Sunderland Til I Die

[invergowrie arab]

The Sunderland fans seems to hate Donald. Maybe I'm daft but thought he was trying his best.

Would love to play poker against him though having seen his bottle utterly crash on deadline day.

Who was the wee Spanish dick?

[Crawford Bridge]

On 05/04/2020 at 18:27, Dele said:

She's the cook is she not? 

 

On 05/04/2020 at 19:32, Mr X said:

Yeah. The cook who had already explained why she couldnt bear to go and watch them.

Fair enough, I can't say I was paying that much attention. I had it on as background noise whilst doing other things.

[Derry Alli]

12 hours ago, invergowrie arab said:

Who was the wee Spanish dick?

An investor, I think. 

(I thought he was Italian). 

Edited April 7, 2020 by Dele

[well fan for life]

Finished it a couple of days ago. 

The Maja situation was a real shitter. Having an agent allowed him to just deflect everything on to him. He's clearly a talented young player and his agent had sold him on a life in the south of France. 

The Will Grigg transfer is unforgivable from the board imo. Jack Ross explicitly saying "he's not worth any more than that" and the owner agreeing before chucking cash around like fucking confetti. 

And the Brexit march scene? Let's just say I was not unhappy about watching them get beat at Wembley twice after that.

[Guest Moomintroll]

The Sunderland fans seems to hate Donald. Maybe I'm daft but thought he was trying his best.
Would love to play poker against him though having seen his bottle utterly crash on deadline day.
Who was the wee Spanish dick?

Nacho Novo.

[Jack Burton]

Watched 5 episodes of the second season so far.

Donald seems a decent enough guy but gets strung along by Maja's agent for months and spends way over the odds in January. Sounds like he just doesn't listen to the more experienced a guys around him. Looked up Grigg's stats at Sunderland and he's barely scored for them despite playing loads of games.

Methven doesn't come across as much of a w****r as I thought he would based on comments on here. He clearly cares but some of his team meetings are cringe worthy.

Most of the fans are bizzare.

[sergie's no1 fan]

Finished it a couple of days ago. 
The Maja situation was a real shitter. Having an agent allowed him to just deflect everything on to him. He's clearly a talented young player and his agent had sold him on a life in the south of France. 
The Will Grigg transfer is unforgivable from the board imo. Jack Ross explicitly saying "he's not worth any more than that" and the owner agreeing before chucking cash around like fucking confetti. 
And the Brexit march scene? Let's just say I was not unhappy about watching them get beat at Wembley twice after that.

The Grigg transfer was all the owners own doing. He promised the fans a couple of strikers iirc, it comes to late in the day on the transfer deadline and he hasn't signed any strikers. He was flapping. Jack Ross wanted Grigg but as you said, told him don't make any outrageous bids.

Stewart Donald was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He seemed more interested in not wanting to let the fans down and went against everyone's advice because ultimately the fans would have been raging at him for not delivering on his word. He mentioned what if Grigg scores a hat trick in the play off final too.

If Grigg scored the winning goal in the play off final he'd have looked like a genius and the gamble would have paid off. Obviously the opposite happened and it all flopped massively.

[invergowrie arab]

10 hours ago, Dele said:

An investor, I think. 

(I thought he was Italian). 

That's very racist of you (or me)

[Stu]

Some Sunderland Til I Die stuff at the end of this week's Squires: https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2020/apr/07/david-squires-on-blaming-football-and-joel-bats-for-covid-19

[peasy23]

I had sort of forgotten how much of a bedshitting Sunderland had put on in the Trophy final, I didn't watch a lot of St. Mirren when Ross was there, but was snatching a lead and trying to hang on for grim death his normal MO?

[Scotty Tunbridge]

I had sort of forgotten how much of a bedshitting Sunderland had put on in the Trophy final, I didn't watch a lot of St. Mirren when Ross was there, but was snatching a lead and trying to hang on for grim death his normal MO?

Nah at st Mirren the tactic was get pass to Lewis Morgan.

[Scotty Tunbridge]

Finished the second season no where near as good as the first.

 

Methven the only guy coming out of it as a total c**t. I’m pretty neutral on Donald he just looks like a moron with the Grigg situation. While McGeady and Nien come across as decent humans.

 

One thing that really pissed me off was the opening to a few of the episodes having to sit through Remembrance Day, Church pish and Brexit shite. We all know the majority people of the North East are working class brexiteers we don’t need to sit through this garbage to reinforce it.

 

Glad it’s not coming back for a third season to completely tarnish its legacy.

 

[DrewDon]

Aye, the Brexit stuff was just bizarre. As was Methven's patronising Etonian pish about people in London apparently looking down on northerners because they're all poor and voted Leave.

[arab_joe]

On 05/04/2020 at 18:17, Crawford Bridge said:

Crying auld boot outside Wembley..........   "I just love me bairns". Aye, she loves them that much it's the second time she's been in 21 years.

Folk like that are the worst thing about cup finals and every club has them unfortunately.

As was pointed out by others, she is the team cook and has been associated with the club for decades - and probably one of the most sympathetic characters (along with the bearded fan) across the two seasons.  It is people like the cook that made this documentary so brilliant by showing just how important the club is to the city.

On 06/04/2020 at 03:10, sergie's no1 fan said:

The tory came across as a cu....well tory. He is getting a bit of a raw deal but someone has to be the bad guy in this because the owner definitely isn't. They went from losing 40,000,000 a season to breaking even. The guy did his job, even if he is a p***k and ultimately Sunderland didn't get promoted.

If Charlie Methven had a regional accent, he would be heralded as the hero of the story - it is bizarre that, in a big part because of his Eton/Oxford education, he is getting absolutely slated online when he was the only person who seemed to ever have the long-term sustainability of the club at heart. 

On 06/04/2020 at 22:35, invergowrie arab said:

Who was the wee Spanish dick?

Juan Satori

Quite an interesting character (with even more interesting family connections)!

21 hours ago, Jack Burton said:

Methven doesn't come across as much of a w****r as I thought he would based on comments on here. He clearly cares but some of his team meetings are cringe worthy.

I'm guessing that the online reaction has been heavily influenced by his use of the word "parasites" (source) to describe Sunderland fans watching games on illegal streams...

6 hours ago, Scotty Tunbridge said:

Methven the only guy coming out of it as a total c**t.

He brought their losses down from 20 million to 0...

4 hours ago, DrewDon said:

As was Methven's patronising Etonian pish about people in London apparently looking down on northerners because they're all poor and voted Leave.

You disagree that a significant proportion of Londoners look down on towns like Sunderland as being full of poor, Leave voters!?

[peasy23]

You disagree that a significant proportion of Londoners look down on towns like Sunderland as being full of poor, Leave voters!?

I didn't think he was that bad either tbh, it was just the endless sound bites and textbook management speak that annoyed me. To break even from the starting point they had was remarkable tbh.

 

It was obvious they were starting to lose faith in Jack Ross towards the end of the season as they kept losing points the same way too often.

 

And you are spot on about a lot of Londoners, that's certainly the view of the ones I know.

[Homer Thompson]

6 hours ago, arab_joe said:

As was pointed out by others, she is the team cook and has been associated with the club for decades - and probably one of the most sympathetic characters (along with the bearded fan) across the two seasons.  It is people like the cook that made this documentary so brilliant by showing just how important the club is to the city.

If Charlie Methven had a regional accent, he would be heralded as the hero of the story - it is bizarre that, in a big part because of his Eton/Oxford education, he is getting absolutely slated online when he was the only person who seemed to ever have the long-term sustainability of the club at heart. 

Juan Satori

Quite an interesting character (with even more interesting family connections)!

I'm guessing that the online reaction has been heavily influenced by his use of the word "parasites" (source) to describe Sunderland fans watching games on illegal streams...

He brought their losses down from 20 million to 0...

You disagree that a significant proportion of Londoners look down on towns like Sunderland as being full of poor, Leave voters!?

I think you're right, theres definitely a lot of reverse snobbery going on where Methven is concerned.

[Arabdownunder]

Methven comes across as the worst kind of management p***k. Obsessing over trivia (walk on music, crowd w**k), sucking up to his boss, taking credit for everything that went right, blaming others for everything that went wrong. And wearing red breeks.

Also, was that Nigel Farage in the tunnel when they arrived at Wembley?

[arab_joe]

19 hours ago, peasy23 said:

I didn't think he was that bad either tbh, it was just the endless sound bites and textbook management speak that annoyed me. To break even from the starting point they had was remarkable tbh.

It was obvious they were starting to lose faith in Jack Ross towards the end of the season as they kept losing points the same way too often.

Methven's quotes in the show were absolutely laughable - from the very first meeting when he dropped the f word about 40 times - but I suspect that was just clever editing by the production team.  They needed someone to act as the pantomime villian, and his David Brent-esque management cliches definitely fitted the bill.

I thought the way that both Methven and Donald spoke publicly/openly critcised Jack Ross was incredibly unprofessional.  I would be very disappointed if a DUFC board member was being filmed slating Neilson's tactics (regardless of that board member's justified opinions).

18 hours ago, Mr X said:

I think you're right, theres definitely a lot of reverse snobbery going on where Methven is concerned.

Definitely.  He had the perfect background and accent to be the pantomime villian - and the production company definitely played that up. 

I was quite disappointed that more wasn't made of the fact that they inherited an absolute mess of a club (without any relegation clauses in contracts etc.) and wound up breaking even - and also would have loved more details about some of the outragous spending (like that cryogenic chamber that was only ever used by Martin Bain to soothe his back ache).

5 hours ago, Arabdownunder said:

Methven comes across as the worst kind of management p***k. Obsessing over trivia (walk on music, crowd w**k), sucking up to his boss, taking credit for everything that went right, blaming others for everything that went wrong. And wearing red breeks.

Don't get me wrong, he drops more management cliches than I've ever heard from anyone.  And was patronising.  And rude.  And swore an unhealthy amount.  And does come across as arrogant.  But it is hard to argue against his financial success - and if Sunderland had had someone like him in charge all along they may well still be sat in the Premiership.

[8MileBU]

Charlie Methven is a total David Brent and any criticisms based on his personal characteristics are probably justified.

However, any criticism of him in a business sense here are simply clueless c***s talking pish. As has been mentioned previously, turning around and nullifying the astronomical losses the club were making so quickly (in the grand scheme of things) was incredible work. 

The wee Irish girl  (presumably) being sacked was absolutely the correct decision. She was a right wee negative-nancy and sure many will have took an instant dislike to her eye-rolling and face-pulling. 
Thought the directors were quite switched on in that respect by trying to weed out the bad eggs and stinking attitudes employed behind the scenes.

Edited April 9, 2020 by 8MileBU

[AsimButtHitsASix]

2 minutes ago, 8MileBU said:

Charlie Methven is a total David Brent and any criticisms based on his personal characteristics are probably justified.

However, any criticism of him in a business sense here are simply clueless c***s talking pish. As has been mentioned previously, turning around and nullifying the astronomical losses the club were making so quickly (in the grand scheme of things) was incredible work. 

Just as an aside his Wikipedia page has some class warnings at the top of the page:

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