Never mind Sun FM, maybe 107 Spark FM (the local community station) might fancy a go at football commentary - they already do quite a bit of sports coverage. Of course, they have even less money than Sun FM (i.e. none whatsoever), so unless Niall Quinn's prepared to give them a freebie, I guess it's not going to happen...

The Sun FM (Haining) transmitter covers too small an area, and does not extend to the former pit villages in Central Durham and Ashington, where a number of SAFC supporters live. They could not compete against Radio Newcastle

I remember many years ago Guy Mowbray used to do commentaries for Wear FM, with Bill Mantle being the summariser. Guy has gone onto bigger and better things with the Beeb, but what has happened to Bill?

Looks like it's just going to be BBC Newcastle coving the matches then. Bill Mantle I think is retired, although I have heard him freelancing. The last we in the NE heard of him was when I covered for Crabbers on a few games on Metro Radio.

I met Bill once at the match a number of years ago and he over as a very knowledgeable person and someone who was on the ball about footie!

Last season, Bill covered matches played in the North-East (mostly Newcastle or Sunderland home games in the Premier League) for IRN. He also reported for BBC WM on Tamworth's Conference Premier game at Gateshead during an international break.