Page 175 - 368603 LP250721 AWY AWY AWY Book (238pp A5)

1986. After those three shirts arrived a hundred smaller ones were donated by Sunderland A.F.C. for the junior players to wear and apart from benevolence there was a good reason for this donation as I will now explain.
The club was established in the growing suburb of Villa Urquiza in north-west Buenos Aires in 1921 after a group of local men who'd been gathering regularly at a friend's tailor's shop decided that they needed larger premises. The club was originally called the Black and White Club and it was both a social and a sports club. Funds were thin on the ground, however, and they couldn't afford to kit out the soccer team so they looked around for a local benefactor to put his hand in his pocket. Step forward the mysterious Mr Pitt, a wealthy farmer from not far away. Mr Pitt, whose first name has been lost in the sands of time, made the required donation but he stipulated that the name of the club be changed to Sunderland Club. I can only conclude that Mt Pitt was a British immigrant from Sunderland. Having coughed up the money and got the team going he mustn't have taken any further interest in where his money had gone because the club went out and bought a kit with the same colours as Newcastle United, no doubt wanting to retain a flavour of their previous incarnation. So we can understand Peter Reid's surprise when he saw the team dressed in the colours of his arch-rivals and why before too long they were wearing the red and white stripes that they still wear today. Over the years Peter Reid's visit had been the only personal contact with Sunderland A.F.C. apart from some correspondence in the
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