View From The Away End: An enjoyable day out in Edinburgh, despite the result

After a useful trip to the sunny climes of Portugal, a shorter journey up north was next on the schedule as we continue to gear up for our much-anticipated Premier League return. There wouldn’t be any further new signings on show at Tynecastle, but after some promising debuts in the Algarve fans were quite keen to see how the team would hopefully continue to gel.

Trips across Hadrian’s wall are fairly common occurrences for Sunderland in pre-season, having the twin benefits of being easily reachable

for the team and fans, and also offering a chance to test ourselves against sides who are usually several weeks ahead in their preparation. Our nearest neighbours seem to share this view, with Newcastle recently receiving a humbling by Celtic, and Middlesbrough heading north on the same day as us to face the other side of the Old Firm. I’m sure LNER and British Transport Police were delighted when they saw that on the schedule.

With it being a long old trek from London to Scotland, I decided to make a weekend of it and visit a mate in Glasgow the night before, thankfully avoiding the experience of cramming into the vestibule at Newcastle, and also dodging any run-ins with Boro fans travelling in the opposite direction in the process.

After weaving through the crowds of tourists on the Royal Mile for a quick ale at the Cannons Gait, we hopped on the train to Haymarket to join the travelling fans.

The venue closest to the pub wouldn’t allow anyone wearing football colours for some reason; I could understand if this was a politically-charged game with a sectarian element, but the atmosphere around the ground was nothing but friendly, so it seemed like overkill to me.

Regardless, we managed to find a spot at the Athletic Arms, which is a home fans favourite that is apparently owned by a die-hard Hibs fan. I’d struggle to think of a worse career than managing a hostelry for armies of Geordies, but whatever pays the bills, I suppose.

The Hearts fans were very confident of their upcoming season, having made some promising signings thanks to Brighton owner Tony Bloom taking over, and also been managed by the steady hand of Derek McInness, who seems to have had a stint at every non-Old Firm club you could name.

After the slightly bizarre but well-meaning substitution ritual paying tribute to Craig Gordon, it became quickly apparent that the Jambos’ pre-match optimism was justified, as Hearts frankly made us look like a group of strangers whose trip to Portugal was for a stag-do in Albufeira rather than warm weather training.

Sunderland’s players seemed to be competing to see who could give the ball away the most, and it felt inevitable when one of these errors was punished by Barga.

The unseriousness of the performance was compounded when Sidiki was replaced in the first half, only to return in the second in a 6-a-side style rolling sub. There were some promising flashes from Adingra, Diarra was decent at times and Abdullahi battled well, but you’d struggle to name any Sunderland player who merited anything above a 6/10 rating, and the equally poor second and third goals towards the end dampened the mood even further.

Without wanting to make excuses for what was undeniably a very poor performance, it was clear throughout that Hearts were right at the end of their preparations while we are still dusting off the metaphorical cobwebs. It’s crucial as a fanbase that we don’t let this defeat in a meaningless game start to derail what has been an incredibly positive three months. Deep down we know that we will inevitably be brought back to reality at some stage after the heady summer we’ve enjoyed, but the players and staff have earned our trust, and writing off new signings completely based on a handful of pre-season minutes is frankly ridiculous.

Thankfully, debriefing over a pint and a haggis, it seemed afterwards that the most over-the-top negativity was confined to social media. There was still a great atmosphere on the train home, particularly when the returning fans sent a cheeky reminder at Newcastle station that their star striker might be feeling less than 100% happy. At the time of writing there seems to have been some positive news on the Xhaka front, which would act as a much-needed tonic, and hopefully by the end of this week Saturday’s result will be consigned to the dustbin, and we can look forward to more exciting incomings pulling on the famous stripes.

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