2009 John Byrne
We invited John to give us a talk on his career and his playing days at Sunderland A.F.C. It was a great evening ending in question time from the many members and their guests.
During the following drinks and buffet supper John chatted to us and proudly showed us his medal from the cup final of 1992. He had the distinction of scoring in every round except the final, which Liverpool won 2–0, he confessed "To be honest, I don't think I've ever fully recovered from missing that sitter in the final at Wembley - 13 minutes and 20 seconds gone, chance to put us in front, and I fluffed it“.
He also revealed that after the game he was mistakenly handed a winner's medal (he handed it back by the way) but John gave us a very entertaining evening so we hope to bring him back for the questions we never got to ask and learn more of the inside workings of the club of that time. John currently runs his own company now as a podiatrist and he is also a commentator on Radio Sussex for Brighton and Hove Albion home games.
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2010 Stadium of Light
On Sunday 14th March we pushed out the boat and a party of us supporters treated ourselves to the Executive package at the Stadium of light - the full works!
With Champagne on arrival, to set the tone we were then taken on a quick tour of the tunnel area and the changing rooms, seeing the boots and kit laid out all ready, also catching a look at Darren Bent and Steve Bruce in passing.
We returned to the Executive Club to a four-course meal, with hostess service, a padded seat at the half-way line to watch a very good game. With snacks and drinks at halftime, refreshments and sandwiches at full time we were fully treated. We also recieved a momento, a pair of cufflinks for the lads and perfume for the ladies.
The match ended at 1-1 with Kenwyne Jones scoring early for us only for Adam Johnson to score in the 90th minute for them (his one and only goal for Man city this season).
We then had a vote on the Corporate Man of the Match and watched Craig Gordon pick up this award. We were also able to meet many past and present players including Jim Montgomery, Micky Horswill, Andy Reid, Lee Cattermole amongst them as well as the Chairman, Niall Quinn.
The whole day was voted a great success and so different from freezing in the cheap seats (still like to sit in the north end though!).
If you would like to experience match day hospitality like this then take a look what's on offer at the Sunderland A.F.C. website.
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Wolverhampton 2010
(or the club with no beer!)
Last game of the season and hopes for 10th place in the league.
Our minibus left Horsham at 10am with eleven of us on board picking up one more (Harry) at Oxford services. Arriving in great time only to find away fans banned from all town centre pubs, and the place full of police & stewards. Having never had any trouble with home fans in any other ground we found this very strange. In fact our fans were just out for a good day with many in fancy dress.
ASDA came to our rescue so we set up our own "Wheatsheaf" in the car park. You all know the result of the match so will not dwell on that - so we finished in 13th place, I guess most of us would have settled for that last August!
Paul, our great driver, was tagged on to the police convoy and we sped through Wolverhampton with our police bike outriders stopping all the traffic for us. The look on their faces as we went around the roundabout and headed south while the rest of the coaches went north was a picture (we could almost hear them laughing at those silly sods going the wrong way!) we just hoped no one followed us.
The Dirty dozen were unanimous in saying "never again would we go to Wolves". We were not made to feel welcome and had no chance to have a bit of banter with the home fans and the pubs must have missed out on £££££££££££s!
We arrived back in Horsham about 10pm and once again, many thanks to Tony and Paul for arranging the bus and to Paul for driving. Roll on the new season!
Keep the faith.