Chris Dunlavy

Michael Beale reckons Sunderland fans don’t like his accent. He’s wrong. What they dislike is his patter.
In the north-east, nobody likes a gobs***e. Nobody wants to hear about how talented you are or all of the fabulous things you’ve done.
“Nee-one likes a show off,” was a constant refrain from my own childhood, which I spent in a former mining village within spitting distance of the Tyne.
To boast about anything, however impressive, was to invite contempt and mockery. Your family might do it gently; your friends were rather more savage. Either way, you quickly learned how h...