Alastair Campbell Summarises The Sunderland Game


By Alastair Campbell
April 19 2010

As I explained last week, a diary disaster meant I missed yesterday's game at the Stadium of Light. I was hosting the 50th anniversary celebrations of Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, of which I am chairman of fundraising. For some reason I had always thought it was on a Sunday. I was wrong. So instead of being up north, I was at a London hotel.

At the home fixture – a great win – I had arranged to meet Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn for pre-match lunch at the return fixture, with Sunderland-supporting Labour MP Hilary Armstrong. Niall also missed the match yesterday, victim of the volcanic ash flight-grounding. So Hilary was all on her own, texting me updates as I stood at a lectern and told the story of a great charity, This is Your Life style. I even had a red book.

And how's this for fate? The first text came through as I was interviewing Trish Stewart, one of the original Calendar Girls, whose naked Women's Institute exploits have raised more than £2 million for the charity. Trish is a Sunderland fan so we had been bantering about it all day.

One-nil Sunderland. I was deflated. Trish, and her husband in the audience, cheered. By the time I was on to Geoff Thomas, ex-Crystal Palace and England player, leukaemia survivor who now raises money doing amazing things like the Tour de France route a day ahead of the pros, another text came in. Two-nil. Then two-one, and a few minutes of hope before that was extinguished by two horrible words ... "all over."

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Alastair Campbell Summarises The Sunderland Game
Discussion started by TheLongside.co.uk , 19/04/2010 19:41
TheLongside.co.uk
19/04/2010 19:41
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19/04/2010 21:24
Hosting the 50th anniversary celebrations of Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research? on a match day?

Not a proper fan.

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