A View From The Away End: I'm finally ready to talk about it...
03/23/2025 02:00 AM
"This has to be a dream; nothing this bad could ever happen in reality." — Mark Corrigan, Peep Show. Also me at 6:30pm on Sunday 16th March 2025
After five days of soul-searching, comfort food and a complete social detox, it finally feels like time to reflect on what will surely go down in history as many Sunderland fans' Weekendus Horriblis.
Of course we're no strangers to trauma, counting double relegations, breaking our own record low points total and multiple devastating play-off campaigns among our battle scars, but something about last weekend really took the despair to previously unplumbed depths.
Watching our own promotion hopes start to melt before our eyes on Saturday, before seeing our moneyed neighbours finally lift that first bloodstained trophy really felt like a tragedy of almost Grecian proportions.
Pre-match optimism on Saturday was in short supply as it always is ahead of any visit to Coventry given our shambolic record there. Recent performances from the Lads had already tailed off, and with the Sky Blues' ominous run of form no one on the early service from Euston was particularly excited for the afternoon's game. My partner had repeatedly asked me in midweek why I was even going when I clearly had no desire to. I told her to stop applying logic and common sense to the situation, because they have no place in the life of a Sunderland AFC supporter.
We tactically timed our trains to reduce the likelihood of running into any Mags en route to their pre-cup final party at Covent Garden. It's funny, because they always told us that kind of behaviour was "sad" and "embarrassing" whenever we did it. But then again, logic and common sense have even less relevance when it comes to Newcastle United.
Unfortunately thanks to the Luftwaffe there aren't many historical points of interest of note left standing in Coventry, so we piled into the Town Crier to join the rest of the London Branch contingent early doors for some pre-match refreshments. On ordering our third round, the girl behind the bar remarked "you lot are all going to be pissed by the time this match kicks off!" That's kind of the idea, love.
After a brief pitstop at the Longford Engine, it was time to head to the ground and get the ordeal over with. And those pre-match pints were needed, because the performance Sunderland put in was nothing short of pathetic, and was genuinely painful to watch.
Coventry were sharper, more organised, more motivated, and frankly superior in every way, and the whole experience felt worryingly similar to the fare served up by Michael Beale and the latter-day Mike Dodds. The only slim hope is that this game serves as a much-needed wake-up call to the squad, because if we turn in any more performances like that we can forget about even making it to Wembley, let alone climbing the steps.
I'm aware that there's a mantra of never leaving the game early, but the CBS arena is a pain in the arse to get away from at the best of times, never mind when the home fans are buoyant and the Get The Badge In crowd are looking to goad people into a scrap. We booked an Uber on around 75 minutes, taking a calculated risk that we wouldn't be missing out on any "Bristanbul 2018" style heroics. To add insult to injury our driver had the match on the radio at an unusually high volume; I hope our mate gave him a low rating for that.
The only silver lining of a trip to Coventry is usually a visit to the Old Windmill pub, a beautiful old Tudor-style building with a great selection of ales, and a much calmer and more welcoming atmosphere than most other boozers in the city. We got chatting to the landlord, who despite being a Coventry fan didn't rub their victory in our faces, and even gave us a round of drinks on the house.
Despite this nice gesture, I hope to God we don't have to go back there in May.
I won't dwell on the following day's events because this article is supposed to be about Sunderland, but suffice to say that the morally reprehensible way they've gone about procuring it didn't make it any more palatable to see our neighbours get their hands on silverware, and prompt the inevitable and sickening media love-in we'd all feared.
Brighter days will come again, but I reckon we've had the worst March experience since Julius Caesar, and if I never think about those two days again, it'll be too soon.
