Tony Gillan: Let's hope slogans disappear from Sunderland's stadium screen soon

This means that paying customers have less information than the pretend-fans in pubs.

Sadly the screens are otherwise occupied with beaming out inane platitudes.

Most notable on Sunday was: “Unity is strength. # Keep the faith.”

This cringey precept is not unlike several others from Nineteen Eighty-Four.

It is also similar to “Unity makes strength” as seen on the coat of arms of Haiti during the Duvalier dictatorship.

I wonder who came up with this hackneyed nonsense and put it on screens for people to swear at.

Did the club’s untalented spin doctors think it through? “Unity” by definition, involves everyone.

Will the 40 or so Martin’s Martyrs, the employees about to be dispensed with for reasons that remain unclear, feel stronger if they all trudge down to the job centre as one? Perhaps they will, it’s great in there; take a picnic.

Or was the club appealing for people to turn up and support the team by flashing the message to, er, people who have turned up to support the team – and suffered?

Here’s hoping that this vacuous sloganeering disappears forthwith. At best it’s eye-rolling. At worst it’s crass.