Sunderland have hurt and angered us before, but never downright insulted us - until now

With a derby coming up against rivals Newcastle United, Sunderland may have picked this time to insult their supporters like never before.

Author:
Michael Graham
Publish date:
Jan 4, 2024 11:58 AM EST

It was late 1987 when a seven-year-old me first walked through a Sunderland turnstile. That’s a long time ago.

Back then it was very different of course. Not the football, that was still as up and down as ever for Sunderland, but the experience.

I didn’t have a season ticket back then. And yes, they actually were big chunky books of tickets, not cards and certainly not phones. My parents had season tickets, though, and my sister and I would just tag along.

We’d queue at turnstile 19A, pay our £3.50, spend another £1 on a king-sized Mars Bar and a bottle of Villa pop, and go stand in the paddocks with our older cousin while our parents went in the seats.

None of those details are relevant here. I’m just making the point what I have seen supporting Sunderland a very long time now, and in that time I have seen a lot.

I’ve seen England internationals, a European Golden Boot winning striker, a Callum McFadzean and everything in between. I’ve seen countless managers, the third tier (twice), relegations, promotions, the lot.

I’ve seen local businessmen own the club, lovable Irish rogues, a former player, an American billionaire, Tory asset-strippers and now a European trust fund kid. Between them, they have made some good decisions and countless bad ones – but none of them ever made one that left me feeling truly, genuinely insulted.

Until now.

From the moment Newcastle’s number was drawn out of the hat alongside Sunderland’s in the FA Cup draw, we all knew if would provide the club with serious challenges. We understood that too.

Ticketing rules are different for the FA Cup and certain obligations have to be met to make every effort to give the visiting club as many tickets as possible up to 15% of the ground.

That was why, although I didn’t like it, I could live with the decision to give Newcastle fans the North Stand. I’m not sure there would have been a solution I would have liked, if I am being honest.

The decision to hand over the Black Cats Bar to Newcastle supporters too as a premium option was more difficult to accept. That’s where it started to drift away from fulfilling your obligations and into rolling out the red-carpet territory. We have to host them; it doesn’t mean we have to welcome them.

Today, though, photos emerged from inside the Black Cats Bar, or what used to be. ‘We are United’ it says on the wall. ‘Keep the Black and White flying high’ behind the bar. Even worse, the walls that were adorned with ‘Ha’way the lads’ now has the first word crossed out and ‘Howay’ written in it’s place. Sunderland’s identity literally crossed out on the wall and replaced by Newcastle’s.

Essentially, what Sunderland have done, is create a Newcastle United bar inside the Stadium of Light itself – and in doing so delivered a slap in the face to an entire supporter base like few before it.

There is, you would think, little chance of that signage remaining up. I’d be amazed if it survives the day given the outrage from supporters, as well as criticism and outright mockery from fans of other clubs. It’s not even the usual ‘laughing stock’ interactions with supporters from around the country either. It’s genuine sympathy and shock that a club could treat its own fans with such blatant disregard and disrespect.

The rivalry between Sunderland and Newcastle matters. It always has. Perhaps these days, since our neighbours so gleefully welcomed the chance to further the agendas of those who commit human rights atrocities, it matters more than ever. Certainly, there has never been a time when it feels more important to put up a clear distinction between the two clubs and sets of supporters.

That is a recent escalation of a very old rivalry, though. Sunderland and Newcastle have been warring neighbours since long before football. It goes back to Newcastle reducing Sunderland and its people to poverty with royal coal charters and Sunderland then handing Newcastle to the Scots after coming out on top in a bloody Civil War battle.

In fact, if there is one thing we probably pride ourselves on most, no matter how bad things have ever got, is that we are not Newcastle – and Newcastle supporters seem to reciprocate that.

We are stuck with each other, but there is an underlying rule that we do our own thing. I mean, the two sets of supporters can’t even get their heads around sharing an airport that is owned by both cities and mutually benefits everyone. How on earth are we supposed to share something that actually matters to us?

And the Stadium of Light matters to us. It’s our home, our church, our cathedral. It was built by our heritage – no one else’s – and is our legacy. It’s pictures of our legends on the walls, it’s our memories out there on the pitch. It’s where we bear our soul every other week and pour out our passions. It’s where our hope lives. It’s ours. Uniquely, uncompromisingly ours. It’s not for sale.

Or, at least, it shouldn’t be. It would be appalling if the branding and colours or any other football club was installed at the Stadium of Light, never mind your actual bitterest rivals.

Something, somewhere, has gone badly awry, even to the point where for many this will never actually be forgivable. Does it even matter what positive things you do at Sunderland if you were also the man who put Newcastle United on the walls of the Stadium of Light?

It should be stressed that we don’t know who made the decision and why. I suspect some kind of flimsy explanation will accompany the equally flimsy inevitable apology when that lands. Maybe I am giving them too much credit there, I suppose we’ll see.

Whoever is behind it, though, and whatever happens, we are looking at an act of self-harm unprecedented even for Sunderland. They’ve hurt us before, they’ve angered us, and they have disappointed us with depressing regularity, but this is the probably the first time they have downright insulted us.

And for what? For whom? That’s the bitterest pill to of all to swallow.

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