Fan Letters: Where is the fan anger?! “Are they putting Mogadon in the Bovril?”

Dear Roker Report,

I agree with Tom Lynn's comments regarding the feckless press response to our current plight but I feel this is just a part of the overall problem. We have been in this position many times before (i.e. facing relegation) but this time it feels very different.

There is a mind-numbing lack of identity about the club - our owner, chief executive and manager are a trio of characterless footballing under achievers; nobody likes them and nobody cares about them. The team has no leaders or heroes and the disgraceful home performances have progressively left the crowd in a stupor and numbed them to the point of insanity, that is unless they start fighting amongst themselves as an expression of frustration and anger.

The apathy in and around the stadium, the lack of optimism in the pubs before the match and the muted, passionless debates afterwards is more noticeable this season than any I have ever experienced in 55 years of going to matches.

I recall fan protests outside Roker Park during the 69/70 relegation season aimed at the 'board' which was persistent and nasty with bricks and a fair bit of violence flying around. I came out of the ground last Saturday after the Bristol game and it was hard to strike up a feisty 'f**k this for a game of soldiers' conversation on the way back to town!

Are they putting Mogadon in the Bovril?

I think Grayson will go, and the sooner the better, but please can we have a replacement that the fans can identify with and get behind? The Reid/Ball/Phillips collective looks pretty attractive to me at the moment...

Mick Barry

Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images

Dear Roker Report,

I’d love nothing more than for us to win tonight, but I have to say and admit that I fear we won’t. Still though I’ll be there regardless with the fifteen thousand or so other hardy souls that are expected to be there at tonight’s game.

My daughter is 13 and has decided she doesn’t want to go tonight, nor does my 11 year old Nephew that comes with us - half because it’s Halloween, half because they’re just sick of going to games and watching us get beat.

They’re both getting to that age now where they have other interests and I wouldn’t blame them for jacking the football in. If I wasn’t so entrenched in it (been going since the mid-80s, Clock stand regular!) I’d probably feel the same. Football is meant to be entertaining, and being crap is nothing new to Sunderland fans, but.... c’mon!

Dean Cummings