By tradition, Sunderland supporters couldn’t give a hoot about Middlesbrough. There may even have been an old County Durham bylaw making it a punishable offence to care. We are, in any case, too wound up in our collective scorn for – and, as of now, occasional amusement at – Newcastle, a feeling expressed in every way from friendly banter to homicidal malice. Boro, on the other hand, need Sunderland as rivals, perhaps to reassure themselves that they really are part of the North East and not “just a small club in Yorkshire”. Neil Darbyshire*, a top Fleet Street journalist, is a Boro lad, and – though he’ll hate me for saying so – an all-round good bloke. He professes a certain fondness for SAFC despite unfond memories of the sort of welcome he received as an away fan at Roker Park. Along the way, he had the good sense to adore Johnny Crossan, wish that he’d seen Wilf Mannion and struggle to forgive us for one player offloaded in the direction of Ayresome Park…….but how does he reckon Saturday’s viciously-timed (if you’re travelling from afar) game at the Stadium of Light will go?
I’d like to start this blog (my first on any subject and quite possibly my last) with a disclaimer. Although I regard myself as a man and boy Boro fan, I’ve been found seriously wanting in recent years, in terms of attending live matches.
In fact, I am exactly the kind of supporter dedicated fans rightly hold in lofty contempt – can’t manage to struggle to more than one or two games a season but never short of an opinion.
And to add insult to insult, whenever there is a cup final or other big game in the offing, a ticket always seems to materialise.
If you think I should be ashamed to be offering up my vapid meditations with such threadbare credentials, I agree.
But although I’m defensive, I suppose part of me thinks I have paid my dues in the past.
I know the horrors of coming back home over the Pennines from Oldham or Bury in a Beggs bus in the bleak mid winter, with no heating and a driver who had spent half the afternoon drinking bottles of Double Maxim on the back seat.
For years in the 60s and early 70s, I pitched up every other week at Ayresome Park with my Dad, infused with a hope and fervour that was often shaken but never quite extinguished.
I was a season ticket holder, a player in the Boro boys squad, and, for one glorious half-season, a ball boy.
Even now, it is quite common for me to read four or five newspaper accounts of a Boro game hoping for a better verdict and my weekend mood can be quite irrationally altered by whether the boys win or lose.
Whether all this is any qualification, you must judge for yourself, but the blogmeister, Mr Colin Randall, has asked me to drivel on for a bit, so here goes.
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