Dear Michael Beale: We are the noise - and WE are Sunderland
If Michael Beale’s football was as aggressively incisive as his press conferences, Sunderland would be a much happier place right now.
The beleaguered head coach came out fighting this week, apparently determined to have his say on a fanbase uniting against him after just seven games in charge.
Football wise, he probably made some reasonably fair points, and yet he emerge from the press conference more disliked than ever having delivered some needlessly deep wounds to supporters doing nothing more than voicing their opinion on their club.
“It's a huge crisis at this football club,” Beale sarcastically sneered in response to the very first question.
“I mean, the youngest team in the league, we haven't got the biggest budget. We're sat where we are, three points outside the playoffs with a home game coming up. I'm a little bit perplexed and bemused by the outside thing.
“Everyone's aware of the noise in the background, but all we can focus on is the next game.”
Using the term ‘outside’ to refer to Sunderland fans certainly cut deep. Having opened the wound, doubling down with a reference to supporters as being in ‘the background’ poured salt into it.
He didn’t know that’s what he was doing, of course. Beale is many things, but he’s not stupid. He’s certainly too clever to knowingly and deliberately trigger fans so ardently against him.
Sadly, though, he has more than enough arrogance to unintentionally do it, and easily sufficient ignorance about the club he’s now leading to not realise what he was doing.
In one sense he is, of course, right. We are noisy.
We are the noise that makes youngsters fall in love with a club, the noise that turns football fans into Sunderland supporters for life.
We are the noise that echoes back and forth through time, creating legends and defining legacies.
We are the noise that keeps dreams alive, the staunch, stoic and stubbornly steadfast sentinel forever ensuring the soul of our city never sleeps.
We are the noise that stirs the club from slumber whenever it sleepwalks to self-destruction.
We are the noise that no one ever forgets they heard. We are the noise that has won games before a single ball has ever been kicked.
We are the noise that every single one of those players in your dressing room dreams of inspiring, and the noise that will inspire them to higher levels than your coaching ever can.
We are the noise that shakes Wembley Stadium to its very foundations, whether we win or lose, and even during tinpot lower-league competitions we’re not even that bothered about winning.
We are the noise that defies despair and immortalises euphoria, the velvet thunder of a 144-year storm of indefatigable passion and indomitable pride.
We are the noise that everyone takes with them when they leave and hope beyond hope to hear again.
We are the noise that has been here long before you arrived and will be here long after you are gone and forgotten.
We are the noise, and we are Sunderland AFC. And that noise you say you’re hearing is not coming from the outside. It’s the very heartbeat that keeps the club alive, it’s the song that this city’s very soul sings.
We are the noise, but we’re not in the background, and in trying to dismiss us this way you have only served to prove, conclusively and irrevocably, that you have no idea what Sunderland is – or how mind-bogglingly lucky you are to be here.
This noise is not going away either. Belittle it if you feel you must, dismiss it if you choose and ignore it if you think you can - but disrespect it only if you dare.
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