So to truly understand my undying love for Sunderland you need to understand the rocky start our relationship had.
When I started getting into football there wasn’t a Sunderland presence in Northern Ireland. Most football fans supported Liverpool or Manchester United. The rest were split between Celtic and Rangers due to cultural backgrounds but that’s for another time.
The only time I ever heard about Sunderland was from my own living room on a Saturday morning. When my dad would religiously watch for the Sunderland results regardless of good bad or ugly.
My first ever memory of a Sunderland match was not a great one. The first division play off final in 1998 Sunderland and Charlton had just played out an absolute footballing classic resulting in a 4-4 draw.
The match had went to penalties and was at deadlock at 6 penalties scored each. Then up steps Michael Gray one of the best left backs and players to ever play for Sunderland to take the penalty. My dads on the edge of his seat, certain Gray will score. He misses. The tv remote bounced off the wall and there was no football in the house for the rest of that year.
So we didn’t get off to the best of starts but that didn’t put me off, seing Quinn and Phillips together was a joy to behold. As I was growing up Sunderland were doing well and had consecutive finishes at 7th in the league but Sunderland being Sunderland bought poorly and couldn’t capitalise on that early 2000 success.
Then as I hit my teens I started to get a taste for football and watching on a screen wasn’t good enough anymore. With a birthday in July my big wish was to get to go to a match. The following season and with Sunderland being recently promoted things looked good.
October 29th 2006 I fly over to Newcastle airport, filled with glee and a sense of optimism. Hoping that I’ll be able to watch my struggling heroes pull a result out of the bag. Just for me because I’ve saved all of my birthday money to come and watch them this once. That wasn’t the story unfortunately. Portsmouth who were a decent side back then, hammered us 4-1 with Matty Taylor scoring an absolute worldie from 40 yards out.
Home I went disappointed but somehow even more infatuated with the black cats, the atmosphere of the stadium, the noise of the crowd. The taste of a steak pie at half time, everything drew me in.
With Christmas around the corner my next big wish was to go to a derby match. Yet again I was young and naive. Not realising we were a really poor side this year I thought again we could win this one just for me. Yet again we got beat. And yea again it was 4-1.
But this time more than ever my love grew ten fold. The atmosphere at a derby match is unlike anything you’ve ever seen in your life. Before the match your treated like family by everyone around you. The songs the fans sing before kick off are like those tribes sing the eve before a war. Everyone is chomping at the bit. Then comes the music. Dance of the Knights. Every time I hear that song I get tingles up my spine. The stadium erupts with a battle cry that would make the hardest of soldiers stop in his tracks. The fans are carrying the players through the game making them seemingly play better because of their support.
The players showed real passion and you could tell wanted to better on that day. But ultimately we fell short and three goals in 6 minutes consigned us too defeat.
Yet again on the way home I hummed dance of the Knights for 24 hours straight. In the shower I sang the songs about Dyer and Shearer. On the football pitch I imagined myself scoring the winner in a derby. I was infatuated.
I’ve been over to watch the lads a few more times since then and to be honest the last 4 times have been the best. My old man hadn’t been able to get over as often as he’d liked over the years so once I was earning enough I got us two tickets and flights for a derby match. That was the start of the best run in derbies we’ve ever had but that’s for another article. We haven’t seen Sunderland beaten in the last five matches we’ve been too so the first few matches of torment have been evened out you could say.
What’s your first memory of a Sunderland match?
