Roker Report guest Chris Thompson hails the unique brilliance of all you you wonderful people. I think enough has been said of Steve Bruce's claims that North East football fans have unrealistic expectations. The man is deluded and a little bit stupid; if I had a face like his I'd do my very best to stay out of the news. His attack was slightly miscalculated as I feel that the expectations of Sunderland fans do in fact tend to be quite low, despite the club having all the tools to push to the next level. But why don't we have huge expectations? They say a man does not miss something which he never had, and I feel this principle applies to Sunderland fans. Our last major success was in 1973 and even then we secured the FA Cup as underdogs. You would have to go back to the 1930s to find a Sunderland side which was actually expected to win something, our last first division title coming in 1936, and then of course our first FA Cup in 1937. If you remember this, then you reserve the right to expect a modern Sunderland to be competing for honours, although you have probably mellowed out in the 77 years which you have seen us win nothing in way of league competition (apart from fizzy pop trophies and the likes). My point is that some clubs are burdened, riddled in fact by expectation. Imagine being a Leeds supporter, tasting league success in 1992 but then seeing your club deteriorate from reaching the Champions League semi final in 2001 to being relegated to League One in 2007. Throughout that League One season, every single defeat or even a draw would be absolutely crippling, meanwhile other clubs around them would be over the moon to get an away draw at Yeovil. Achievements are all relative you know. Newcastle fans are a funny bunch. They do have quite high expectations, but this is for the same reason as previously discussed. They embellish the glory years under Keegan where they could have, should have won the league, but didn't. Also reaching two FA Cup finals in successive seasons, losing them both of course. I don't point these out merely to ridicule them, the fact is that these were their glory years and they will hold the modern Newcastle side to this standard until it is a distant memory, some 20 years from now. Reaching Wembley last season was a dream, and losing the final didn't diminish that dream at all. March 2nd 2014 won't be remembered by Sunderland fans as a lost football match but rather a grand spectacle, seeing the club at centre stage was enough for some people, myself included. That's what made the day what it was. Does that mean we lack winning mentality? Of course not, the two things are entirely separate; winning mentality can be coached, expectation comes through the imposition of history, history which in our case is so distant in the past that it has no bearing on us anymore. Sunderland are a rare breed, we are a top flight club without top flight expectations. We don't feel the same burden other clubs do and we don't have that expectation weighing us down, we don't have that constant pressure of needing to win something to prove our worth, and the amount of positivity coming off the back of that cup final 'defeat' is demonstrative of that point. We don't demand trophies. We don't even demand victories. All we demand is 100% effort, 100% of the time, the same effort that we all make to support this club in sickness and in health. It's why we are considered one of the loyalest fan bases in the country and why every victory, even one as innocuous as a home win over Stoke, can feel like a cup final. Whether you were born into the Sunderland family, or were adopted somewhere along the way, you can be thankful that you belong to a group of fans so uniquely brilliant.
How many Sunderland funeral marches, walk outs, sit ins, bedsheets, banners, etc have you seen in the last 10 years? And how many Newcastle? Says it all.
Their trouble is that they flirted with success in the '90s but nothing materialised and they are still living in the hope that a "messiah" will produce another team but that bus has well and truly departed. The current bunch are deluded into keeping the dream alive.
Sunderland supporters are proud of their team with good reason, they have played in the English premier league ( Whatever Newcastle supporters may try to tell you premier is an adjective meaning the best, top etc, it should only be used as a noun to describe a political leader ) for 84 years they have won the English premier league title six times and runners up five times, it would take the biggest miracle of all time for a living Newcastle supporter to ever see that record even equalled by Newcastle
Expectations are funny. I first went to Roker Park in 1948. O.k., I was only a little kid then and had to be taken by my dad who wasn't always at home, so my visits were irregular. But from about 1951, I went with other kids from the neighbourhood, paid my 9d. (about 3.5p!) to stand at the front of the Fulwell End and watch Shackleton in his pomp, Broadis, Ford, Cowan (from '52) - the Bank of England team, who narrowly missed the title through a late injury in 1950, came third in '54 (?), got to two FA Cup semis (1955 & '56). They never won a bloody thing, BUT wherever that side went there were packed houses. Everyone wanted to see Sunderland, the Harlem Globetrotters of English football. Jimmy Greaves reckoned as a kid he went to whichever London ground Sunderland were playing at - Shack was his boyhood idol, and that was true for many kids throughout England. In the bootom corner of our match programme there was a unique statement. Underneath the six titles we'd won, and the FA Cup win of 1937, it said "The only club never to have played in any other than the First Division." The pride that came from that was enormous! Most modern Sunderland supporters have never seen Sunderland like I saw them and relegation is almost a commonplace experience for them. And it does affect you. One of my outstanding modern memories is the last game of the 2004-5 season when we beat Stoke 1-0 and collected the fizzy pop trophy. There were people all around me clapping their hands and jigging to the up-beat music. I was astonished to find they were actually celebrating winning that 'trophy'! Right at that moment, as that trophy was handed over to us, all I felt was anger, a fierce, kill something, burning anger. The only thought I could think right then was 'Which stupid b**tard put us here in the f**king first place?' Does my attitude make me less of a Sunderland supporter? - No, it makes me an ambitious Sunderland supporter. I want, I want, I want ... I don't religiously believe in a glorious new Sunderland manager, like so many do. Gus Poyet is unproven to me. I like him, but then I liked it when McMenemy first came - I've seen far too much **** like that in my time. Show me something, Gus, show me, show me ... then I'll believe. Not before. Most people, I imagine will be appalled at what I've written here. But they shouldn't be because I've made a serious point. We, and our expectations, are a product of our time. My expectations are too unreasonable for most tastes because MY Sunderland, the team of my childhood, is simply different from THEIR Sunderland. I suppose we expect what we're used to. Funny old world.
Can echo that Relic, but football enjoyment and taste of success can only be measured during the time you have been watching it. The highs and lows of promotions and relegations colour our thinking as both you and I know that we have come within inches of success and failure, but like you the only truly great thing we can savour is '73.
You have brought back a lot of happy memories, Shack always saved his best for Arsenal that had turned him down as a youngster, the same man could make a difference of 10,000 to the gate at Roker Park depending if he was playing or not, do you remember the cup game against Man U when it was estimated over 100, 000 people had been turned away after the gates were closed , also the headlines in the football Echo " When will Charlie Hurley play a bad game "
