Editorial: Sunderland’s Greatest Day
· Yahoo Sports
I’ve waited a day or so before writing this for a good few reasons. One, I was in absolutely no fit state after the match to write anything other than “where r u???” to my Uber driver as I stumbled out of the Baker’s Oven with some mince concoction, and two, I knew I’d be spending most of my day sat in the garden reflecting on the day before, and given how hyper and emotional we all were in the pub after the match (listeners to our podcast might have heard what we were like!), that seemed important.
Between watching videos from the match and retweeting old posts from mags who’ve spent the season writing us off, I’ve been musing on a couple of things. And I think I’m going to say it… that game, that event, that whole day was absolutely hands down the best experience I’ve ever had as a Sunderland fan. I didn’t think the Ballard header against Coventry would ever be topped, but it has already been topped just over a year later.
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The atmosphere… wow, man. We all got together last week and said, “Yep, we need to be on our A-game to ensure we give the players the best possible chance of succeeding”, and boy did we collectively deliver. From lining the streets to welcome in the coach, and to the absolute wall of noise that met the Chelsea players from minute one to minute 103, the Sunderland supporters were fucking unbelievable.
That was us at our best. That was us understanding the assignment. That was us showing how special we can be when we get our heads together. That was us showing complete unity with a group of players who have never given up and have never given us a reason to doubt them. That was us backing the greatest manager I’ve ever seen at this football club. That was us.
Over the last couple of seasons I’ve sat back and thought, “wow, that will never be topped”, only for us to top it, somehow. That was basically Sunday in a nutshell. We needed the stars to align, and they did. They fucking did. Everything that we needed to happen happened, and the best-case scenario unfolded.
I keep saying this but being a Sunderland fan over the last decade has felt like living in a real-life movie where the things that have happened to us are so daft that they can’t possibly have happened by accident: it’s all got to be scripted, right? How else do you explain adopting a marketing slogan as your actual way of life?
‘Til The End has become part of our identity. When we succeed, we do it right at the last moment. If we were going to get promoted, of course, it was going to happen with a bunch of last-minute goals, because y’know… ‘Til The End. And getting to Europe? Wey, of course, we were going to do that right on the last day of the season, jumping several places up the table! I called this months ago, in articles and on the podcast… I said that after the ride we’ve been on, of course, we were going to get into Europe! It’s the gigantic cherry on top of what is already a massive, delicious raspberry-filled cake.
If we are indeed living in a real-life movie — the Sunderland version of The Truman Show, perhaps? — then, of course, you’ll know that this story is nowhere near over. If this was Lord of the Rings, we’d only just be at the end of the first book.
Granit Xhaka, our fearless leader, said it best on the pitch during the post-match celebrations: this is just the beginning. You better fucking believe that it is, because these are times that every single one of us has dreamt our entire lives about — a version of Sunderland that we can be proud of. No one can take the fucking piss out of us or look down their noses at us, because none of that shite makes sense anymore. Instead they’re all genuinely jealous deep down and can see the trajectory that this football club is on, and that’s simply inarguable in my view.
Whether it’s Germany, Poland, Latvia or Denmark, I’ll be there. Even if I can’t get a ticket I’ll be there, because I haven’t waited 34 years for this to take it for granted. And I’m sure most of you reading this feel the same — we don’t want to miss a moment.
I cannot wait, and I’m going to spend the rest of the summer enjoying the fruits of our labour, because we’ve bloody earned the right to do so. Strap in, Lads and Lasses — we’ve got several planes to catch!