Page 27 - 360633 LP236168 A Love Supreme 48pp A5 (April 2022)

IF
“If we make it to the play off final, I’m not gannin.” A sentence uttered
by almost every Sunderland fan at some point. Wembley has been very unkind to our club over the years, I guess we must have used all our luck in the ‘73 final. I’m lucky enough to have only endured three Wembley heartaches, while others have had seven! Mine are the Charlton 98 play- off thriller, The Pompey Checkatrade and The Charlton last minute defeat.
I missed the League Cup Final in 2014.
It was always gonna be tough against an all-star City team. However, taking the lead early on made us believe and had Toure not fluked a cross into the stanchion, we may of gone on to win it.
After our fall from grace and double relegation, Jack Ross managed to get the squad in tune enough to reach Wembley twice in the space of two months. In the Checkatrade Trophy game we went from looking totally in control and disappointed not to be out of sight at half time, to trailing and relying on a last-minute equaliser to force penalties. Wembley and penalties are two words that will strike fear into every Sunderland fan. However, we had momentum after being on the brink of defeat and going into the shootout I still fancied our chances. But Cattermole’s keeper-friendly shot ended our hopes.
Fast forward to May 2019 and it was hoped to be a revenge mission on Charlton from 1998. After convincingly beating Pompey
in the semis, we looked strong enough to overcome a side which made a late burst for the top six. With the gift of a hilarious own goal early on, we should have really put the game to bed while they were still at sixes and sevens. But as is the way with
Sunderland, the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, is something we find so easy to do. We fell to a sickening last-minute winner with no time to drag ourselves back into it.
Two changes of manager later and we found ourselves back in London for another crack
at it, although this time the game was behind closed doors due to Covid. A cool Lynden Gooch finish was enough to see us beat Tranmere to win the EFL Trophy. Finally, the curse was broken and even though we couldn’t be there to enjoy it it felt good to end the list of disappointments.
This season, under Lee Johnson, for a while it looked that we might not need the play offs to get up and we were hitting the magic two points per game mark that should get you automatic promotion. However, hammerings at Pompey, Rotherham and Bolton led to his sacking and our failure to replace him quickly enough saw us wave goodbye to a top two finish.
Alex Neil looks to have steadied the ship at the back and if we can start putting our chances away, we can make the top six and see where we go from there. To do so we need to keep Stewart fit and then maybe, just maybe, we could have a party in the capital again and bring the trophy home this time and get out of this godforsaken league...
ALOVESUPREME
ISSUE258
27
BY JAMES SUMMERSON