Mackems and Sunderland AFC

Mackems and Sunderland AFC

I worked in Sunderland for nearly four years so I know how the mackem brain works. Now I’m not arrogant or bigoted enough to deny there are some canny mackems. There definitely are, even though they are in short supply. The main problem mackems have as a collective group of people is their obsession with Newcastle upon Tyne and for most of them Newcastle United as well. We have arseholes on our side it’s undeniable, but with Sunderland it is borderline unbelievable. I used to work with this bloke who we’ll call Jim Scott (his initials are JS). He was from a place called Ryhope, THE most boring cunt I’ve ever known, never had a wife or a girlfriend in all of his life, so at 48 year old he fucked off to some far flung Asian country, and came back with a 4ft11 wife who couldn’t speak a word of English. Now for me that is my abiding memory of working there. He summed the vast majority of them up, he came out with this once, “Suuuunlun is a more important playuss than Newwwwcassul”, “aye how’s that John?”, “well there TWO UNDRUD AND EYUTEA thousand pea-pul in Sunlun, and there’s oahnley two undred un sixtea in Newwwwwwwwcassul.” That was his argument. At the time the City of Sunderland had a slightly bigger population than Newcastle upon Tyne, so it was a more important better known place nationally. Ironically enough they can’t even say that now, but to feel so inferior to come out with something like that is just staggering, and he was too thick to see it. The biggest problem Sunderland will ever and has ever had as a place, is Newcastle, and their inability to just get on with it and make the best of what they have without envy.

Everton fans are often called bitter blues because of the fact that the red dippers claim, the blue ones are more obsessed with Liverpool failing than their own team doing well. Personally I think that’s a load of bollocks. However, I can say with sincerity a significant majority of Sunderland fans are happier when we fail big time, than when their own team do well. This picture confirms it for me.

Look at that picture. That is 10 seconds after their tannoy bloke has told them Newcastle have been relegated in 2009. Look at them, when have you ever seen a mackem end celebrate so hysterically (other than when they score against us). It’s FUCKIN PATHETIC YOU SAD MACKEM CUNTS! Look at the old fella, so happy he looks like he’s going to start crying. Probably been bullied for having a shit accent while pilfering one of our jobs on the Tyne in the 80’s no doubt. The only surprising thing about this picture is the fact there is a genuinely good looking mackem lass stood there near the front. Probably from South Tyneside to be fair. Me personally, although I pity mackems I never want them to go down because I’d rather play Sunderland at St James’ Park once a year than your Fulham’s or Wigan’s.

I remember when Paul Bracewell signed for us from Sunderland in 1992, on the Tyne Tees evening news they were interviewing Sunderland fans, this fat ginger bloke came out with “e’s went from beegur cloob tiv a smarla cloob.”. The bloke had a straight face as well. The mackems often use 1992 as being “the year Keygun cayum and the mag re-lized that ‘ad a footbarll cloob”. You’ll often see mackems saying Newcastle United founded 1992. That’s all fine but the fact is in the previous 12 years, Newcastle were better supported in eleven of them, so if Newcastle were founded in 1992, have Sunderland yet to be founded? Sunderland’s largest average gate between 1982 and 1996 was 21,000. Our largest average gate between 1982 and 1989 was 29,810 in 1984. From that era their gates went up from 21,000 ave (at best) to 47,000 in 2002, difference of 26,000 whereas wors went from a high of 30,000 to 52,000 in 2001, a difference of 22,000. So Sunderland found more new fans than we did you cliched mackem doilums. On top of that we didn’t have to send letters to schools in mackem heartlands like Hexham, Berwick and Amble inviting 7,000 school kids every week for a quid.

There should be something done about their accent as well. It’s a big place Sunderland, nearly 1% of England’s population is a mackem, yet successful mackems are few and far between. Kate Adie is probably the most famous in the last 100 years. The fact is no one has a good chance of making it big with a mackem mentality/accent. That is a fact. I’m not saying it to be controversial neither. It truly is Loserville. It has the lowest life expectancy in Western Europe as a city over 250,000, it’s an embarrassment on human nature. Something should be done, because they should grow up with the same chances as everyone else but they’re drawn in to a world of depression, mediocrity and ill health.

My main point is this. Sunderland as a City is the biggest failure of a place in Europe, in America on a much large scale Detroit is the same, and apparently they have the same crime/alcohol/drug problems the mackems have. It’s a downtrodden hovel with the lowest life expectancy in the UK, where 80% of its’ population smoke, where its’ Champs Elysee is Fawcett Street (pictured above with it’s Harrods aka Wilkinsons) and it’s no better than Shields Road without even taking the piss.

It’s not our fault mackems are backward, it’s not our fault their city is a shithole (even though the ones who admit it is a shithole blame us), it’s not our fault their football club have been in the top 10 only three times in the last 63 years. The only way I can ever see the City of Sunderland improving, and in particular the football club, is if they stop obsessing about us. Sunderland should be a biggish club. How many clubs in the country have a better/bigger support than the mackems? Eight? Nine max. Yet they fail every season and I can’t help feel for a club who have only played FOUR European games ever, they are held back because of the toon. Newcastle United are a failure in that there are so many reasons why we should be challenging for trophies every single season, yet we don’t, so we fail. That is one thing, but the very essence of Sunderland, the true height of their supports ambition is to be better than we are. They can deny it but it’s true. How depressing it must be when the absolute ceiling of your ambitions is to be better than a failure. They can deny everything I’ve written but they know every word of it is true and so does any geordie who’s had the misfortune to spend as long as I did there.

For people who have never been to Sunderland, a few pictures illustrating what a fabulous city they are missing just 11 miles down the road.  Would you be jealous?