Bent glad he swapped bright lights for SAFC
Sep 12 2009 by Luke Edwards, The Journal
DARREN Bent's move to Sunderland is already giving the striker plenty of reasons to believe he has found the ideal club to bring out the best in him.
Significantly, while Bent was born in Tooting, south London, he spent much of his childhood in rural Cambridgeshire.
It was there he was spotted by scouts from Ipswich Town, and the 25-year-old describes his time at the Suffolk club as the happiest of his career. Although he turned down a move to Newcastle United in 2003 when he was just 18, it was a need for regular first-team football rather than an aversion to moving so far north which shaped the decision.
“I live in Gateshead and have been around Newcastle quite a bit,” he explains.
“I have had to have my scarf around my face. It has not been too bad. You get the odd comment, but the people are great up here, friendly and mad about their football.
“I went to a restaurant a couple of weeks ago in Newcastle and it was right next to the stadium. I parked up and thought ‘this is busy, I wonder why.’
“Then I realised they had a home game. It took half-an-hour to sneak out of my car.”
Bent may live on Tyneside, but it is football matters on Wearside which brought him there. It is a move which has already galvanised him.
He said: “We played well against Blackburn and Bolton and let ourselves down against Stoke. Chelsea, well they will be up challenging for the every honour. We have to keep our heads up and keep going. A finish in the top ten would be an achievement.
“We have got a really wealthy owner, a great chairman and an excellent manager. Niall Quinn is great.
“He understands where players are coming from. He talks to the players a lot, if they are having problems or need a chat.
“The manager has been brilliant. He is always talking and joking with us. That is what you need in a manager. Someone who is on a level playing field with the players.
“Some managers you don’t see too often on the training pitch, maybe on a Thursday or a Friday, because they stay in their office. That doesn’t help. Steve is always out there, even training with us at times.”
Should Bent continue his extremely promising partnership with Kenwyne Jones against Hull City today he may well get a rough ride from the travelling support after he used his Twitter site to deny he had any intention of signing for them even if they outbid the Black Cats.
He is keen to try to repair some damage, adding: “These are the games we need to win. Hull and Stoke were also interested in me over the summer.
“Through the Twitter thing, I obviously made it clear I wanted to come here and not to go there, which is why the Stoke fans annihilated me last week.
“I didn’t mean anything by it, and the last thing I’d want to do is disrespect another club.
“I was just desperate to come to Sunderland because they’d put a lot of work into signing me.”
