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THE RISE AND RISE OF ANTHONY PATTERSON
Throughout the 21st Century football has undergone a scientific, data driven revolution, from player development to fitness programs, the higher up the pyramid you go, the less anything is left to chance.
Coaching staff have advanced information at their fingertips on a wide range of metrics used to tailor training schedules and form a player’s potential pathway to the first team. However, for all the undoubted progress made, so much of the beautiful game is still at the mercy of the Butterfly Effect.
Although originally a mathematical based principle used
to explain the causes of extreme weather patterns, the Butterfly Effect is more commonly used as shorthand for describing the unintended consequences of two seemingly unrelated events. Throughout history SAFC have had plenty of encounters with the overtly innocuous spread of the butterflies wings.
In 1913, the lads came within a whisker of completing a league and cup double when they won the league and lost to Aston Villa in the FA Cup final. The following year, ‘The Great War’ broke out and despite the 1914-15 season limping to a conclusion, all league football was then suspended until 1919 and many of the title winning side were robbed of the best years of their career.
Similarly in 1936, Sunderland won the First Division title for a sixth time and in 1937 were crowned FA Cup winners for the first time in the club’s history, but then Nazi Germany
invaded Poland in 1939 and this time we wouldn’t have the opportunity to embellish our trophy cabinet until 1946, when a full league program resumed.
I am, of course not making light of the severe consequences of both world wars, but it is merely illustrating that events both major and minor can shape the future in ways you wouldn’t even consider at first glance. Anyway, what’s this got to do with Anthony Patterson? I hear you
cry. Well, those of you have remained awake through my whistle stop history lesson that is...
While Patterson’s meteoric rise from being loaned out
to the National League to our first choice ‘keeper in The Championship isn’t quite as dramatic as two world wars, much of his undoubted ability has been coupled with some great timing for the 22-year-old.
As the clock struck midnight to welcome in 2022, Sunderland sat top of League One, but once again, the butterflies’ wings spread and it looked as though the stars may once again align against us less than a week later.
The day before a difficult trip to Wycombe Wanderers, several Sunderland first teamers tested positive for COVID
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