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Dear Roker Report,
If you take the size of the support as a yardstick, Sunderland are the biggest underachievers in world football.
We’ve been yo-yoing between the top two divisions since 1958. We haven’t been English champions since 1936, and we’ve only qualified for European competition once. Even in the third tier, we were still getting thirty thousand fans every week — a remarkable statistic.
Is there another club in the world that’s underachieved for so long that gets this kind of support? The answer is no!
We’ve
had nothing to cheer about since 1973 but now our time has come — and European football can be ours. Even Middlesbrough have played more times in Europe than us, so my question is: Do you agree with my premise that Sunderland are the biggest underachievers in world football?
TheBastardSonOfToddo
Ed’s Note [Phil]: Thanks for your letter — and that’s one hell of a pen name you’ve written to us under!
Although it’s hard to gauge exactly where Sunderland sit in the pecking order of perennial underachievers of the world game, during my lifetime as a fan, I think it’s fair to say that the potential of our football club has never been unlocked on a consistent basis — bar a handful of seasons down the years.
Under the current regime and with the players we’ve got at our disposal, I think we’ve got an outstanding chance of gradual and continued progress during the coming seasons, but of course, we need a lot to go in our favour and we can’t allow complacency to creep in — and I’m confident that won’t happen.
Dear Roker Report,
Given that the magic of the FA Cup has seemingly died during the last few decades, it’s a huge “hats off” to the fantastic 8,000 who made the bleak wintry journey to Merseyside to watch the Lads win through.
I’m hard pressed to think of any other club in the Premier League who would travel in such numbers for a midday kick-off in a competition that normally has no real bearing until the last eight clubs are left.
The brilliant Granit Xhaka summed up exactly what this team stands for with his utter frustration at us being pegged back near the end of normal time — brilliant team and incredible fans.
On the other hand, I watched a re-run of the match and the commentary was unbelievably biased towards Everton. We actually played them off the park!
Old pineapple head was devoid of any ideas compared to the maestro Régis Le Bris, and we deservedly went through. For some reason, the competition has suddenly begun to recapture the magic of yesteryear and with this team firing on all cylinders, who would genuinely bet against a great run coming together once league survival is assured?
Peter Milton
Ed’s Note [Phil]: Hi, Peter. Thank you for getting in touch.
What I particularly liked about our victory over Everton on Saturday was that Régis Le Bris and the players clearly took the competition seriously and his team selection reflected his pre-match stance that we’d go there to compete and hopefully win.
The travelling fans were magnificent, the performance was very impressive and winning on penalties was a nice little bonus at the end of a good day all around. Will we win the competition? I don’t think so, but I also think we’ve got a good chance of going fairly deeply into the FA Cup this season, and if we can get to the last eight, who knows what’ll happen?
