This article is dedicated to the lads on the train home from Everton who challenged me to include Kazakhstan in my post match reflections. I did — and just look what happened next!
Anyone that’s followed Sunderland during the last decade will each have their own barometer of just what an outstanding achievement finishing seventh in the Premier League has been.
For many, the low point will have been the 6-0 drubbing at Bolton, which saw the end of Lee ‘POMO’ Johnson’s tenure. For others, it will have been the night
that Chris Maguire returned to the Stadium of Light to score a hat trick for Lincoln City.
For me, the depths we had plunged to were exemplified by a game we actually won, on the 27th November 2021, away at Cambridge United. The weather on the drive down was pretty atrocious as Storm Arwen hit, and we arrived at the Abbey Stadium to be greeted by a bitterly cold howling gale. The conditions weren’t helped by the fact that the stand we were allocated behind the goal had no corners to join it to the rest of the stadium.
At one point, we were treated to the sight of Alex Pritchard chasing the ball round the side of our stand so that he could take a corner! I cannot remember ever being quite so cold at a professional football match as I was that day.
Matters hadn’t been helped by losing Corry Evans in the warm up, as Lynden Gooch replaced him in the starting XI. We were literally given a helping hand byCambridge’s Bulgarian goalkeeper, Dimitar Mitov, who turned a Pritchard corner into his own net via the post, before Sam Smith equalised for the hosts. But we returned home with all 3 points when Nathan Broadhead’s fierce strike from outside the box left Mitov helpless, as it arrowed into the top corner.
Alongside Broadhead and Pritchard in the team that day were the likes of Ron-Thorben Hoffman, Tom Flanagan, Carl Winchester and Leon Dajaku. The victory lifted Johnson’s side to 5th place in the league, the position they would finally occupy to qualify for the playoffs under Alex Neil.
It was all such an enormous contrast to Sunday’s stroll in the sun against Chelsea, as Régis Le Bris’ newly promoted squad achieved the improbable, and qualified for the Europa League, finishing in 7th place with 54 points – 5 points and 5 places above ‘the Visitors’!
If there was any justice in the football world, the Manager of the Year award would have been handed to Le Bris on the pitch, as soon as the match had ended.
I have followed Sunderland for more than 50 years. I inducted my two York-born sons into the club more than 15 years ago. In our first couple of seasons, we used to sit next to a young chap by the name of James Copley, who was very enthusiastic about the club – no idea what became of him!
We grew accustomed to the annual battles for Premier League survival, punctuated by occasional highlights like the 2014 League Cup final, the first of many fruitless trips to Wembley before 2022 – my first fruitless trip to Wembley occurred nearly 30 years earlier, as we lost the Milk Cup Final to Norwich.
We endured David Moyes, Chris Coleman, Simon Grayson and Phil Parkinson. We trekked from Scunthorpe to Walsall, from the bleak home of MK Dons in Bletchley to all too frequent visits to the pleasant and welcoming surroundings of Accrington’s lovely little ground.
Did I think I would see European football at the Stadium of Light in my lifetime? Did I hell! But that is what Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, Régis Le Bris and this special group of players have delivered for us. I don’t ever want to see another disrespectful post about Luke O’Nien or Trai Hume again. If you are some edgy keyboard warrior who likes to have a go at players who give their all for this team, get yourself a black and white shirt and join that moaning set of whingers up the road! Those two lads have dragged us here, from the depths of League One to the Europa League, and they combined on Sunday to provide the critical opening goal.
With the demands of European football on the horizon, and more stringent limits on the number of homegrown players, we may see another League One stalwart, Dennis Cirkin, offered a new deal.
And finally from me, a profound apology, to Lutsharel Geertruida – earlier in the season, I struggled to see exactly what he brought that we didn’t already have. I was wrong, he has shown exactly what he is capable of, and I would love to see him in the red and white stripes next season.
Exactly a year ago, I was celebrating after Wembley – but apprehensive about how we would fare in the Premier League. Now I can’t wait for the season to start, fully confident in our hierarchy to make the necessary investment in the summer.
It has been a brilliant four years!
Ha’way the Lads!
