Leadbitter has bad memories of 2003

May 12 2009 By Stuart Rayner, The Journal

AS the only first-team survivor at Sunderland from the brutal cull of 2003, Grant Leadbitter knows better than most the full price of relegation.

Six years ago with the Black Cats, naive to the full financial horror of dropping out of the Premier League, Leadbitter was a 17- year-old playing for the club’s junior teams who witnessed first-hand its impact on the wider football club.

Drastic surgery to the squad was accompanied by 70 off-field redundancies and although the club learned its lesson and will not be caught with its trousers down again, Leadbitter is still anxious not to go through it once more.

"It’s massive, absolutely massive that we keep Sunderland in the Premier League," he stressed. "Massive for the fans, the owner, the chairman. It’s also massive for the people at the club who you don’t really know about.

"When we went down in 2003, there were cuts in the club – the cleaners, the chefs, I remember Al the bus driver lost his job. I was at the club and I might have only been young but I remember those things. It wasn’t a good feeling. It’s all about staying in this league and I would like to think we’re all going to do everything possible to make sure it happens.

"As a player who experienced it, it is in the back of your mind, you don’t want it to happen again but it’s about this team, this year, sticking together with the staff and doing well."

Since Sunderland’s annus horribilis and other similar horror stories around that time, they have grown wise to the dangers. Clauses are now commonplace in playing contracts cutting wages on relegation from the Premier League. There was no widescale blood-letting needed when Sunderland went down in 2006 and there is no suggestion of it, if the worst were to happen this May.