Before there was Wembley and Trai Hume, Eliezer Mayenda and Tommy Watson, there was one glorious, never-to-be-forgotten night at the Stadium of Light — and I’m sure you’ve replayed the moment I’m talking
about in your head a thousand times.
After two and three-quarter games of full-blooded playoff football, the Sunderland/Coventry City scoreline is level on aggregate, penalties are looming and the nerves of 40,000 home supporters are shredded.
With the clock virtually ticking down to the final seconds, a corner is awarded. Enzo Le Fée drops it on a sixpence, there’s “plenty of movement inside that box” and Dan Ballard folds himself up like a drinking straw, rising highest and defying physics to head Sunderland into the playoff final and thus towards a place in the Premier League.
It was a moment for the ages and a rich reward for a player whose Sunderland career has often been a stop-start tale of promise and setbacks, but far from being a brief and glorious contribution to an ultimately successful season, it seems to have been the springboard for another upturn in form for the Northern Ireland international.
The calendar year of 2024 has been a memorable one for Ballard.
By turns, it’s been a tale of injuries and frustrations, dominance and defiance, and after the towering centre back turned in another colossal performance for Northern Ireland against Germany in midweek — as well as impressing whenever he’s featured for the Lads in the Premier League — it feels as though the prodigy signed from Arsenal as an exciting young prospect back in 2022 is coming of age.
That Sunderland can call on three centre halves of the class of Ballard, Nordi Mukiele and Omar Alderete should give everyone real confidence that we’ll have a solid defensive foundation for the majority of the season, as well as the scope to change things up when necessary, but given that he was signed as we prepared for our return to the Championship in 2022, the fact he’s looking more than comfortable at the highest level is a real credit to him.
I must admit that after his experience during The Game That Shall Remain Unnamed during the 2023/2024 FA Cup, I did have one or two concerns about his prospects if and when we achieved promotion to the Premier League, but thus far, he’s doing superbly well and his international career is going from strength to strength, with Michael O’Neill’s Windsor Park defence more or less built around the attributes of both himself and Hume.
What I particularly love about Ballard’s approach to defending is how wholehearted he is and how much pride he takes in ensuring that the red and white backline remains unbroached for as long as possible.
He’s not flashy and he’s not performative; instead, he’s rugged, reliable, and he does his job with the minimum of fuss and maximum commitment, with his credentials as a former Arsenal youth-level captain helping him transition into what’s becoming a greater leadership role in red and white.
Another key component of Ballard’s game is his sheer single-mindedness.
Like all top quality defenders, the concession of a goal, being caught out of position or missing a tackle is doubtless a real source of annoyance to Ballard, which ties in with Sunderland’s ethos as a whole. Under Régis Le Bris and his coaching team, defending has once again become an art on Wearside and the likes of Ballard have fully bought into what’s being asked of them, with the reliable presence of Robin Roefs providing an extra layer of security.
If you’re an opposition forward, Ballard wants to make sure you face an extremely challenging ninety minutes and that you’ll come off second best more often than not. Conversely, if you’re an opposition defender, he’s eager to get the better of you from set pieces, as we saw to devastating effect during last season’s playoffs and will hopefully see more of as the 2025/2026 season takes shape.
Naturally, the combination of such a physical and selfless approach to the game means that in his case, you’re always likely to be on edge when it comes to the possibility of injuries, but Ballard’s also a resilient player who seems to respond equally strongly to any setback he encounters, which is a quality everyone loves to see in a Sunderland player.
His surname may evoke images of gently-strummed guitars and syrupy vocals, but Ballard is heavy metal through and through; a hard-as-nails defensive warrior who’s emerging as a key player for both club and country — and who’ll hopefully continue to shine on the biggest stages of all.
