Like many others, I’ve been watching the Championship play-offs this week with a keen interest. Whether it’s keeping an eye on how Anthony Patterson or Ross Stewart are getting on, or trying to make sense of whatever espionage is currently happening down in Hurworth, there’s been plenty to talk about.
But I’m sure I’m not the only one thinking it: none of it has come close to the passion we witnessed this time last year.
Frankly, it’s all been a bit bland.
Watching the ‘limbs’ at Southampton in extra
time, complete with Methven-esque techno blaring over the speakers, it felt incredibly hollow. You can tell the Sky commentators are desperate to recreate the atmosphere of May 2025. One of them even had the cheek to mention Dan Ballard in the same breath as whatever Middlesbrough and Southampton were trying to manufacture.
But when you think back to May 13th 2025, you can’t really blame Sky for wanting to go back in time. It was one of those ‘once in a lifetime’ moments. We all remember exactly where we were when Dan Ballard jumped higher than any human has a right to, folded like a deckchair mid-air, and sent us into total delirium (and Wembley to boot).
As it’s passed on from generation to generation, I find supporting Sunderland is, by its very nature, a form of mental time travel. Every time you click through the turnstile and go to take your seat, you’re transported. It might be the memory of a loved one taking you to your first match, a particularly prominent goal (Defoe’s screamer against the mags, thanks for asking), watching Spiderman retrieve a ball from the tunnel, or observing Bolo Zenden dance like a distracted auntie at a wake. Regardless of what it is, there’s something about the past that comes to your mind before you take your seat.
When I take my seat now, though, I’m transported back to that game. I’m fortunate enough to be sat in the South West Corner and so everything is still as vivid as it was in May 2025. The tension after Coventry scored. Enzo kissing the ball like it was some sort of ancient relic. Time standing still. Dan Ballard rising higher than his marker.
And then absolute hell on.
Can anyone truly remember what they did when the ball hit the back of the net?
Personally, I thought it’d be a great time to test the elasticity of my friend’s spine. While it can’t be compared to Frankie Francis and his metamorphosis into R2-D2, I, too, screamed like I have never screamed before. I’m 99.9% certain that I have done some sort of permanent damage to my vocal cords as a result of the celebrations on that night.
I regret nothing.
Like many others, I was shaking my mate like he was in the deepest of comas. In a move that would have infuriated the Manchester United team of 2012, blokes in front of me were recreating some sort of makeshift Poznan, jumping around and clinging onto each other for dear life.
Put simply, the noise was unlike anything I had heard before at the Stadium of Light. I am highly doubtful that we will hear anything that matches that noise again.
Was it just a natural reaction to a last-minute winner against some makeshift rivals? Perhaps.
But, a year on, it’s clear to me that it was something more than that.
It was the moment that we finally shifted that ‘typical Sunderland’ baggage that has haunted us as a team and fanbase since the 1998 play-offs [ed: I’ll raise you the 1987 play-offs, or the 1985 Milk Cup Final].
It was the same baggage that saw us lose to Portsmouth on penalties at Wembley, throw away a fortuitous lead to Charlton in the play-off final and, ultimately, the same baggage that would see us get bullied out of the Championship Play Offs at the grubby hands of Luton Town.
That shift in mentality, now personified by the fact that we are somehow figure-headed by Granit Xhaka (a sentence I still have to type slowly to believe and process), started when that goal went in. It gave new meaning to the ‘Til the End’ mantra that we now live by. It paved the way for the poetic justice that is Tommy Watson’s goal at Wembley and the conception of a team that not only gives a toss about the badge, the fans and the city but can compete with some of the best teams in the Premier League.
So, yes, the techno at Southampton might be loud, but it’ll never, ever sound as unbelievable as the Stadium of Light when Ballard’s header hit the back of the net.
Now, if you excuse me, I need to rewatch every possible angle of that moment on every social media platform known to man…
