How Kevin Ball used player fines to fund Sunderland's head tennis courts

The Sunderland legend took temporary charge of the team on two occasions. First after the sacking of Mick McCarthy in 2006 and on a second occasion in 2013 after Paolo Di Canio.

The Black Cats announced the departure of Ball from his role as club ambassador in February 2022 with chairman and owner Kyril Louis-Dreyfus saying that Ball would “always be welcome’ at the club.”

Ball twice led the club to promotion to the Premier League and after retiring from playing would go on to play an integral role in the club’s academy, overseeing the development of players such as Jordan Henderson and Jordan Pickford.

On a recent podcast appearance, however, Ball revealed how he used player fines during his time as caretaker manager to fund some extra training equipment at the Academy of Light.

Speaking on the Undr The Cosh podcast, Ball said: "It's interesting him [Mandron] and George Honeyman played me and Robbie [Stockdale] at head tennis and we'd batter him and Mikael all the time. Him and Mikel were in the Under-21s at the time and it took them nearly two years to beat us.

"When I first went back there was no head tennis court they had stopped it. I couldn't understand it. Even one of the gyms at the training ground - I remember I think it was when I was manager when I took over from Mick [McCarthy] - one of the lads had gone back to France when he shouldn't have.

"He didn't come back when he should have so we fined him. I said to the club at the time, 'if we fine him this amount of money you're just going to keep it, it'll go back into the club. Why don't we do something with it?'

"The gym downstairs had a sprinting surface and you couldn't play tennis it just wasn't conducive for your joints or anything. We got a price for that and he can pay for it.

"I thought that was a better way of doing it rather than fining him and it going back in the coffers. Then all of a sudden you get it marked up and we used to encourage the players to go in and play when I was the youth manager and in the Under-21s.

"To a degree with sometimes I used to have to say they couldn't play on certain days because it was prior to a game and it tires your legs out and that. The lads loved it, absolutely loved it.

"Then it died off again I think because instead of using the training ground to enhance their skills, it was a case of should I go home on social media. Whereas going in there and practising your skills having a game of head tennis would have been a great way to end training."