The Football Echo is coming back: celebrating an institution

Eeeeee! When I were a lad we had something called the Football Echo.

Actually, seeing as it was printed between 1907 and 2013, there was a Football Echo when everyone were a lad. Or a lass.

In its heyday it was virtually the sole source of footy information for Wearside, with all the results and fixtures, from the apex of British football, right down to the Cowies five-a-side league. Readers would marvel at how it would arrive in the shops an hour after the final whistle.

People who had moved away from Sunderland would patiently await its arrival in the post. In the meantime they could become mildly obsessed with how the Willow Pond had fared against the Imperial Vaults in the quarter-final of the Pronto Plumbers trophy (who wouldn’t?).

Lauded for its pink pages (ructions when it briefly turned white), cavernous information and little “Football Echo Man”; it might be a cliché to refer to it as “an institution”. But so what? It was.

As a child, if Sunderland won pater would send me to buy a copy at the earliest opportunity (if they’d lost he waited until Sunday morning).

If he was in a good mood I could keep the change and, seeing how he only sent me when the lads had triumphed, he was, almost by definition in a good mood. Happy days, and more Opal Fruits and vodka for me.

Information wasn’t its only attraction. A highly detailed, unrivalled match report was craved, particularly by those unable to attend games.

But the highlight for me was the readers’ letters. Every contributor seemed extremely well-educated on football matters. That isn’t to say they all agreed, or didn’t sometimes write the sheerest flapdoodle.

No matter. They presented honestly held opinions, which was all that mattered; be it clever, amusing, angry, sad – or downright bonkers.

Furthermore, they collected and considered their views before sharing, candidly, eloquently and, crucially, with their names appended.

This is treasured still more now when social media offers such abundant falsehood, pettiness, crassness, gullibility, name-calling, foul language and feeble grasp of the English language.

But the paper’s main appeal was perhaps that it was entirely Sunderland’s. Long live the Football Echo. Again.

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