It used to be that when the fixtures piled up in the lower leagues, you’d squeeze a midweek fixture in, sandwiched between two Saturday 3pm kick-offs, missing the Champions League on TV to watch us toil against some nondescript seaside town. More often than not, that would fall on a Wednesday.
For quite some time, there has never been as much appetite for a midweek fixture. It’s usually a game we could do without in a competition we likely don’t stand a chance in. One of those you’d not go out of your
way for because if the commute is more than an hour, it’s probably not worth it, especially not on a Wednesday.
We don’t support one of those clubs where you have to plan what you’re doing during the week, and now you’re all flustered because you’ve never had to juggle things like having four (or more) games disrupting your schedule because your other half has classes and clubs booked on a Wednesday.
That’s just how it is now: disrupted but not inconvenienced by having a game on a Wednesday.
Instead, you’re going to the match, but one you want to go to on Wednesday.
You’ll go to the game like you always have, just as if it were a weekend. The same excitement, maybe more. The same expectation, but a completely new thrill. Some will make new rituals, others will stick to their trusted ones. The lucky pin badge, a pat of a grey horse, whatever it takes to make sure we get those three points on Wednesday.
You’ll get to the ground, take your seat and your spine will tingle as you scream Can’t Help Falling In Love at the top of your lungs and settle in to see something that hasn’t happened for over 50 years on Wednesday.
You’ll see something you likely never dreamed of, something that will melt away the final dregs of the anguish and disappointment from years and years toiling away in the third tier and then the second of English football, where they’d often have you playing on a Wednesday.
And when it happens, you’ll do it with the ones you love, or maybe holding dear the memories of those who couldn’t make it this far. You’ll live out a dream you maybe never knew you had. You’ll see 11 men in red and white, Sunderland on their chest, roll out onto the pitch and bring to life something that won’t feel real until they actually do it on Wednesday.
So drink in every moment, sing every song, cheer every tackle and shot and save and everything else in between, because we don’t know how long this lasts and if it will ever come again. But most importantly, let yourself dream, let yourself get swept up in the bright lights and the noise, knowing you’re part of this and have almost certainly played your part in getting Sunderland to this point on a Wednesday.
Watching Sunlun in Europe – there are worse things to do on a Wednesday.
