I come from a big family — with five brothers and five sisters to be precise, so it’s very hard for us to get together as we’re all dispersed around the country, and one brother lives in Canada.
It’s usually
his visits that kickstart family reunions — and such a visit happened last week. He timed it to include a Sunderland game and joked with his own family before he left that if we didn’t beat Wolves, it would spoil the whole trip!
The last time he’d been to the Stadium of Light was in 2000.
He’d come over as our dad was very ill. We’d been to visit him at his bedside before the match and said we’d call back the next morning. It was a fairly miserable game but we beat Middlesbrough 1-0 thanks to a goal from Michael Gray. My dad sadly died the next morning.
The only other time he’d managed to get over since then was for another funeral, which didn’t happen to coincide with a home match and wasn’t in the North East, so this was his first home visit for a quarter of a century!
It would’ve been great to have all five brothers at the Wolves game but a couple of them couldn’t get a ticket; however, it was still a novel experience to have two brothers with me.
We’d planned to walk over the Keel Crossing before the game, but such was his interest in seeing the whole area around the ground — the Beacon of Light, finding my oldest brother’s brick in the stadium wall, the various statues and dedications around the stadium, the Sheepfolds area and the club shop (where he bought sixteen scarves to take back with him!) — that it was too late to get on the city side of the bridge, so we had to be content with welcoming fans as they crossed the bridge.
A side note on the mini-tour I gave him is that the pit wheel and plaque, and the figures of miners bringing coal up the hill are in very poor condition. That whole bank down to the Wear used to be well-kept and good enough to have a picnic on. Now it’s overgrown and the figures are covered in moss and rust. A sad sight, but I digress.
It turned out to be a decent decision, as we were at the end of the crossing as pipers passed in front of us, followed by a brass band and then some surprise dignitaries in the form of Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, Kevin Ball, Kevin Phillips, Jimmy Montgomery et al. A pleasant surprise to the day and he also got to see his second home win in twenty five years! A cracking start to his week’s visit.
Of course, there followed various family get-togethers and parties.
On one occasion, hundreds of photographs from the past were on display and what struck me was the link between the club and my immediate family. There were photographs of me wearing Sunderland sweatshirts that I’d long forgotten about, as well as my brothers and I playing football.
There were also some photocopied letters I used to send to everyone annually when we used to have regular family reunions back in the day.
My letters would outline a date and venue for a meet up (always the Lakes) and I was intrigued to read one that said, “I hope you can all be there, as I’m missing the Spurs game for this”. Another said, “I’m missing the Liverpool game for you lot, so make sure you’re there!” The everlasting intertwining of club and family!
It was my Canadian brother’s third visit in twenty five years — two of which were for funerals — but the club’s story continues.
We’re all of pensionable age now and not young whippersnappers, but the club is still thriving. We’re possibly entering one of the brightest and most promising eras for fans old and young. Family members come and go; there are happy times and sad times , yet Sunderland AFC is there, running through our family history.
For the club, this is indeed a happy time, full of promise and hope, unbridled expectation and dreams. We all have our immediate blood ties, but a love of Sunderland is a common thread that binds us together as one much bigger community.
