Sunderland: A Club Transformed is basically about what you think it’s about. Confused? Don’t be, that’s just my poor literacy skills coming into play. Author Jonathan Wilson examines how Roy Keane inspired Sunderland ’s remarkable recovery.

With the club in the relegation zone by the end of August, and dumped out of the League Cup by 92 nd placed Bury, Niall Quinn’s new beginning at Sunderland hadn’t got off to the best of starts.

But then Quinn pulled off the best move of all: persuading Roy Keane to take his place in the dug-out. Keane had 41 games to turn it around; the play-offs might just be reachable. What no one anticipated was a meteoric rise through the Championship, clinching the title on the final day of the season.

Sunderland, A Club Transformed, charts how Roy Keane achieved this turnaround; it examines how a defence leaking goals, a malfunctioning midfield and a less than prolific forward line, were shaped into a neat, attractive passing unit that remains virtually unbeaten in 2007.

Keane himself appears to have undergone a degree of transformation: from a hard-working and volatile staple of the Premiership, to a more understated and witty, but nonetheless steely, persona. As a manager he is a natural, and possesses a refreshing sense of perspective lacking amongst his contemporaries.

Interspersed with the match-by-match analysis, Jonathan Wilson, himself a Mackem, takes an elegiac walk along the banks of the Wear, travelling back to the Roker Park of his childhood and beyond, and examining seasons even more tumultuous (1912-13) than Mick McCarthy’s last season in the Premiership.

Priced at £16.99 it’s a must have for all Sunderland fans, if at anytime you’re down in the dumps this season, reading any page of this book will lift your spirits as last season was one of our greatest.

James Henderson

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