Days of the local hero can't be bought

A year on the Wear:It was around 10.30 passing Bob Stokoe's statue on Wednesday night. The lone burger van had given up and was about to pull away. It was desolate around the Stadium of Light, though not suitably so.

The previous three-and-a-half hours had altered the mood of the week, Sunderland having eliminated Liverpool from the FA Youth Cup in a match of invigorating skill, commitment and goals. There were eight in all, with Sunderland scoring the last two of them in extra-time to pull through to the quarter-finals of a competition they last won in 1969.

Sunderland had also won it in 1967, and when the club experienced its finest modern moment, at Wembley in the FA Cup final against Leeds Utd in 1973, lads such as Billy Hughes, Richie Pitt and Mickey Horswill had made their way from youth team to first team.

That's what could happen then, that's what did happen. It would be great to think that could happen again, that the outstanding Martyn Waghorn, Jack Colback and Conor Hourihane could progress to the Sunderland first team and help them to win something major again.

Perhaps it will happen. But do not be placing bets, because the mere thought of it re-occurring is sullied by the name of Richard Scudamore. Watching Waghorn, passing Stokoe, it was still Scudamore's name and his mercenary plans for Premier League international expansion that dominated the week. Roy Keane's semi-endorsement of Scudamore made it all the more pertinent - and perplexing - to be on Wearside on Wednesday.

Standing amid the tunnel muck after the final whistle, Keane skipped by on his way out of the home dressingroom where he had been in to offer congratulations and encouragement. What Keane saw in front of him was a Sunderland side assembled from around the locality, except for Hourihane from Cork and Niall McArdle from Dublin.

Among the apprentices was a 15-year-old goal-scoring substitute called Ryan Noble who was back at his secondary school on Thursday morning.

It all felt very local and was the more beguiling for it. Liverpool's team had no such core. The striking midfielder Astrit Ajdarevic was born in Kosovo, the inside forward Daniel Pacheco comes from Spain. This could be said to be the future, although it is here and now at places like Anfield, Arsenal, Manchester United and Chelsea. One day it may be the same at Sunderland.

Kevin Ball manages this growing Sunderland side and was far from critical of Liverpool's foreign policy, recognising that this may be a route that Sunderland have to explore as the game becomes increasingly one of global expansion.

"That would be unfair on Liverpool, they have to recruit as they see fit, and, if they have the resources, great," Ball said when asked if Sunderland had shown greater unity of purpose. "As an academy you do have to give your local lads a chance, but in time we might step up our recruitment into Europe.

"But there has to be a strategy if you're going to go down the route of bringing in players from outside the area or outside the country. It can't be done willy-nilly, there's no guarantee players will settle.

"We only got a recruitment officer in less than two years ago. We used to have one, but the financial constraints the club then got into meant that we were trying to do everything ourselves. Gavin Oliver now oversees all of that, and he and the manager (Keane) and academy manager Ged McNamee have discussed the future, where we go from here in terms of recruitment. It may be top players from foreign countries, but it has to be at the right place at the right time."

Ball certainly did not want to say that Sunderland's obvious camaraderie stemmed solely from geography, though one of the Sunderland youngsters pointed out that a couple of the Liverpool players were not speaking fluent English on the pitch.

Talent should overcome such a hindrance, although it still begged the question on Wednesday: at what age is it suitable for a young player to leave his home and go to another country with a different language and culture in order to fight to be a professional footballer? Plenty of Irish boys have felt isolated down the decades and language has not been a factor for them.

And there is a difference between English clubs going out and recruiting players of whatever age to come to the Premier League, and the league taking itself out to foreign territories. It may not be a black and white difference, but Premier League clubs taking a teenager from France or Spain or Africa does not compromise other indigenous sports.

It may not help soccer in those countries, but in terms of free market economics, we reached that stage about a decade ago - though it would be interesting to see the reaction in England, for example, if German football was suddenly cash-rich and started poaching boys from Merseyside and Wearside.

Mr Scudamore and the chairmen might not be so happy about that but it might teach them to respect other countries, other leagues, other sports.

Other questions sprouted as Sunderland went 2-0 up, Liverpool fought back to 2-2, then 3-3 and then on and on into extra time - such as what will the alleged £5 million be spent on? What does it cover - Andy Reid's new contract?

But as Waghorn made the difference between Sunderland and a Liverpool team that had won the competition for the past two seasons and had knocked out favourites Arsenal in the previous round, another stronger thought occurred: it's Waghorn's game, it's Stokoe's game, it's not Scudamore's.

And certainly not his to sell.