SOCCER ANGLES:In 2003 Mick McCarthy took over a demoralised Sunderland with few games left to avoid the big drop. Not unlike the Newcastle situation now

THE IDES of March, 2003. Mick McCarthy walks out on the turf at the Stadium of Light for the first time as manager of Sunderland. There is suddenly optimism where there had been only desperate and bitter pessimism. Howard Wilkinson’s tenure as McCarthy’s predecessor was 19 Premier League games long, which featured two wins and, in the 10 games prior to McCarthy’s arrival, nine defeats. Sunderland were bottom of the Premier League and in free fall.

As jobs go, this was one to swerve. The new manager was being asked to deliver a miracle: he had nine games to save a club.

But McCarthy took the post anyway. This was his first time back in club management and he made an immediate impression as he stood tall and talked up a demoralised staff and crowd.

“Sunderland is a proper football club,” McCarthy said. Five years on even Roy Keane would admit to admiring McCarthy for his rousing words that day of introduction.

Then first match-day came. Proving McCarthy right, over 42,000 turned up to watch a side that had not won at home for exactly three months. The opposition were Bolton Wanderers, who were fourth-bottom. In punters’ parlance, this was “winnable” and it was 0-0 at half-time, which was encouraging. But by the 10th minute of the second half Bolton were two up. And that was that.

Sunderland never recovered and to the proud McCarthy’s obvious embarrassment, lost every game after that. Nine played, nine defeats; goals against, 19, goals for, 2. Humiliation upon relegation.

It was possible to imagine McCarthy watching television on Thursday afternoon and thinking he knew just how Alan Shearer felt as he was introduced at a similar club in similar circumstances at the same stage of yet another disjointed North-east season.

McCarthy might argue that while Shearer has the talents of Michael Owen to call on, he had Kevin Kyle at number nine, but there is some sort of parallel in the circumstance.

After Peter Reid and Wilkinson, McCarthy was the third official manager of the season at Sunderland; after Kevin Keegan and Joe Kinnear, Shearer is the third at Newcastle. Although Newcastle are better placed than Sunderland were then, they are 18th rather than bottom, Shearer has a game less in which to turn matters around. And Newcastle’s run-in is of Aintree proportions.

Results proved otherwise, but Sunderland had games such as the Bolton one and West Brom, both at home, that on paper looked inviting to a team stimulated by the arrival of a new boss. Shearer will have stared at Portsmouth, Middlesbrough and Fulham at St James’ Park and thought those three hold the potential for points. The situation might not be quite as bad as it looks.

It is just that before Portsmouth arrive at the end of this month, Newcastle face Chelsea today, then Stoke City away and Tottenham away. It says something of Shearer’s stature that prior to Wednesday you would have thought Newcastle could maybe only chip out a point from those three.

Even as it is now, that still could be the return. Chelsea are embroiled in a title race and have won 10 of their 15 away games this season. Stoke have won eight games this season – all of them at home. And Tottenham have just beaten Chelsea at home, a week after winning away at Aston Villa. It is enough to send a man back to punditry.

But inspiring otherwise sensible, pensioned folk to dream is what football and sport does. Moreover, like McCarthy, Shearer is a processed product from an industry that takes you in as a teenager and shows you a world of untold riches and comfort. You become part of it; it becomes part of you.

The fakers and liars don’t merit a mention then, but McCarthy and Shearer will have seen their share and deep down Shearer knows the Newcastle dressingroom contains “characters” he would not allow inside his front gate at home.

But part of a manager’s remit is to ignore such human failings, particularly in a relegation fight. It was said – and is said – that one of Harry Redknapp’s greatest attributes as a manager is to, well, lie to his players, tell them continually how brilliant they are as players and people and thereby take the FA Cup back to Portsmouth 67 years after they had previously won it. It is hard to believe that Redknapp is alone in this, he is a bit too easy to dismiss as a caricature.

At the end of his first nine games McCarthy could not lie to anyone at Sunderland. The table doesn’t, as they say.

Talking up underachieving or, worse, inadequate players was easier than coaxing victory from them. That Sunderland team was battered by the time McCarthy got there.

Newcastle’s are not in the same condition. True, the statistics show one win in the last 12 league games – and that against West Brom – six wins all season – two of which were against West Brom – but there is more ability for Shearer to call on than McCarthy had available.

Yesterday’s bulletin from Chelsea stating that Didier Drogba is out of today’s match – Chelsea have a match at Anfield in something called the Champions League next Wednesday – will be seized upon as a first effect of Shearerism. A full stadium will be the second. But if Shearer is standing on his own on the touchline 10 minutes into the second half as Chelsea, 32 points better off than Newcastle, take control, Mick McCarthy’s bacon slicer will seem as apt as ever.

CROKE PARK on Saturday night, Windsor Park on Wednesday night. Two average teams with the word Ireland in their name striving to overcome mediocrity, in the shape of themselves and the opposition, so that, just maybe, a play-off place might be achievable come October.

Two sets of supporters singing two anthems and two sets of songs, some of them most predictable and reflective of two differing daily Irish realities.

There is an argument that post-Troubles (allegedly) Ireland remains two nations and that no matter how many Grand Slams are won or All-Ireland titles contested, it will stay that way for the foreseeable. Sport is irrelevant.

You can either recognise the Border or not and by all means dispute the two-nation idea, but two cultures? In Irish life, in Irish sport, if we are what we read, watch and inhale, then two cultures it is.

One week after the Ireland rugby team had most of the island cheering, the two football/soccer teams had brought back another Irish truth. In Dublin, Northern Ireland’s victories (boo) over Poland and Slovenia received approximately less coverage than Wales losing to Finland and Germany; in Belfast, Windsor had revelled in the demise of the Holy Goalie, Artur Boruc, of Celtic (boo).

Frankly, while you wish both Ireland teams well, if people are not even momentarily dismayed by the fact that the only time Jonny Evans and John O’Shea could play together is in the red of Manchester United, then they should think a bit more deeply about the state of Irish football.