Let's all get behind the Sunderland-wood film studios plans and ignore the usual bleating

Who does he think he is, coming round here with his ambition? Smearing the place with positivity? Just because he knows what he’s talking about he thinks he can say it.

Those who think Fulwell 73 is solely concerned with fly-on-the-wall documentaries about our football club would do well to look more closely. This is big time and could create thousands of jobs.

Outsiders may therefore be surprised to hear Mr Pearlman, a Mackem, adding: “I have a real problem with people saying they can’t see it happening. I think that is an unfortunate characteristic of this city for a long time.”

Insiders, on the other hand, were not exactly shocked to the toenails. Happily, the whingers are in their usual vocal minority. Everyone else is justifiably excited.

Now that the side-splitters about Meryl Streep nipping into Steels Club for a pint of snakebite are done, we can show support; support that could impress upon those who can make it happen how much it would achieve.

Of course, it’s reasonable to only believe in something this bountiful when it happens. The proposed 10,000-capacity arena in the city centre is a case in point.

However, this is well distant from emphatically declaring on (where else?) social media that it will “never happen”. We recall that Keel Square, the Northern Spire, Stadium of Light and, yes, Nissan would never happen either.

The same was doubtless said of the Victoria Viaduct and Penshaw Monument (“never get all that stone up a hill”). The Venerable Bede was probably told to wind his neck in about building St Peter’s.

Regrettably, neck winding is beyond the capabilities of Wearside’s more devoted whingers; those whose only pleasure in life is spending money in other cities, where they park for thruppence a month having put free petrol into their cars to get there.

If the naysayers are proved correct, expect to never hear the end of it.

If they’re wrong – enjoy the silence.