REPRESENTATIVES of Sunderland’s World Cup 2018 bid team hope the formation of a North-East “super bid” will help their chances of making it onto the final list of English venues.

A delegation including councillors, football club officials and sports stars such as Steve Bruce, Anton Ferdinand and Steve Cram met seven representatives of the Football Association yesterday to outline Sunderland’s intention to lobby for the right to be a host city in England’s official World Cup 2018 bid document.

Peter Beardsley talks about the Newcastle / Gateshead host city bid for the World Cup

While the matches would inevitably take place at the Stadium of Light, Sunderland’s bid team have co-opted Middlesbrough Football Club and Durham County Cricket Club to provide facilities that could be used by teams playing on Wearside.

Boro’s Rockliffe Park training ground and Durham’s Riverside ground and Maiden Castle training complex could provide base camps for nations playing in the North, and by presenting their bid as a regional proposal, Sunderland officials are attempting to create as broad a support base as possible.

“We very much see this as a bid for the whole of the North- East of England,” said Sunderland Football Club chief executive Steve Walton.

“We want to show that we are a part of the world that is full of passionate people who would love to be involved in hosting a World Cup.

“By getting a party from the FA up here, I think we were able to show that. We obviously took them around the Stadium of Light and answered some of the logistical questions they had about hosting matches in the stadium.

“But we were also able to give them a much wider tour and provide them with more of a flavour of what a World Cup in the North-East would actually be like.

“We went to Maiden Castle and Durham County Cricket Club and I don’t think they could have failed to have been impressed by the facilities that are on offer there.

“We are due to receive another group of visitors in September, and the plan is to include Rockliffe Park on that tour, because we want to be as inclusive as we can.

“I speak to (Middlesbrough chairman) Steve Gibson regularly, and he’s already talking about this as ‘our bid’. I think that’s a really positive thing.”

Newcastle Gateshead intend to submit an alternative bid this autumn, with the Football Association due to whittle an expected shortlist of 15 bidding cities down to a final list of between ten and 12 in December.

It is unlikely that both Sunderland and Newcastle Gateshead will be chosen to host matches, even though the North-East boasted two host venues when the World Cup last came to England in 1966.

Representatives of the two regional groups are keen to avoid the situation being portrayed as a head-to-head battle, and Cram, a member of the bid team that successfully won the 2012 Olympic Games for London, feels both could be successful.

“There’s no reason why not,” said the former 1,500m world record holder. “It’s not a competition – this is about us all working together to make sure England wins the World Cup for 2018.

“We’ll do that by making sure we put as many good venues and cities into the bid as possible. That means there should be a place for both Newcastle and Sunderland.

“The North-East has a great track record for hosting major sporting events.

“We’ve shown we have the logistics to do it, and the people of the North-East have regularly shown that they have a passion for anything to do with sport. I see absolutely no reason why Sunderland and Newcastle should not both be hosting World Cup games.”

Bruce agrees and, having been raised as a Newcastle United supporter, the newlyappointed Sunderland manager straddles the divide.

“You can’t envisage the World Cup coming to this country and it not being in the North-East,” said Bruce.

“The North-East deserves it. We’ve got to have a slice of the World Cup action.

“If you remember ’66, it was unbelievably well-supported in this part of the country. I only hope people can pull off a repeat – it would be great for the region.”