THERE was a real sense of pride when Sir Bob Murray chatted in his chair inside one of the meeting rooms at the landmark Beacon of Light earlier this week, even if it was tinged with sadness and the hint of a tear in his eye.

Twelve years after selling Sunderland to Niall Quinn and the Drumaville consortium for next to nothing in footballing terms, along with a state of the art training facility and 49,000-capacity home ground, Murray has helped to give something just as special to the club and Wearside.

The Beacon is a £20m community hub in the shadow of the Stadium of Light, where the club’s Foundation of Light, the charity he established in 2001 and remains a chairman of trustees, will call home.

So now, not only does Sunderland have first team facilities to rank among the best in the country, they have raised the bar in terms of providing a base for its charitable arm – and funding is entirely separate from the club.

If only Sunderland had the team to go with it …

Consett-born Murray, on a day when Beacon opened its doors to sponsors and the media, said: “I’m very emotional today, I thought I had left the club with the platform to go on to greatness, with the stadium and the academy, which is one of the best.

“I thought ‘I want to come back and produce this for the people’ - unfinished business if you like. A lot of people wanted to see it happen, nationally and regionally and we have done it.

“Nobody can take the club’s facilities away now. The club is bigger than the city, it can’t live on just the city to be truthful, it has to be a regional club and I recognised that in the early days.

“I wanted this club to be open, to bring the average age down, more women season ticket holders. I worked for 20 years to achieve that.

Murray was on the board at Roker Park when Sunderland last fell into the third tier of English football, and was the chairman when they won promotion back to the second tier the following year. He still finds it hard to believe his beloved club will be in League One come August.

“I can only leave it with you that we are now playing Accrington Stanley and Fleetwood,” he said. “That’s all I can say, what else can I say? That’s what I can say ... we are now playing, Sunderland will now be playing, Accrington Stanley and Fleetwood.

“It does hurt me. It’s hurtful that I am at the pinnacle of my life, today, giving something back to people I really love and my football team is where it’s at.

“There’s no rivalry any more in football, it’s become too serious, it’s not a joke any more, it’s got beyond a joke and it’s gone beyond ridicule. It’s gone too far.”

He finds it hard to envisage brighter times are just around the corner because he doesn’t know too much about Sunderland’s prospective new owner Stewart Donald, who has been granted EFL approval before taking over from Ellis Short next week.

Murray said: “It all depends who owns the club, doesn’t it? On the future, at the moment the EFL have to make a decision, and quickly, but they have to make the right decision and make sure they have all the facts in front of them.

“Before Stewart’s name came up I had never heard of him in my life. I don’t think it’s up to me to cast judgement on a guy I don’t know or even met.”

He added: “We all know this was the worst season in Sunderland’s history. There’s nothing else to say on that. I know football, I learned it, and when things are bad in football they can always get worse. That has always been the case, things can get worse, so why would that change? It depends on who owns your club.

“Have you got five weeks to chat about what is required to turn it around? I inherited a situation and I dealt with it. You have to be very committed to deal with it, very committed.”

When Murray sold up in 2006 he was satisfied things were in place to take the club forward. Initially Quinn, who appointed Roy Keane as the manager, delivered but things have turned sour in recent years after a number of poor decisions under Short’s ownership.

“I gave the club to Niall for £5.7m,” he said. “A friend of mine sold West Brom for £180m. West Brom’s not Sunderland and they went to a Chinese businessman. All I can do is what I did, I left this club with who I thought was the right people at the time.

“That’s all I can do, I can’t dictate from beyond the grave, I can only do what physically I can do. I think I got most things right here, I maybe got some things wrong, which I apologise for, it wasn’t intentional to get those wrong. I love these people, I think they are fabulous people.

“I don’t regret one thing. Where the club finished during my time is by the by, what I have done is built a football club, with great support. Built a platform, I did my bit.”

Murray still thinks that one day a Sunderland owner, whether it be Donald or someone else, will take advantage of an opportunity in place to increase the capacity of the Stadium of Light to 55,000 and, even, 66,000. Such thoughts seem a million miles away, given the top tier of the East Stand will be closed next season.

The club’s life president knows what has already been achieved, and for him to see the Beacon near its an official opening next month makes him just as proud as anything before.

The five-storey Beacon will open its doors so that the public can enjoy eight outdoor pitches, a nursery, 12 badminton courts, three basketball courts and a futsal centre with the capability for 1400 seats.

The top floor has a 4G seven-a-side pitch with viewing area, while there are also 3G five-a-side pitches as well as an Education Zone and World of Work Zone backed by Arriva, Nissan and Jamie Oliver’s Kitchen, among others. There is also a health and well-being zone.

Murray, knowing every penny made will go back into the Foundation because it is not profit-making, said: “We have raised the benchmark, produced the blueprint and we would like to see it copied.

“We would like to see this copied. Lesley Spuhler (the Foundation’s chief executive) is the best in the country at what she does and the Premier League, the Football League recognise that.

“The challenge was the build because this is a charity. It’s self-funded, I made it separate to the club in 2000 because I wanted to give it longevity and this will be a success, you don’t want something like this to be at the whim of an owner.”