottish and Sunderland army won – and Newcastle was colonised by the Scottish. It was subsequently used as a Republican military base for the rest of war.
And whilst this is a lucid basis for two cities hating each other, it has, like every other modern-day derby, developed profoundly irrational manifestations.
It has been noted that some Newcastle fans refuse to buy bacon, because of its ‘red and white appearance’: the pinnacle, regardless of any jovial flippancy, of irrational behaviour; and likewise, the past Mackem boycotting of a particular breakfast cereal, because of the Newcastle-orientated marketing push of its brand, is silly beyond words.
However, these are benign occurrences.
In March 2000, over 70 Sunderland and Newcastle hooligans took part in some of the worst football-related violence ever seen in the U.K.
What the police called “usually respectable men and fathers”, had decided to meet in mutual territory with their “enemies”, to fight with knives, bats and bricks.
Sunderland fans boarded a ferry towards North Tyneside, found the awaiting ‘army’, and fought. One man was left permanently brain damaged. There was nothing tangible to fight for. Yet tens and tens of people were arrested, and years upon years of prison-time was sentenced.
Whilst this wasn’t a biological, genetic or neurological inheritance from the past, it was neither rooted in football.
The continuation of the current tensions involves a new sense of injustice.
For well over a decade, Sunderland’s population has bemoaned, without any activist action, that they have been paying their local taxes to finance both the Newcastle Metro and Airport – both of which are limitedly available to them.
A rigid bias towards Tyneside in the regional and national media further compounds a collective feeling of inequality.
It seems like history is repeating itself for the people of Sunderland - albeit in a less livelihood-threatening sort of way. Perhaps a more trivial, city-image-concerned sort of way.
And so it seems that the Tyne-Wear derbies are, as opposed to the Council Chambers, where societal grievances are most fiercely manifested.
But this makes little sense.
You would expect better from the people contesting the world’s most pragmatic derby. Although, as either Ian Wright, or was it Aristotle, said, ‘people often systematically deviate from canons of logic’.
Let’s just hope that despite the increasing hijacking of the game by the corporate classes, and the working-class ostracising that comes with it, there still remains in the future, terraces from which Mackems and Geordies can vent their invariably abusive opinions of each other without violence and need for civil war.
Better Golfing
Golf is one sport where the pros have something to agree on. Keeping your balance during the entire swing is key to a good stroke in golf. That sounds simple, and looks simple when you watch the pros. However, if you are so tense that you are “white knuckling” the golf club, your whole body is stiff, and chances are that you are trying to hit the ball too hard.
If you are a relative newbie to golf, the one of the first advices you’re likely to get is not to hit the ball too hard. Focussed energy will make the ball go further than a hard swing if it does not make contact at the club’s center. With the right balance, you will find that you are more likely to hit the ball correctly.
Keep your eyes focused on the ball. Keep your head still, the more still your head is, the better you will be able to see the ball. This way, you create the foundation for you to keep your balance. Avoid movement or distraction that hinders your balance and takes your focus away from the ball. Keep your head perfectly still and do not move it during your swing.
Relaxing your body and muscles will also help to keep your balance. If you don’t relax, then your head is going to move.
Practise makes perfect. Watch yourself in front of your mirror, and you will soon appreciate that for your head to stay still, you have to relax your muscles. This is something you have to work out for yourself by watching yourself, since your physique and build will be different to another golfer. `Don’t forget to keeping your head in the same position from the beginning to the end of your swing. Keeping your head still, you will be able to focus on the ball, and you will turn your hands at the right time.
You will be able to improve your golfing simply by keeping your head completely still. It will be impossible to incorrectly grip your club without losing your balance and moving your head.
Practise your follow through by smoothly switching your body weight from one leg to the other. Done correctly, you will be able to keep your balance.
Concentrating on your balance and keeping your head still, then you will not swing too hard or pull your club away. It will be impossible to put too much strength into your swing. You will be relaxed and will have a smooth swing and a successful finish.
Keeping your balance is necessary for you to enjoy a great game of golf. With practice, you will see definite improvement, so be patient. Concentrate on keeping your balance and your head in one place and in no time you will be enjoying an excellent golf game that your friends will be envious of
We’ll bring you some more tips as we go along!
Sunderland's Olympic spec pool takes dramatic shape
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| The pool is due to be finished in Spring 2007. |
Sunderland's Olympic spec pool takes dramatic shape
Eleven huge timber beams – each half the length of a football pitch – have been installed as roof support for the new Sunderland Aquatic Centre.
The £19.8 million centre, designed by Red Box Architecture and being built by Balfour Beatty Construction Limited incorporates a 50m main pool, diving pool and wellness centre.
It will be the only complex of its kind between Leeds and Edinburgh, providing much needed facilities for Sunderland and the wider region.
The beams, each weighing several tonnes, have been shipped from Austria where they have been made by specialist timber engineering firm Wiehag.
Twin cranes hoisted the beams into place above the pool infrastructure which has been gradually taking shape on the Stadium Park site next to Sunderland's Stadium of Light.
The beams - which will support the 52m roofspan across the width of the pool - have been chosen in line with the city's commitment to environmental responsibility.
Made from glued laminated timber from sustainable forests, they will support a super insulated roof designed to both minimise energy use and heating costs.
Facilities will eventually include:
- A 25m wide main pool with 10 lanes, a moveable floor and moveable boom to allow maximum flexibility.
- A 25m wide multi-purpose diving tank with moveable floor and a variety of double width diving boards.
- Seating for 500 spectators.
The centre is expected to become a regional hub for competitive swimming, diving, synchronised swimming and water polo, as well as serving local schools.
A state-of-the-art Wellness Centre will encourage exercise and healthier lifestyles.
This centre will be part of a network of six others located across the city to deliver integrated health services in partnership with the Sunderland Teaching Primary Care Trust.
The project has been funded by Sunderland City Council, Sport England, European Regional Development Fund, One North East, TyneWear Partnership, Sunderland arc and Neighbourhood Renewal Fund.
Council Leader Cllr Bob Symonds commented: "The centre will benefit the whole community - from local people who enjoy swimming as part of a healthy lifestyle to young local competitive swimming talent.
“We hope these first class facilities will lead to success in our bid to eastablish a training base for the 2012 Olympics."
