So did the Rolling Stones ever play Sunderland?

The Echo told how the club were approached by a third party for "preliminary discussions" over a potential show this summer.

Yet they could not agree a date that would safeguard the condition of the pitch in time for the start of the 2018-19 season.

So that begs the question as to whether singer Mike Jagger and co have ever performed in the city?

While the answer is yes, there are question marks over exactly where.

Author Richard Houghton, speaking to the Echo in 2015 to promote You Had To Be There: The Rolling Stones Live 1962-69, suggested that the band played four concerts at the former Odeon cinema, in Holmeside, between 1964 and 1965.

There is also a theory that the first two of these shows, which both took place on February 20, 1964, was actually at the former Top Rank club, in Bedford Street.

What is not in doubt is that the promoters had struck lucky by booking the band for Sunderland just before their first top 10 hit Not Fade Away was released.

By the time they returned to the city, again for two shows in one day, on March 9, 1965, they had bagged two United Kingdom number one hits and were arguably the biggest band in the world bar The Beatles.

While they have still to join a host of stellar names to perform at the Stadium of Light, the Stones have played concerts up the road at Newcastle United's St James's Park in 1982 and 1990.

Apparently the latter show was the best performance witnessed all year at the ground.

Mind, given Sunderland had beaten their neighbours 2-0 on their turf in the Division Two play-off semi-finals just months earlier, that is open to debate.