Even though I started playing the sport when I was seven, I never had a favourite professional football team growing up in the United States. The NASL, which had once boasted Pelé and Beckenbauer, collapsed in 1984 when I was 10, and Major League Soccer didn’t start until 1996.
Outside of going to a few indoor and minor league games, high-level football to me was the United States national team, the World Cup, and that was about it.
In 1999, though, I watched Manchester United’s Champions League-winning
run, and at the start of the 1999-2000 season, I – thanks to a new Match of the Day-esque weekly show I discovered on cable – was able to follow the Premiership (it was a long time ago) for the first time.
But I had decided I wasn’t going to support Man U. If I was going to pick a team, I wasn’t going to jump on the Red Devils bandwagon like seemingly everybody else. I wasn’t going to be a glory hunter. I was going to pick a team that couldn’t win. A team that had just got promoted.
For all intents and purposes, the first time I saw Sunderland play was the first time I knew Sunderland existed. And I saw a goal that’s been seared into my mind ever since – Gus Poyet’s scissor-kick capper in a 4-0 Chelsea win.
That goal probably should have made me a Chelsea fan, but for whatever reason – stubbornness, probably – I stayed the course with Sunderland.
And then Kevin Phillips did this.
And this.
And, of course, this.
The random team I had decided on had the best goalscorer in Europe – not that England ever noticed – and finished seventh. And then they did it again.
I was in love.
I bought a jersey, a highlight video and a “Black Cats Top Dogs” scarf. I never got to watch the VHS highlights because PAL-coded VHS tapes wouldn’t work in my NTSC VCR, and the bubbled Reg Vardy logo on my kit disintegrated after a couple of years.
I think it was a metaphor.
I’m not going to lie and tell you I’ve been a consistent diehard all of the past 27 years. Phillips leaving for Southampton just about killed me, and if you think it was hard in the early 2000s to watch the EPL in the US, the First Division – soon to be the Championship – might as well have been a black hole.
I did what I could, though. I checked the results and the table. I hung my scarf in my classroom. I answered without anger when someone would say, “Why Sunderland?” or, worse, “What’s a Sunderland?” I was watching when Defoe stunned Newcastle. I was watching when Patrick van Aanholt and Lamine Koné scored three times in 17 minutes to complete the Great Escape and relegate the Mags.
And then, in League One, thanks to the club website, I could watch every match. I discovered podcasts. After years of being a casual, I was living and dying, and dying, and dying, with every result.
I watched us lose to Charlton on my honeymoon. I watched Max Power send the last-chance gasp against Lincoln City into oblivion.
And then I stifled a scream in a work meeting when Jack Clarke beat Wednesday. And then I didn’t stifle the screams and scared the hell out of my wife and dog when Embleton and Stewart beat Wycombe.
I was pleading, “Please, please, please” under my breath when Enzo lined up the corner kick against Coventry – and then I think I blacked out. I think I blacked out again when Tommy Watson beat Sheffield United.
But through it all, one thing I’ve never done through all 27 years is attend a game at the Stadium of Light. I got to see the Lads twice on the American tour three years ago, and I bought a ticket for the Bournemouth match last year. My wife, however, was diagnosed with breast cancer soon after, and I wasn’t able to make the trip.
Blessedly, a year later, she is done with active treatment and is healthy. And thankfully, she supports my strange addiction to a football club almost 8,000 kilometres away. Or she would if she knew what a kilometre was.
So Sunday, I will be in the Stadium of Light to watch my Black Cats play Fulham.
And I’ll be bringing my scarf.
