As a Danish\/Norwegian fan who unfortunately hasn\u2019t been in Sunderland since 2015, it seems as though the city is prospering much more now than before? In that case, it\u2019s well deserved for the wonderful local people.<\/p>\n
I hope and think that I\u2019ll be able to go back to Sunderland now and then in the long term future \u2014 even if my personal situation makes it difficult in the short term.<\/p>\n
I have fond memories of my trips to Sunderland around 2009-2015. Sunderland is a wonderful place; nice and down to earth people and a very underrated place. In my opinion, modern Western people people are pretty narcissistic yet when it comes to this flaw, Sunderland offers a positive contrast to many other places \u2014 and of course, it\u2019s great to see how brilliantly Kyril Louis-Dreyfus has restored Sunderland AFC.<\/p>\n
He seems to have made the club world class. The new Brentford, but with a higher ceiling, a big fan base, \u201ca proper club\u201d as Roy Keane has said.<\/p>\n
At this moment in time, there seems to be few \u2014 if any \u2014 clubs in the world that are as good as Sunderland when it comes to growing the budgets, getting the most out of a limited budget, and creating a brilliant culture within the club. The hen and the egg. Many positive parts impact each other. What a transformation!<\/p>\n
I hope that the local community will manage to keep Dreyfus feel appreciated and happy here so that he\u2019ll want to stay for decades. Hopefully he will want to stay with Sunderland \u2018til he dies, as he might be one of the best things that ever happened to the local community.<\/p>\n
The same goes for many others \u2014 such as Speakman, R\u00e9gis Le Bris, Ghisolfi, Xhaka, O\u2019Nien, Isidor, Mayenda, Mukiele, Ballard, Hume, Roefs, Reinildo, Sadiki, Diarra, Rigg, Talbi, Harrison Jones. Phil Smith, Nick Barnes, James Copley, Jason Jones, Scott Wilson, Dom Shaw and the people at Roker Report.<\/p>\n
Wonderful, competent, dedicated people \u2014 many of them here now.<\/p>\n
Ed\u2019s Note [Phil]: Hi, Dan. Thank you for your letter.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no doubt that the city of Sunderland is currently in the midst of a real renaissance, with exciting new developments breaking ground and the impressive Keel Crossing standing proudly as the new centerpiece of the matchday experience.<\/p>\n
Suffice it to say, it\u2019s been extremely welcome and with the football club also on an upward trajectory, these are heady times for everyone of a red and white persuasion. Given that we\u2019ve experienced plenty of tough times during the past decade, the upturn in fortunes has been spectacular and as you say, those running the club should be given a tremendous amount of credit for their hard work.<\/p>\n
If you can get yourself to a home game in the near future, I don\u2019t think you\u2019ll be disappointed. The Stadium of Light is a very happy place right now \u2014 and long may it continue!<\/p>\n
Amid all the criticism and anger about David Moyes, let\u2019s put all that to one side and just remember what the Everton match is also about.<\/p>\n
Wasn\u2019t this the game where The Bradley Lowery Foundation came to the forefront courtesy of Jermain Defoe, with donations and support from the supporters \u2014 and didn\u2019t we reciprocate with support for them?<\/p>\n
A request has gone out across a few social media pages for all of us to show support for one of our own who passed away this week: a very brave girl called Anna.<\/p>\n
The request is to applaud at the ninth minute to celebrate this girl\u2019s short life.<\/p>\n
Ed\u2019s Note [Phil]: Hi, Paul. Thank you for getting in touch.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m certain that tonight\u2019s game with Everton will take place amid a highly-charged atmosphere and that both the home and away supporters will be eager to pay their respects to Anna on the ninth minute.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s our first appearance on Monday Night Football since we were promoted back to the Premier League, so let\u2019s hope the Lads embrace the occasion and emerge with another positive result!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a Danish\/Norwegian fan who unfortunately hasn\u2019t been in Sunderland since 2015, it seems as though the city…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[101610,218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-241147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-fan-letters","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}