Sunderland is the place to be — everyone is buzzing again
Yesterday at 01:00 AM
"After the win, it was brilliant to feel the buzz around the city, whether at the excellent Sheepfolds or back across the river."
Last week's loss to Plymouth ticked all the boxes for those who unironically believe in 'Typical Sunderland' being a real force in the universe, rather than just our version of the same cynicism that most football fans feel about their own club, regardless of the colors.
Top-of-the-league coming unstuck against a poor side who had looked shambolic up until then? Check. The Manager of the Month Award curse hitting a modern, forward-thinking coach, forcing him to lose against an unconvincing counterpart who spent the international break playing in Legends games and crooning in karaoke bars? Check. A string of errors from otherwise reliable stalwarts in Sunderland's team? Check, and then some.
Having thankfully swerved the mammoth trip to Devon this time around, I was looking forward to the chance to see the Lads bounce back against our old friends, the Boro.
The build-up to (and indeed the aftermath of) the game brought the usual strange discourse from that lot. Sunderland fans are used to attendances being used as a stick to beat us with, mostly from Geordies who seem to believe that an average attendance of 41,000 for a 49k stadium equates to "twenty-seven thousand empty seats" (as their hilariously off-the-mark chant goes). But this time, we were bafflingly told that the high number of tickets sold proved the game was, in fact, a derby.
Next, they'll be telling us that our players trying so hard means we actually care about Boro.
If Olympic medals were awarded for mental gymnastics, both of our nearest neighbors would definitely be regulars on the podium.
Anyway, it was an early start as we jumped in the car on a drizzly grey morning in Chester-le-Street. We passed a small fleet of Boro coaches, likely filled with fans expecting the same meek Sunderland performance they'd enjoyed for the last fifteen years or so. Luckily, we knew that this season's squad is made of sterner stuff, and there was a real sense of anticipation rather than dread when we arrived in the city center.
After a couple of early pints in Street Bar, we crossed the Wearmouth Bridge, looking west toward the soon-to-be-completed footbridge that will make getting around the city on matchdays much easier. It might sound trite, but these small steps forward all contribute to the positive atmosphere around the club right now.
We just missed the fan display by a couple of minutes, which looked spectacular, but we took our seats ready to cheer on the Lads as they attacked the Roker End.
A slightly shaky start saw Boro dominate possession, but they failed to capitalize on the one clear-cut chance they created, when Conway headed against the bar. Hume was fortunate to escape a red card for a crunching tackle, but after Dan Neil's ridiculous sending off last season, it did feel like we were due some luck in this fixture.
The scenes after Chris Rigg gave us the lead were fantastic for so many reasons — it was our young prodigy, it was against Boro, and the sheer nonchalance of the backheeled finish was the perfect catalyst for "limbs" in the stands.
A stonewall penalty on Mundle was denied just before half-time, meaning we entered the second half braced for a Boro onslaught. But that never materialized. The Teessiders looked very much like us in the latter days of Tony Mowbray's tenure — lots of neat and tidy possession but very little bite or cutting edge. This suited our team perfectly, and we saw out the game with relative comfort despite the narrow scoreline.
After the win, it was brilliant to feel the buzz around the city, whether at the excellent Sheepfolds or back across the river. A tough game awaits this weekend down at Watford, but no one in the league will be eager to face us at the moment, and we head to Hertfordshire with nothing to fear.
