Sunderland 'Til I Die - Netflix Documentary (December 14th Release Date)

Sebastian Dangerfield

Shame the documentary wasn't made while Roy Keane worked for Ellis Short. Would have been fun!

retalivity

Just finished it there.

Grayson was out of his depth, but Coleman came across as an absolute pillock. He was some man for corporate management speak, nearly as bad bain. I see they also didnt mention his 2m payoff that was negotiated into his contract in case of a takeover...
His wife is an absolute minx though.

Bret Hart

https://twitter.com/NetflixUK/status/1235169424254078978

w/s/p/c/

Looking forward to series II now seeing as we know it doesn't end up with promotion!

ricero

Anyone watching the new series ?

Only one episode in and that new chief executive already seems like a bit of a knobhead.

The owner seems like a likeable but somewhat dim fella.

Morzadec

ricero wrote: »

Anyone watching the new series ?

Only one episode in and that new chief executive already seems like a bit of a knobhead.

The owner seems like a likeable but somewhat dim fella.

Yeah watched ep 1 last night, totally agree he seems far more hateable than Martin Bain who a lot of people thought was a knob in season 1. A bit like David Brent but without the banter and more posh.

Immediately found myself wanting Sunderland to lose cos of him!

Looks like he'll be someone we'll all love to hate and should make the series interesting at least!

w/s/p/c/

On the 4th episode now myself will finish it off today. I thought the chief executive was very David Brent-ish after the first episode, but I think he's not the worst now. I think the owner and his intentions were in the right place. Enjoying it so far, prob no point in the 3rd series at this stage!

stryker mcqueen

I Cant understand why they didn't let Maja run his contract down ....his goals were the difference

ricero

Jasus watching the chairman so out of his depth when negotiating with Wigan for Will Grigg was hilarious but also quite sad.

His desperation and panic was like watching a cat trying to bury its own ****e on a marble floor.

glenjamin

ricero wrote: »

Jasus watching the chairman so out of his depth when negotiating with Wigan for Will Grigg was hilarious but also quite sad.

His desperation and panic was like watching a cat trying to bury its own ****e on a marble floor.

Especially after Jack Ross had rang Stewart Donald and told him not to bid anymore after a £1.25m bid had been lodged. Hearing Donald's logic of "what if he scores a hattrick in the playoff final?", just summed up how inept and out of his depth this guy really was.

Really enjoyable second series. The big takeaway so far is an even greater insight into how agents work and use their players as pawns to make a few quid for themselves. Seeing Maja play all dumb and innocent when repeatedly asked about his future was fairly disgusting when you knew his mind had been made up already. Can't blame him for taking the money and moving to Bordeaux though.

LeBash

ricero wrote: »

Anyone watching the new series ?

Only one episode in and that new chief executive already seems like a bit of a knobhead.

The owner seems like a likeable but somewhat dim fella.

The Chief Executive does come across like a full on pr1ck but to be honest, when you hear and see what's going on, I dont blame him.

The whole inactivity in the marketing, ticket sales, meetings etc. The guy was there to try to cut costs and lift revenue. The staff were deadheads and should have just been fired but he tried to work with them.

I understand there was a drop in 2 divisions and the adverse effect that would have on revenue but the 35 million shortfall that he close to fixed was super work and I think you need to have a lot of bull headed ignorant attitude to do that size of a task.

ricero

LeBash wrote: »

The Chief Executive does come across like a full on pr1ck but to be honest, when you hear and see what's going on, I dont blame him.

The whole inactivity in the marketing, ticket sales, meetings etc. The guy was there to try to cut costs and lift revenue. The staff were deadheads and should have just been fired but he tried to work with them.

I understand there was a drop in 2 divisions and the adverse effect that would have on revenue but the 35 million shortfall that he close to fixed was super work and I think you need to have a lot of bull headed ignorant attitude to do that size of a task.

Oh I totally agree. He actually grew on me a good bit as the series progressed. That woman he sacked although I felt sorry for her being layed off after Christmas, she did seem pretty useless and you could see the tension between them quite clearly.

Jimbob1977

ricero wrote: »

Oh I totally agree. He actually grew on me a good bit as the series progressed. That woman he sacked although I felt sorry for her being layed off after Christmas, she did seem pretty useless and you could see the tension between them quite clearly.

She actually still works for Sunderland in a different capacity

~Rebel~

Just finished season 2 now.

They're the Eastenders of football.

event

stryker mcqueen wrote: »

I Cant understand why they didn't let Maja run his contract down ....his goals were the difference

They just can't turn down that money, clubs never do that really

stryker mcqueen

event wrote: »

They just can't turn down that money, clubs never do that really

€1.5m? Promotion would have made them many multiples of that... A gamble I would take... Made even worse by splashing 3m on grigg

dreamers75

~Rebel~ wrote: »

Just finished season 2 now.

They're the Eastenders of football.

Would say there are far far worse, just not on Netflix.

~Rebel~

dreamers75 wrote: »

Would say there are far far worse, just not on Netflix.

Oh I didn’t mean it as a negative, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I meant it as being like Eastenders in the way it gives you a little hope, a little positivity, and then snuffs it all out so cruelly.

Sebastian Dangerfield

stryker mcqueen wrote: »

€1.5m? Promotion would have made them many multiples of that... A gamble I would take... Made even worse by splashing 3m on grigg

It sounded like he'd already gone in and cleaned out his locker before they even knew there was a bid, so he'd probably have just downed tools if they forced him to stay, and they'd end up with nothing.

franglan

Just on episode 4 here - interesting that Ross was saying that Grigg isint worth more than 1.25 mil and anything more would be stupid money. That's the manager who is desperate for a striker telling a chairman not to bring in a potential savour to his season... Edit - everyone is telling him...

RoryMac

Only 1 episode left and the 2 in charge seem to be a big improvement from the ones in charge last year aside from the idiocy on deadline day. Some of the staff around don't seem to have any grasp on the seriousness of the situation.

The club really should've been better prepared for Maja leaving, it was clear he had no intention of signing but to be scrambling around in the last few hours of the window throwing money at Will Grigg was a big mistake.

Really enjoy the show, hopefully they keep doing it

LuckyLloyd

McGeady is some player, and some pro. Comes out of these two documentaries very well imo.

KaiserGunner

Yeah I really enjoyed the two seasons of this. Was very interesting to watch and see some of the behind the scenes work that goes on at a football club. It was far superior of a watch than the All Or Nothing series on Amazon imo.

ERG89

Most (not all) come across as being completely unlikeable in this. The board talking about changing culture at the club while constantly reminding people about how bad of a position they are in, expecting high attendances regardless of form when they are in League 1, moaning about Northerners & pissing about negotiating for Maja who clearly wanted to leave months before he did. The Grigg deal happening on camera like it did was insane and a tragic comedy. The second season in a row where they are scrambling at 5 o'clock on a deadline day.

PARlance

RoryMac wrote: »

Only 1 episode left and the 2 in charge seem to be a big improvement from the ones in charge last year aside from the idiocy on deadline day. Some of the staff around don't seem to have any grasp on the seriousness of the situation.

The club really should've been better prepared for Maja leaving, it was clear he had no intention of signing but to be scrambling around in the last few hours of the window throwing money at Will Grigg was a big mistake.

Really enjoy the show, hopefully they keep doing it

Re the 2 in charge, they didn't strike me as competent tbh and they only looked better as it wasn't set against a backdrop of relegation. They showed a real lack of leadership and backbone the few times they were under pressure. No real leaders badmouth staff publicly imo (even if they are thinking it). Both making snide comments about the manager, staff etc. If they had been in charge the previous year, I think they would have looked just as bad as their predecessors.

The Maja/Grigg situation was utter incompetence. They blamed everyone bar themselves. It cost them 1.5m to sell Maja and get a much inferior player in. When a manager who is desperate for a striker says not to bother bidding more than 1.25m for a player... and the CEO ends up bidding 3m making David Brent look like Bill Gates..... just goes to show the incompetence.

Maja wanted to leave, fair enough, they should have told him he could leave in the summer for free. They would have been back in the Championship with his goals. Sunderland would have been better off and Maja and his agent would have done better as well. McGeady showed more understanding of the situation than them.

There was a small risk that Maja could have downed tools... but a very small risk. He would have been still playing for a big move that summer. It was there job to manage that situation.

They did manage to bridge the 25m gap to break even. We know 7m of that was in interest which they didn't have to deal with. I'm assuming the vast majority of the difference was made by releasing most of the squad that summer. They did seem to be more financially astute/aware but I still thought they were completely out of their depth.

Spideog Rua

How do you jump from 1.25m to 3m for Grigg? Seemed like pure panic

Also seem to be reusing shots of your man giving the two fingers for crowd celebrations in each episode so far.

jack presley

Spideog Rua wrote: »

Also seem to be reusing shots of your man giving the two fingers for crowd celebrations in each episode so far.

Is that the guy with the Coca-Cola bottle? I've seen him at least twice doing that.

Aidric

w/s/p/c/ wrote: »

On the 4th episode now myself will finish it off today. I thought the chief executive was very David Brent-ish after the first episode, but I think he's not the worst now. I think the owner and his intentions were in the right place.

LeBash wrote: »

The Chief Executive does come across like a full on pr1ck but to be honest, when you hear and see what's going on, I dont blame him.

The whole inactivity in the marketing, ticket sales, meetings etc. The guy was there to try to cut costs and lift revenue. The staff were deadheads and should have just been fired but he tried to work with them.

I understand there was a drop in 2 divisions and the adverse effect that would have on revenue but the 35 million shortfall that he close to fixed was super work and I think you need to have a lot of bull headed ignorant attitude to do that size of a task.

Agreed. Methven was sort of set up as the villain of the documentary with that short clip about the stadium anthem all over social media last week.

In reality he was tasked with a huge commercial overhaul. The fact that he managed to get the club to break even was impressive. The culture of the club was complacent and in no way aligned to the financial reality. I have no doubt that he and Donald's intentions were well intended.

The main takeaway for me from the 2 seasons was the humility of the fans and staff. I was left in no doubt about the importance of the club to the city, the playoff loss was gutting.

HalloweenJack

It's a shame there won't be any more of it for the time being, at least.

I've mixed feelings about Methven. He came across as a bit clueless and quite self-centred but he did try to change things around him. He was very corporate but he had a vision. He had a basis for a lot of his ideas, even some of them seemed a bit silly. He was right about the culture. There was one presentation where he was asking for people to challenge him and nobody said anything or another meeting where he asked for ideas and they had nothing. They can't really complain about him if they're not offering any alternatives.

What was he supposed to do? Just let it continue? He made a good point coming up to the play-off game where he was dithering over whether to push for more sales. He didn't want to let the momentum drop and have them think that it was ok to not meet targets or to keep pushing.

Like I said, it's a very business-like approach to football and the purists won't like it but the money they were spending in League One was ridiculous. They needed to cut costs and increase revenue. Identifying the first trip to Wembley as a possible financial boost and looking to make as much money as possible or getting the record attendance were examples of how he could spot an opportunity to make money.

I didn't like the way he was quick to turn on Ross when things went wrong. The same goes for Donald. Neither of them would have done any better. They seem to both be far too emotional when it came to football, typical armchair pundits, especially after Donald got played on deadline day. He seemed to be doing the things the right way for the most part but desperation got the better of him and, for all their talk of controlling the finances, he probably messed up the budget by doing that. The fallout of that was they caused a big problem for Ross cause he now had a record League One signing that wasn't scoring goals (4 in 18 that season according to Wikipedia). There was radio section that was quite telling where Donald looked uncomfortable about the questions being asked and to stop him digging a deeper hole, Methven cut across and tried to put the blame on Ross. Pretty cowardly, imo.

That said, I don't think Ross came across great either. Towards the end, he said something along the lines of as long as he felt he was doing as much as he could, he wouldn't change anything. On the one hand, it says a lot about his own confidence in his ability but it also seemed to be a bit fanciful, almost to suggest that if things aren't going well, he won't change it if he thinks it's right. A manager needs to be more flexible.

The fans were as interesting as ever, can't say much else about them. As for the players, I liked O'Nien. He seemed to have a good attitude about the game. I don't know about Maja. I don't know if he knew exactly what he was doing, his agent was controlling the whole thing or he just let the agent control the whole thing. It was good to see the talk about players' mental health as well. The gap between people's ideas about footballers and the fact that they are people was nicely summed up by the lad (Flanagan?) getting harassed in Tesco's.

event

stryker mcqueen wrote: »

€1.5m? Promotion would have made them many multiples of that... A gamble I would take... Made even worse by splashing 3m on grigg

Hindsight is great and all. but you'd very rarely see ay clubs let someone run down their contract

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

McGeady is some player, and some pro. Comes out of these two documentaries very well imo.

Agreed. But something has changed since. Sent on loan to Charlton because of his negative influence on the dressing room.

stryker mcqueen

event wrote: »

Hindsight is great and all. but you'd very rarely see ay clubs let someone run down their contract

I'm a Leeds fan , we let Jermaine Beckford walk on a free after scoring the goals to get us out of league 1 in fact he scored the winner to get us up , no hindsight required here , an naive and shocking decision from SAFC....compounded by then spending x2 on Grigg

PARlance

No hindsight needed. Donald even said in the previous episode (Nov/Dec) that losing Maja could cost them promotion.

Despite the way they tried to portray it, the ball was in their court and Maja had to play for his move. The Agent would have been just as happy lining his pockets even more so with a summer move. Pig headedness seemed to have gotten in the way by not wanting him to go for "free".

The 1.5m they got for him cost them multiples of that.

PTH2009

Enjoyed the 2nd series, not a fan of that Executive Director Director he seemed very rude to his staff. Not sure was his football knowledge as good as he let on either. The owner seemed more into football and was very passionate. Have to feel for the fans heartbreak after heartbreak

Football clubs are really the centre of everything in English cities/towns with it almost as important than a persons job/family etc. We see that with the fans watching every minute of the news on transfer deadline day. I get why fans cry at big games. Playoff finals esp the premier league promotion final is one of the most passionate games you can get

Chuck Noland

event wrote: »

Agreed. But something has changed since. Sent on loan to Charlton because of his negative influence on the dressing room.

Was it not to get him off the wage bill?

~Rebel~

Chuck Noland wrote: »

Was it not to get him off the wage bill?

Yeah, wonder if it's like the Jack Byrne at Oldham scenario, where (as he tells it) they wanted him off the wage bill and so manufactured 'disciplinary issues' to fine him for over and over to force him out.

Lads with genuine behavioral issues don't normally get loaned a division above where they're playing, like McGeady was..
Given what we saw in season 2, would have to figure getting rid of anyone on Championship level wages had to be priority number one.

event

Chuck Noland wrote: »

Was it not to get him off the wage bill?

Could be, that was the official reason but would very well be

event

stryker mcqueen wrote: »

I'm a Leeds fan , we let Jermaine Beckford walk on a free after scoring the goals to get us out of league 1 in fact he scored the winner to get us up , no hindsight required here , an naive and shocking decision from SAFC....compounded by then spending x2 on Grigg

I know, Im a leeds fan meself

They would have seen years of mismanagement of finances though and thought "We need to get money in here". I wouldnt blame the two lads much.

What they shoud have done is have a footballing person in though. And paying that for Grigg when the manager tells you no is madness.

Ferris_Bueller

Really enjoying the second season of this, just finished the episode where they played in the Checkatrade cup final. That episode was brilliant at capturing the fans feelings around a cup final like that, the optimism before hand, the pandemonium when there is a goal, the unbearable nerves of a penalty shootout, great episode!

I actually like Stewart Donald in this, the episode where they signed Will Grigg you could see his mind going 100 miles an hour. I think he was probably afraid how it would look if they didn't sign anyone and if they did that it would draw comparisons with the previous owners, but overall I get the impression that his heart is in the right place. Not sure what to make of the Charlie Methven guy, initially I thought he was a complete and utter knob but the more it goes on you can see why he is acting the way he is sometimes. I reckon if he wasn't so posh he would be a lot more likeable.

Can't remember exactly how the season ended for Sunderland so looking forward to seeing how it ends in the final episode.

DeanAustin

Ferris_Bueller wrote: »

Really enjoying the second season of this, just finished the episode where they played in the Checkatrade cup final. That episode was brilliant at capturing the fans feelings around a cup final like that, the optimism before hand, the pandemonium when there is a goal, the unbearable nerves of a penalty shootout, great episode!

I actually like Stewart Donald in this, the episode where they signed Will Grigg you could see his mind going 100 miles an hour. I think he was probably afraid how it would look if they didn't sign anyone and if they did that it would draw comparisons with the previous owners, but overall I get the impression that his heart is in the right place. Not sure what to make of the Charlie Methven guy, initially I thought he was a complete and utter knob but the more it goes on you can see why he is acting the way he is sometimes. I reckon if he wasn't so posh he would be a lot more likeable.

Can't remember exactly how the season ended for Sunderland so looking forward to seeing how it ends in the final episode.

I'm in the exact same position as you. Finished that episode last night and it really was a rollercoaster that captured the emotions of being a football fan so well. I don't support Sunderland and didn't know the result of the Pompey game but I was kicking every ball and feeling it with the fans. It was amazing, everything from elation to utter frustration and despondency. Exactly what being a football fan is.

I think Donald and Methven have their hearts in the right place but Methven is primarily a business guy. You could see that when the young lad was making a proposal to give more tickets for the final to real fans and Methven cut over him to say "I'm gonna stop you there because my way makes more money". Of course that's the antithesis of what a fan wants to hear but that was Methven's job.

I couldn't believe Donald's carry on with Grigg because, logically, I'm thinking "You're f**king nuts, don't do it. Someone stop him." I was nearly shouting at the tv.

But the football fan in me was thinking "just get the lad, imagine if he takes you up". You could see in his head that he knew it was crazy but you could also see he couldn't help himself and was always bending over for Wigan. It was a tough position to be in but his job as chairman is not to behave like a fan so he did get it wrong.

Fascinating programme - looking forward to the rest of it.

RoryMac

Does anyone know if they were filming this season?

Would be fascinating to watch the current situation unfolding up to the season being halted and also the owner made a remark to his wife when she was pushing him to consider selling that if she thought he was stressed this year she couldn't imagine how stressed he'd be in the following season if they missed out on promotion. I'd imagine they were seriously banking on promotion and another round of massive cuts were needed to survive another season in League 1

Chuck Noland

It’s said earlier in this thread they didn’t film this season at all

Father Hernandez

Chuck Noland wrote: »

It’s said earlier in this thread they didn’t film this season at all

Such a pity, for everything that happened during the filming, if it was scripted you’d almost say it was a bit too unbelievable with results on the pitch and some of the stuff off the field. (Maja, Grigg, etc)

Thoroughly enjoyed the 2 seasons, even with Covid19, it’d be a good season nonetheless.

Hope they get upto the PL soon. Could say it about any club but they deserve it, big club, passionate fans, etc.

Chuck Noland

Father Hernandez wrote: »

Such a pity, for everything that happened during the filming, if it was scripted you’d almost say it was a bit too unbelievable with results on the pitch and some of the stuff off the field. (Maja, Grigg, etc)

Thoroughly enjoyed the 2 seasons, even with Covid19, it’d be a good season nonetheless.

Hope they get upto the PL soon. Could say it about any club but they deserve it, big club, passionate fans, etc.

Couldn’t agree more. First 2 seasons were brilliant. Especially if you don’t keep track of how they are doing during the season. The main thing I didn’t like is the undermining of Jack Ross. As an owner you don’t do this. You back the manager publicly to the hilt no matter what

ERG89

Chuck Noland wrote: »

It’s said earlier in this thread they didn’t film this season at all

Maybe I'm wrong but it felt like they had less in the second half of the second season which would be around the time the first season would have debuted on Netflix. Sunderland have to be aware that they look stupid quite often so probably pulled back on access despite it likely being an earner for them.

Underground

I know Methven came across as brash and confrontational but given the culture he found himself engulfed in, I don't think he had any other choice but to play the bad guy.

One of the first scenes of the new season, he's at a meeting with the commercial team and he asked the room if anyone knew how much the club's interest payments on it's debt were, nobody knew the answer. Fcucking astounding. He said himself the culture and the way the club had been operating were "absolutely f**ked", he wasn't exaggerating. To turn that around to the point where they were breaking even by the end of the season is pretty impressive.

Chuck Noland

Underground wrote: »

I know Methven came across as brash and confrontational but given the culture he found himself engulfed in, I don't think he had any other choice but to play the bad guy.

One of the first scenes of the new season, he's at a meeting with the commercial team and he asked the room if anyone knew how much the club's interest payments on it's debt were, nobody knew the answer. Fcucking astounding. He said himself the culture and the way the club had been operating were "absolutely f**ked", he wasn't exaggerating. To turn that around to the point where they were breaking even by the end of the season is pretty impressive.

He also mentioned it was in a presentation he sent too everyone to read prior to the meeting so you couldn’t blame him

CHealy

I really came to like Methven by episode 3 or 4. I know he comes across as the posh London boy up in the North telling the peasents how to run a business, and I suppose in a way he was, but they inherited an absolute mess of a club and I do believe the two of them had some great intentions. He had that Northern Irish marketing girl throwing her eyes up to the sky when he was giving a presentation, he had not one person questioning another presentation when he allowed them the floor, he even joked about planting a question. Seems like it was a rotten place to work.

AdamD

Underground wrote: »

I know Methven came across as brash and confrontational but given the culture he found himself engulfed in, I don't think he had any other choice but to play the bad guy.

One of the first scenes of the new season, he's at a meeting with the commercial team and he asked the room if anyone knew how much the club's interest payments on it's debt were, nobody knew the answer. Fcucking astounding. He said himself the culture and the way the club had been operating were "absolutely f**ked", he wasn't exaggerating. To turn that around to the point where they were breaking even by the end of the season is pretty impressive.

If it was up to the sales staff they would have targetted 30,000 ticket sales for that Boxing day match, none of them believed they could hit 40,000, they end up selling far more than that again. Didn't like his behaviour but he was probably at his wits end dealing with those attitudes

RoryMac

Underground wrote: »

I know Methven came across as brash and confrontational but given the culture he found himself engulfed in, I don't think he had any other choice but to play the bad guy.

One of the first scenes of the new season, he's at a meeting with the commercial team and he asked the room if anyone knew how much the club's interest payments on it's debt were, nobody knew the answer. Fcucking astounding. He said himself the culture and the way the club had been operating were "absolutely f**ked", he wasn't exaggerating. To turn that around to the point where they were breaking even by the end of the season is pretty impressive.

And it was in the handout given to them before the meeting!

At the end of the meeting where he just outlined how serious the situation was and that major changes were needed to keep the club afloat and he asks if anyone has any questions or comments and not a peep from any of the 30 or so in the room. Same when he asked for ideas on PR they could run coming up to the boxing day game, just blank looks.

He worked wonders turning it around

elefant

My favourite Methven moment was when he was having a discussion with one guy from his marketing team about how to rally the fans for the home playoff semi-final. The lad suggested short videos from the manager and players to get the supporters behind the team again after a poor run of results.

Methven likes the idea of a rallying call but 'Yes. I think we need... Stewart'.


I get that he had a tough job in changing bad practices and poor professionalism in the club, but the stench of self-importance that I got from him and the owner was overwhelming. The half-time armchair punditry and public slatings of the manager (Jesus, that radio interview!) were cringeworthy.