Greening of club continues after derby win

I SPENT most of last week’s build up to the Middlesbrough game stressing that, contrary to mainstream media belief, The Wear/Tees clash is not really a proper derby match.

Although their fans despise us, there’s only one team that we really detest and that’s Mike Ashley’s Circus Superstars.

The town of Middlesbrough is over 30 miles away from us, buried in a haze of industrial fog in North Yorkshire. The lack of loathing we have towards The Smoggies is the only thing that both Sunderland and Newcastle fans will ever agree on. Still, we haven’t defeated The Magpies at home since 1980 and we’ve now beaten Boro at the Stadium of Light twice in the space of five months, so maybe I might have to search for a new-found loathing of Gareth Southgate’s men just to max up on the victories.

It’s difficult to imagine being whipped into the same sort of nervous wreck travelling to Teesside that I feel when we visit Tyneside for football, but in all three of Roy Keane’s games as Sunderland manager against Middlesbrough we’ve nicked a point or three courtesy of late strikes. And I’m loving that.

Probably the biggest confirmation that the rivalry isn’t quite the same as against the Barcodes is in the reaction that Boro’s three former Sunderland players got last Saturday.

Julio Arca was a Mackem legend and his name was sung by both sets of supporters, while Justin Hoyte scored for us against Newcastle on loan a couple of years ago and was also warmly applauded. And even Stewart Downing’s spot kick miss in the 74th minute got a big cheer!

Over the weekend I was given an almost-surreal insight into how Irish my club has become since the takeover by Roy, Niall and Drumaville. I had the task of taking care of ALS model and Irish page three girl Claire Tully for three days and so after showing her the delights of Sunderland on Friday and the match the following day, we headed off to Newcastle for a Saturday night out at the Comedy Club (no, not NUFC).

On arrival we met up with Andy Reid, who was watching his stand-up pals Paddy Courtney and Jarlath Regan. The comedians were gigging on Tyneside and Andy had sorted them out with tickets for our clash against Boro, so the lads returned the favour with guest lists and VIP craic, which we were generously invited to share.

Despite me being the only person on our table to live in Wearside or indeed have resided in the North East of England for more than a matter of months, every single one of us SundIreland folk referred to SAFC as ‘we’ and ‘us’. I even felt it necessary to mention my Donegal blood to not feel left out.

Afterwards we enjoyed a lock-in and a Andy Reid-led sing song. The irony of being holed up in Newcastle with Reidy singing The Pogues’ Dirty Old Town along to Paddy Courtney’s harmonica accompaniment was certainly not lost on me; in fact it’s up there as one of my more surreal moments supporting Sunderland.

After all I was full of beer, SAFC were in a UEFA spot in the table and the Mags were in the relegation zone. It’s almost beyond comprehension to your average Sunderland fan that there’s so much interest in our club from across the Irish Sea.

That’s not a slur, we love a good night out and a pint of the black stuff as much as our very welcome Irish brethren, but it’d be interesting to see how full the planes from across the water would be if Drumaville ever pulled out.

Fingers crossed that’ll never happen, because the way things are going everyone’s happy and the Irish and the Mackems are mixing very nicely indeed.

So our first win of the season at the Stadium of Light certainly has the monkey off our backs. Hopefully we can take our ‘derby’ form into next month’s proper local clash against Newcastle. A win or two between now and then would be nice as well please Roy.

* Martyn McFadden www.a-love-supreme.com