I'm ashamed to say that I happen to know that Steve McClaren is a regular reader of my blog and this is a personal message to him. So my apologies to all of you who are not the current England footbal team manager.

Steve mate, your country needs you to resign. Be a hero.

You might not realise how good it is to be a Sunderland fan.

You probably think that we are a yoyo team whose trophy room doubles as the vacuum cleaner cupboard. Well you might be right. You are right; but what you don't realise is that we hate the one team in the world that every other football fan would love to hate - Newcastle.

I should point out that the Newcastle trophy room sees even less action than the Sunderland one; less action than Anne Widdicombe even. They last won the FA Cup in 1955 and the League in 1926. Mind you, they have got damn close to the silverware a few times since but, much to the amusement of us Mackems, it always ends in tears.

Newcastle are the only team to lose FA Cup games at Wembley in 3 consecutive years. They famously threw away a 13 point lead in the Premiership in the same season as Kevin Keegan did his "Ah'd love it" rant and the tears flowed down the bare chests of the big Magpie lumps.

Whilst they were crying, we were too - with laughter. Just like we'd laughed in 1974 when Super Mac (Malcolm MacDonald) was reduced to desparate defending because he wasn't allowed a shot all game in the cup final that the Mags lost 3-0. We laughed when former Sunderland player Dennis Tueart scored from an overhead kick for Man City against them in the League Cup a few years later.

We laughed in 1990 when we were 2 - 1 up on aggregate at Sid James's Park in a play off final and they decided to have a pitch invasion. (They had tried that one previously, most notably in 1974 when they were forced to replay a game they had already won). That game effectively got us promoted that year.

In 2002 we laughed when they were 3-1 up in the Interpisspot Cup Final against Troyes Paperboys Reserves and eventually lost 4-3. This year they went a step further actually winning the alledged trophy. However the tickertape parade around the city never quite got off the ground; the trophy is so irrelevant they were informed about their 'victory' by post because no one had noticed. Still it was a route into the Uefa Cup and for some reason, winning the Uefa Cup is thought of as an achievent; in television circles if nowhere else.

After playing a series of teams of dentists and goat herders, Newcastle finally got to play a decent team in the Uefa cup. And after 20 minutes of the 1st leg of their last 16 game against AZ Alkamaar, they were 3-0 up and dreaming of a trophy again.

On Wednesday night it all went pear shaped again for them. Alkamaar managed the 2-0 win they needed to overturn the tie and Newcastle's season was over.

My brother rang me up and how we laughed!

We were still laughing today when we read of Glenn Roeder's excuse for the failure. It was his defenders! Well Duhhhhhh!!!!. Glen mate, you spent all your money on an injury prone striker who's only in it for the money, you should have spent a few bob on a defender or two.

Slagging off your players in public is the first move in the downward spiral that leads to the sack for a manager. I expect a few more giggles in the weeks (let's hope it's months!) ahead.