The frustrating thing is, in my opinion, they’re not even a very good team compared to us. We shouldn’t lose to them.
Thus spoke Mr Anthony Gordon after Newcastle’s latest derby defeat.
The red and white media has been full to the brim these past few days, featuring clips from the past made by Mags’ fans of how we would face impending doom on our return to the top flight; of how wouldn’t even get to Derby County’s record low points tally and would be totally out of our depth.
“An easy six points for
the Visitors.”
There’s a clip of Alan Shearer saying those exact words before adding “I hope that doesn’t come back to bite me”. Well, come back to bite you it has, Mr Shearer — and all Newcastle fans. It’s bitten you, chewed a bit then spat you out, as we don’t like the taste!
OK, it’s rivalry; a bit of banter. But is it? Is there something deeper that makes a lot of them insufferable, arrogant and entitled?
Of course, there’ll be many level-headed and fair-minded Mags, so let’s not tarnish the whole region. I count six or seven very good Newcastle fans as close and long-term friends, but this isn’t a new phenomenon, so let’s go back to my childhood.
My dad hails from St. Helens, Merseyside, and we would visit the area at least once a year, if not more, as we were growing up.
One of my cousins would take us to Anfield Road and as an impressionable eight or nine-year-old, I did lean towards the Reds in my primary school years, watching the likes of Roger Hunt, Tommy Smith, Ian St. John and John Toshack.
But once I got a little older, I realised that supporting Liverpool wasn’t going to be possible if I wanted to see regular live football, following ‘my’ team. Coming from North Shields, I’d already been subjected to a few years of mouthy black and white supporters.
My eldest brother, as I later gathered, arrived at a similar crossroads, where following the barcodes was actually a non-starter, as they were insufferable! So I started to follow the Lads as my eldest brother had also done, despite there being no history of Sunderland supporters in our family — yet all of my four brothers also support the Black Cats now.
This arrogance isn’t new, but there must be a reason for it.
Tyneside can’t simply have produced a strain of the human species that’s different from everywhere else, and I have a few theories — some stronger than others.
A few months ago, I was having an online chat with an Everton fan, who said there was a connection between Sunderland and the Toffees. Someone else asked, “Why is that?” and he replied that we both have noisy neighbours who look down their noses at us and assume they’re better than us. At which point, a Liverpool fan joined in, saying, “Because we are!”
The Liverpool fan then went on to list all of their trophy successes compared to Everton over the past four or five decades. He had a point, but Newcastle fans can’t adopt the same stance.
Whilst they’ve been in Europe over the last few years (with no great success) it’s actually only over the last seven seasons — when we were at our lowest ebb — that they existed on a different level to us for any length of time. They won the League Cup (don’t we know it?) and have had some European nights at St James’ Park, but as I highlighted earlier from my boyhood days, their ‘aloofness’ has always been so.
Our historic stats don’t stack up either.
As we all know, we’ve now won more derby games than they have, with fifty five wins for Lads against their fifty four, with fifty draws, so they haven’t always been the dominant team. Could it be that the city of Newcastle has always been regarded as the ‘capital’ of the North East? Sunderland was only granted city status in 1992, so is there an innate sense that they come from a bigger and better city?
Newcastle has generally received higher amounts of direct government grant funding and specific regeneration funding over recent years. The 2020/2021 total grant funding data shows Newcastle received £1,139m in total grants compared to Sunderland’s £687m — and Newcastle has been identified as one of the top three recipients nationally from the ‘Levelling Up Fund’.
A recent summary (granted, it’s only conjecture) states that Newcastle is set to enjoy consistent above-average increases in core spending power through 2027/2028, whereas Sunderland’s increases are expected to fall.
Indeed, it’s only during the last two to three years that I’ve noticed a huge improvement in our infrastructure and development. Our city is slowly becoming one to be proud of, and the club’s contribution to that shouldn’t be underestimated.
The point of that political reference is that Newcastle folk have always been used to lording it over our own proud Wearside city.
The Tyne and Wear Metro system, for example, is much fancier than the lines we have. The network was only extended to Sunderland in 2002, twenty two years after being opened in the Newcastle region in 1980 — and even on national weather maps, it’s Newcastle that’s always named as the North East’s point of reference.
None of these points have a great individual bearing on why Mags’ fans seem to be insufferable, but it all adds up.
From my own perspective, I do believe it’s only in recent years that ‘derby fever’ has become more important to the Mackems. Our League One exile made us more determined, more hungry, more keen and passionate to get back up with the so-called big boys, compared with Newcastle.
In my quest to be as balanced as possible — and not accepting that Newcastle fans are a strange breed — what if Middlesbrough were promoted and joined us in the Premier League? In the ‘derby that isn’t a derby’, which team or set of supporters would be most desperate to show up and make a point?
As part of my research, I asked every friend that supports at team outside of the North East for their views of Newcastle fans.
I targeted seven different sets of supporters and was initially disappointed with my findings, as most replied that in general, they found them to be passionate and said they create a great atmosphere. But after digging a little deeper, it turned out that those fans belonged to Manchester United, Liverpool, Aston Villa, Wolves and Arsenal — all of whom could all be accused of ‘lording it’ or being entitled themselves (Aston Villa over Birmingham City and Wolves over West Bromwich Albion.)
The two friends that recognised Newcastle’s arrogance belonged to Birmingham and Bolton — both of whom have noisy neighbours to contend with.
Indeed, the Liverpool fan said they regarded Newcastle as “insignificant” but when watching both derbies this season, our players and fans clearly wanted it more and gave more in each game. We were the superior team in both matches — but don’t tell Gordon, who’s a moron, apparently!
I don’t know why I spent so much time trying to defend the reasons as to why many Visitors’ fans are entitled.
The truth is that they are, but this is hopefully the start of a unique period of growth for Sunderland — one during which we’ll challenge at the top table and where ‘those up the road’ might give us some respect and acknowledge our presence.
