Stewart Donald reacts to his appearance on Sunderland 'Til I Die and reveals whether he regrets agreeing to the Netflix season

Stewart Donald has no regrets over allowing the Netflix cameras into his life – even if he found the second series of Sunderland ‘Til I Die a difficult watch.
Sunderland owner Stewart Donald has reacted to his appearance on Sunderland 'Til I DieSunderland owner Stewart Donald has reacted to his appearance on Sunderland 'Til I Die
Sunderland owner Stewart Donald has reacted to his appearance on Sunderland 'Til I Die

The Sunderland owner was quizzed on his involvement in the docu-series during an appearance on talkSPORT’s ‘Game Day’ podcast and, while admitting he didn’t particularly enjoy reliving the season, he felt it offered an accurate depiction.

“Well I didn't like watching it for a number of reasons,” said Donald.

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“Living through it, it was very, very strange the first few times the cameras were on you and I don't think there's any coincidence that in those few instances that they put those cameras on us, not many of those clips have actually made it through. I don't think they were particularly natural.

“But after a while you do get used to the camera being there and in lots of ways, what the documentary has managed to do is really capture those moments without them being staged. They're all real-time, they're all real emotion and it probably took a little while for us to just relax.”

So what were the main driving forces behind agreeing to a second season?

Donald explained: “My initial thought with it was that there aren't many football clubs that can have a global brand, but if you have a Netflix documentary and it goes right you can get that out to the world and maybe, just maybe, you might get a few people come along and get emotionally involved who might not have known about Sunderland.

“On that basis, I thought let's do it.”

That’s not to say it was all positive, though.

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While there were some moments featured that Donald confesses he would prefer were not included, he has no regrets over his involvement.

“There are some downsides,” he admitted.

“I think in any football club, the relationship with your manager, the fans, the players, sometimes in the heat of the moment you might say the odd thing after a game that you don't mean or it was just emotion. Players do it, managers do it, chairmen do it.

What you want to do is build a football club that is united and one team, and if some of those things aren't shown to do that then that in itself isn't good and you want to try and avoid that.

“But I think on balance, and for our fans, it's great for them to get a greater understanding and see things as they happened - albeit after the event.

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“It's something that's there forever and when you live through it you don't get a chance to see what a football club is really, really like.

“A lot of these documentaries really focus on the players and the changing rooms, and I think the guys at Fulwell did a really good job on making the show more than just about the team and about the characters around it.

“I think from that perspective it's good TV, and if our name goes out to millions of people on Netflix that can only be good for the club.”

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