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Sol Campbell's signing for Newcastle is almost confirmed. For the ill-informed, such as Daily Mail writer Colin Young, Campbell's signing represents Newcastle getting one over Sunderland, as he chooses black and white over red and white ... only that's not quite right ...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1298092/NORTHERN-EXPOSURE-Sol-Campbell-Titus-Bramble.html Colin Young of the Daily Mail incorrectly perpetuates the myth that Sol Campbell ‘snubbed’ our offer in favour of Newcastle. Such is his blatant amateurism over a subject concerning our team, who he seems to have no knowledge of, he seems content to assume that there was some form of player stealing involved from our more northern neighbours. He cites that Newcastle fans will be celebrating more heartily with their capture of Sol Campbell than we will over our signing of Titus Bramble. Whether conveniently, or just from a lack of research, he is unable to understand that the signing of Campbell to Newcastle was made some time after Steve Bruce himself had ruled the club out of the chase. It was only then that Newcastle raced to the front of the queue, beating Celtic to Campbell’s signature – a foregone  conclusion given his insistence on moving to a club in the north east to stay close to his new bride. At no point was there ever any ‘snubbing’ of teams involved in the battle for his signature, we ruled ourselves out of the chase once we signed Titus Bramble and Newcastle continued to pursue their target, eventually signing him. Mr Young’s foolishness doesn’t end there, though. He wrongly assumes that Wigan fans were nonplussed to see the back of Bramble, further playing into the common held belief that people still see the Titus Bramble of Newcastle infamy, and not the one who has flourished while at Wigan. While perhaps tears weren’t shed and fans didn’t threaten to charge headfirst off the end of the pier, many Wigan fans were disappointed to see Bramble leave. Here is a player who came on leaps and bounds under the tutelage of Steve Bruce when he was manager of their club, something Sunderland fans hope will repeat during his stay on Wearside. Young, however, may be onto something when he claims that we were possibly put off by Campbell’s wage demands, as anyone following our transfer dealings this season will know that the financial belt has been tightened by several notches – the refusal to chase Stephen Ireland a clear indication of that. Yet, Young appears to assume Newcastle, who have strengthened their team on free transfers and players from the Championship so far, are willing to throw buckets of cash at an ageing player. Far be it for me to defend our neighbours, but Chris Hughton has so far conducted himself very well in the transfer market and the idea that he would risk so much money on a deteriorating player is bizarre. Also bizarre is the notion that, at £750,000 to £1m, Titus Bramble is viewed as a ‘risky’ signing by Bruce. In today’s market, where English players are transferred at upwards of 75% their actual value, Bramble’s transfer resembles value for money. * Picture of Sol Campbell, here playing for Arsenal, taken from flickr.com and uploaded by lucidnost. ** Picture of Titus Bramble backing the bid was taken from England 2018 Bid's flickr.com account.
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