Thursday morning, 8.45 sharp: McCarthy's weekly press conference at the club's training ground. If at times he appeared to relish dealing with the Irish media as much as his oft-mentioned backside might have savoured a brush with a bacon slicer, he seems more at ease in this company. Yes, say the 15 or so assembled local press, radio and television journalists, he's been tetchy at times and there's been the odd run-in, but they've no complaints. Not least because his team has been good to cover all season.
"You'd like to be closer, you like to be close to every manager, go out and have a beer, a bit of crack, and when we heard the former manager of Ireland was coming here we maybe thought that's what it would be like, but it hasn't quite turned out that way," says Laws. "But that's not a criticism of Mick. He's just very driven by his job in football and sees the media side as a secondary part. He's not looking for mates in the media. He'll survive or fall on his results on the pitch and he's happy with that.
"I wouldn't say he's got to be pally with many of the local press but again you can't criticise him for that - while we would love to be getting loads and loads of inside information and feel we're right in with the manager, while he's doing the job he's doing you've got to hand it to him. He's producing a team that's good for us to cover.
"He's definitely more Yorkshire than Irish, without making sweeping generalisations about Yorkshiremen or Irishmen. What does he call himself? A Yorkshirish man? Mind you, I've been to places in Ireland where they're just as suspicious and closed.
"But yeah, more Yorkshire than Irish. He's focused. Is stubborn a fair word? Possibly not. He's quite a fair guy. He disagreed with a couple of things I wrote and we just had it out. It wasn't a simmering feud; we talked about it and that was it finished. And I think he's dealt with his squad in the same way. People get a second chance with him. He's quite a fair guy - a decent man who's been very good for the club so far.
"There's respect for any manager when it's going well but it's when it's going badly that you learn just how much respect you've earned in the good times and I guess we don't know that yet. He has been relegated, there were those 11 defeats, but people didn't blame him because it wasn't his mess.
"Once he started cleaning it up he brought his personality into the place. There's a lot of talk about the togetherness of the squad; he's obviously picked people that will help create that sort of atmosphere, people who work hard, who are driven and, in some cases, have something to prove."
Injury updates, team news, and then one of the radio people asks: "How would you feel if Sunderland won promotion?"
"That's a ridiculous question really," McCarthy sighs. "It's like asking me how would I feel if I broke my leg - I wouldn't know until it happened."
A mass outbreak of giggling. The radio man grins, conceding he'd asked for it.
"Do you have any superstitions, just in case we need a bit of luck against Leicester?"
"No, touch wood."
Silence. Then more laughter.
"With all this pressure now, and these huge games to come, are there any people you ask for advice, ask how they coped with the pressure in similar circumstances?"
"No. It's not new to me, you know, coping with pressure. What if I rang someone and they said they dealt with it by getting rotten drunk? Or by going fishing? I don't fish. No, I don't talk to anyone, except Taff (Ian Evans, his assistant at Sunderland). There's no need to be going anywhere else."
"What do you do to relax?"
"Dinner with my wife. Ride my bike. Play a bit of golf."
"Do you have a handicap?"
"Nine. But it was a lot easier to maintain when I had 12 games a year as Irish manager, as opposed to 12 games a week here."
"Have you been getting a lot of support from the fans the last few weeks?"
"Yeah, they've been great. Six months ago everyone ignored me in Sunderland, but now, well, I didn't realise we had so many fans. They've been great, wherever I go it's the same - 'Are we going up?', all that. I met one lovely old guy, George, at a charity golf day yesterday, he told me he'll be getting his bones out and putting them in squares and circles and all sorts on Saturday, anything to bring us a bit of luck. He makes you realise what it means to supporters."
(Eh? "Voodoo," explained the radio man. Right.)
"What's the situation with your contract?"
"It started out as a six-month rolling contract, which suited me perfectly, and was changed to a 12-month rolling contract last summer. That's fine, that's how I like it."
"Would you be on a bigger contract if the club was promoted?"
"Absolutely. But that's the way. If - and it's a massive if - we're promoted the players will get a bonus. If we don't get promoted they'll get f*** all, excuse my French. But listen, this is all ifs, buts and maybes - if you've no questions about real things I'll go."
"Thanks, Mick." And he's off.
That was a good day?
"Oh aye, he was in good form today," says one of the radio men, tapping his tape, happy with his morning's work.
Across the city is the Stadium of Light, built on the site of the old Wearmouth Colliery, the last colliery to close in County Durham, back in 1994. A Premiership ground languishing a division below. It might never have the soul or romance of Roker Park, nor, the supporters will tell you, the atmosphere, but it's a wondrous sight.
In the club shop at the ground a life-size poster of Stephen Elliott, the young Dubliner, adorns the wall opposite where T-shirts sporting the images of Sunderland legends Raich Carter and Len Shackleton hang. You'd almost think Elliott, Carter and Shackleton were team-mates. In some ways they are, if you go by the timeless nature of the locals' devotion to their club.
Outside there's a bronze statue of a flat-capped Sunderland fan, who probably watched Shackleton from the Roker Park terraces. Generations bridged, a club indebted to the loyalty of its supporters through the years, regardless of highs and lows.
Back across the Wearmouth Bridge, in the city centre, the billboards are filled with General Election posters. Labour are pledging that Tony and Gordon are the best of mates; the Liberal Democrats are promising to shorten NHS waiting lists; the Conservatives are vowing to deal with what they view as the three major issues of the campaign: immigration, immigration and immigration. If any of the candidates could promise three points from today's game against Leicester City, while guaranteeing Ipswich would fail to win at Leeds, well, he or she would spend much of the next five years commuting between Sunderland and Westminster. A city with its priorities right.
Meanwhile, the presses of the Sunderland Echo are ready to roll, an 80-page promotion special all set to go - if and when promotion is clinched. How many pages devoted to McCarthy? A fair few, most probably.
"He's been here two years," says McFadden, "he's taken us to an FA Cup semi final and the promotion play-offs - if he takes us up this season he'll have done an amazing job. I, personally, couldn't speak highly enough of him, but the demands are always high here, so whatever he achieves this season he will be reassessed in a year's time - if we win promotion and come straight back down he'll be deemed a failure. That's the way it is. Like with Peter Reid.
"The thing is most Sunderland supporters believe we are a Premiership club, with one of the best stadiums in the country, so that's where we should be. So if we go up McCarthy will be bought a couple of drinks, but he won't get the keys to the city just yet."
But if they survive in the Premiership? And beat Newcastle at some point along the way?
"I hereby rename the Wearmouth Bridge the Mick McCarthy Bridge," the Lord Mayor may well declare. Both structures made of steel.
© The Irish Times
