Just to keep up to date with what can be called pre season events, the signing of Australian international midfielder Alex Robertson from Manchester City was finally confirmed on Wednesday.
Robertson, who made a big impression during the first half of last season while on loan to League One winners Portsmouth, signs on a four year deal for a fee described as just under £1 million which could eventually rise to £3 million – there is also a sell on clause whereby Man City get 25% of any fee for a future transfer.
It seems Robertson has been training at his former club following the injury which ended his season in early 2024 and it is thought that he may well be able to be selected as a substitute for tomorrow’s season opener with Sunderland.
One last thing on Robertson, there’s a connection already with City because it came to light on the day he signed that his uncle is Gavin Rae the Scottish international midfielder who played for us between 2007 and 2011 and was in 2008 FA Cup Final team which was beaten, ironically enough, by Portsmouth.
The under 18 and 21 teams played their final warm up games during the week – the under 18s drew 2-2 with Swindon and Michael Reindorf and Isaac Jefferies were the goalscorers in the under 21s’ 3-2 loss to Aston Villa at Leckwith with all of the goals coming in the first half.
As mentioned above, City start their Championship season with a home game against Sunderland – it’s a fixture where, oddly, the last four matches between the teams have ended in an away win.
If I had to guess, I’d say only two of our new signings, Callum Chambers and Chris Willock, will start tomorrow, so the team may have a bit of a last season look to it – maybe a draw is the most likely outcome?
Here’s the first seven decades quiz of the season:
60s. Having spent fourteen years with Sunderland, you may have expected this full back to have made more than the just over three hundred league appearances for them he managed. He never played league football for any one else, but, when he left Sunderland, he combined playing and managing at one of the country’s most famous non league sides of the time – a club where Sunderland were once the victims of a famous giant killing. Subsequently, he returned to the North East to have three spells as manager at his home town – a place with something of a tradition for producing very accomplished footballers and England test team fast bowlers, can you name the player I’m describing?
70s. Starting off in Lancashire in the First Division, this Yorkshire born defender had not played many games for his first club before he joined Sunderland as part of a player plus cash deal which saw an England international move in the opposite direction. He clocked up nearly two hundred league appearances in his seven years with Sunderland, with one of his half a dozen goals for them coming against City. When he left Sunderland, it was to join another club in stripes on a free transfer and, in the next five years, he would experience another promotion to the First Division to go with the one he experienced at Roker Park. Loaned to a team at the other end of England during his time with his third club, he then made a move to a far off capital for a while, before he finished his playing days doing what I supposed could be called porridge. After his playing days, he obtained a degree in physiotherapy and has stayed in the game in that area as he worked for Sunderland again, Leeds and with Scottish terrors, who is he?
80s. Gloomy and sour midfielder perhaps?
90s. Nicky Summerbee, Allan Johnston, Kevin Ball, Chris Makin, Alex Rae and Niall Quinn – what Sunderland game from this decade links these players and why won’t any of them remember it with any affection?
00s. Magister waters crust and produces a goalscorer! (6,7)
10s. As a thirteen year old, this forward ran a hundred metres in a time of 11.5 seconds which was the third fastest time ever run in the UK for that age group. This helped him become much sought after when he made the decision to play football and he opted to wear blue. When he created a Premier League record which I believe still stands in his first senior appearance, it seemed a major talent was emerging, but, in the end, he had a good, but not great, career in which he became something of a lower league journeyman in hjs latter years, In all, he had thirteen clubs Sunderland were his ninth and he came to them on the back of great spell with a club two years away from oblivion where he’d scored twenty four times in. thirty seven league matches, but the goals dried up and he left after little more than half a season. Retirement at thirty three while in the same city where it had all started for him was something of a surprise as eighteen goals in less than thirty league matches suggested there was still a fair bit left in the tank for him and, despite that feeling that he never lived up to his youthful promise, he did end up scoring well over a hundred league goals, but can you name him?
20s. Sounds like a middle aged big winner at the home of an individual sport may be on the verge of a first team breakthrough at Sunderland?
Answers:
60s. Cec Irwin was at Sunderland through all of the sixties and moved on to a player manager’s role at Yeovil Town where he stayed for three years. He later managed Ashington FC – Ashington is the birthplace of the Charlton brothers their Newcastle legend uncle Jackie Milburn as well as England bowlers Steve Harmison (who has also managed Ashington FC!) and Mark Wood.
70s. Jeff Clarke was part of the deal which took England centre half Dave Watson from Sunderland to Manchester City and he was a regular member of their defence until he signed for Newcastle in 1982. Clarke was loaned to Brighton while with Newcastle and then signed for Turkish club Ankarajucu. Clarke played briefly for the Quakers (Darlington) before retiring and, according to Wikioedia, is still Physio for Dundee United’s Academy at the age of seventy.
80s. Paul Lemon.
90s. The six players listed all scored penalties at Wembley in a shoot out after their Second tier Play Off Final with Charlton in 1998 finished 4-4 after extra time . However, the fourteenth penalty in the shoot out by Michael Gray was saved by Charlton keeper Sasa Ilic sending the London side into the Premier League at Sunderland’s expense.
00s.Marcus Stewart.
10s. James Vaughan became the youngest ever Premier League scorer when he netted for Everton on his debut at the age of sixteen after coming on as a sub against Crystal Palace. Vaughan was loaned out as a teenager to Championship clubs and was eventually sold to Norwich where he struggled to get game time. He did well when loaned to Huddersfield and eventually signed for them permanently. A prolific spell at doomed Bury persuaded Sunderland to pay half a million pounds for Vaughan in 2017, but he only scored twice for them before moving on again to Wigan. Vaughan finished his career with Tranmere Rovers and was once strongly linked with City, but, at that stage he was entering the stage of his career where he only tended to score goals in the lower divisions.
20s. American golfer Zach Johnson was thirty nine when he won the 2015 British Open at St. Andrews and Zak Johnson is a young defender who has played once for the Sunderland senior team prior to this season – Sunderland also have a young player called Tom Watson, but none of golfer Tom Watson’s five British Open titles were won at the home of golf, St. Andrews..