With rumours circulating of a mystery consortium attempting to buy the club from Stewart Donald, Micky Gray confirmed his involvement in a widely reported interview with the British Football Podcast.
The rumour was that this group consisted of local successful businessmen and Sunderland fans. Gray confirmed that the recent attempt had “hit a brick wall,” but his group was open to further discussions.
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That said, Sunderland-born Gray made 363 appearances for Sunderland and earned three England international caps whilst at the club. Few would doubt his assertion or good intentions at the time, “it’s my club, the club that I love and I would want to try and do everything I possibly could to get the club to where it should be.”
In other news, a future Sunderland manager was flexing his brinkmanship muscles in the press as the transfer window began to excite, disappoint, and irritate fans and football people within the game up and down the country.
Tony Mowbray, the Blackburn manager, in a thinly veiled dig at the club’s owners, as well as bargaining for a bit of wriggle room with players’ agents, responded to press enquiries about his supposed pursuit of Sunderland goalkeeper Jon McLaughlin, whose contract expired at the end of June.
Having played at Harrogate, Bradford, and Burton Albion, McLaughlin had spent a season at Hearts before coming to Sunderland on a free transfer to play under Jack Ross. He had delivered a cracking season and had earned international recognition for Scotland — so much so that Stewart Donald had valued him at £5 million.
Four days after this report, McLaughlin left on a free transfer to Rangers, citing international ambition as his main motivator for the move. The reported news that Tom Flanagan and Chris Maguire had been offered new deals, while probably welcomed by fans, would have been offset by the expected loss of the popular and highly regarded McLaughlin!
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