“Typical Sunderland” a phrase uttered by thousands on Wearside and beyond on an almost weekly basis. In a season where the Premier League hierarchy is being threatened by upstarts such as Leicester and West Ham. Sunderland are doing their best to maintain the status quo by continuing to battle relegation.
As usual, we find ourselves anxiously checking other results and working out their significance to Sunderland’s quest to avoid the drop.As always, we are proving experts at throwing away commanding positions diligently adhering to the club’s tradition of aging supporters in dog years. But this time, something feels different, very different. Whisper it, but I actually quite like this lot.
For years now supporting Sunderland has been something of a chore. Yes, there have been amazing highs such as our great escapes, derby day victories and our run to the Capital One cup final. But these moments have been all too rare and the majority of the last few seasons have been soul destroying.
In many ways I am fortunate to have witnessed our longest top-flight run since our maiden relegation in 1958. But as Johnathan Wilson said at a talk in Dublin recently, “We are going through a silver age in our history….and it feels f**king terrible.”
This quote hits the nail on the head, it isn’t really about results, having witnessed two record-breaking relegation in my first four seasons of supporting the club, I can accept us being terrible. But I just got sick, sick of watching Stephen Fletcher flicking the ball aimlessly instead of holding it up. I got sick of watching Danny Graham meandering after the ball as though he had concrete strapped to his boots. It got to the stage where I simply disliked certain players.
I remember saying to my dad after one game last season, “Christ, I would hate to be a kid these days, who in that team would you idolize?” As a 20-year-old, my childhood isn’t such as distant memory and although my early years of following Sunderland resulted in relegation or Championship football, at least, there were characters, there were heroes.
Julio Arca with his seemingly never-ending drag backs putting a defender on his backside, Marcus Stewart firing in goals in our promotion season, Nyron Nosworthy doing Cruyff turns on the edge of his own penalty area. Although I knew we were terrible, I still had genuine affection for the players.
Obviously, my love for the club never died, despite my frustrations I have not missed a home league game since 2010 and have traveled all over the country to watch a series of inept away defeats. But this was more out of an irrational sense of duty and a prospect of a day on the drink with my mates than actually enjoying the football.
But in recent months, despite an all too familiar league table, something has clicked and it’s completely changed how I view match days.
Manchester City at home was the first time I felt this, yes we got beat 1-0 and our position looked bleak, but I remember leaving the match with a genuine smile on my face and feeling overwhelmed with pride.
We had just played City off the park for large spells of the game and the new signings had breathed life into the club. After cutting a comical figure on his debut at White Hart Lane Jan Kirchhoff dictated the tempo of the midfield pinging diagonal balls about for fun. Kone became an instant crowd favorite by flattening Yaya Toure; Khazri looked lively when he came on as substitute and we created a number of chances to at least draw the game.
That night, the connection between the players and the fans seemed reborn, at full-time defiant chants of “Oh Sunderland we love you” rang around the ground as all the players applauded the fans.
Despite just one win since that night the good will has continued. There is an obvious sense that the players are trying and fighting for each other. Whilst some may argue this is the bare minimum you should expect, it’s something that sadly has not been evident in previous campaigns.
This new found team spirit is never more evident than when we score. Away at Southampton, almost the entire team were bouncing up and down in front of a jubilant away end, at Newcastle Jermain Defoe ran the whole length of the pitch to celebrate in front of the traveling fans. Contrast this to Stephen Fletcher cupping his ears to the fans after scoring his first goals in over six months and it’s easy to see why there’s an increasing feeling of togetherness at the club.
Of course, this feeling isn’t all good news, sometimes I find myself pining for the days of blissful apathy. The feeling of 15 minutes after the full time whistle shrugging the game off and trudging over the Wearside bridge more concerned with planning your night out in the town than discussing the match.
But now it hurts again, after we conceded the last-gasp equalizer to Southampton I sat in stunned silence for minutes at a time and the morning after I woke up with a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach.
It hurts because we’ve been so close, if only we’d converted our last three 1-0 leads into victories we’d be sitting pretty laughing at Newcastle’s plight below us. But alas we are Sunderland and this is how we do things.
It also hurts because for once we nailed the transfer window, making quality signings (well apart from N’Doye), who feel privileged to play for the club. After years of scraping survival with squads getting more depressingly average by the window, suddenly we face a prospect of being relegated with a side which has the makings of a solid mid-table Premier League side.
This produces another problem, I’ve become attached again. Like a heartbroken teenage girl I swore this would never happen. If we had been relegated last season would I have pined after Sebastian Coates, or Jordi Gomez? (as beautiful as he is) Would I have been gutted when Fletcher left on a free to join Celtic? No.
But now I think of a world without Yann M’Villa dictating the play from the center circle. I try to imagine the horror of never seeing another surging Khazri run or even never seeing another crunching tackle from Kone and I’m not sure my heart could take it.
Then I shudder as I think of the functional Championship plodders we would inevitably replace them with and suddenly life doesn’t seem quite as worthwhile.The next few weeks will be a roller coaster but with the new found unity and positivity surrounding the club at the moment I believe we can get ourselves out of it.
To end with a cheesy cultural reference, Paloma Faith once released a song entitled “Only Love Can Hurt Like This” which describes Sunderland AFC very well. You convince yourself you don’t need them and you can cope just fine on your own. But then something happens which reminds you of why you bother and why you love them, and to be quite honest you hate them for it.
