Page 32 - 360633 LP236168 A Love Supreme 48pp A5 (April 2022)

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Watching Sunderland away from home is something of a novelty for me. From living away from the North East permanently, to being at university, getting tickets for away games was tricky down to not having a season ticket or other means to build up loyalty points.
It was from this time away from Sunderland/ County Durham/ the north that I found another Sunderland
fan, someone who I clicked with due to our mutual enjoyment (this term may be an exaggeration) following Sunderland.
Living and meeting in Northampton, the few away games we went to initially were either in London or Birmingham. Whilst still living in Northampton, I’d see him on a more regular basis than just at away games. After I moved away, to first university and then back up to County Durham and then Aberystwyth, the opportunities to meet became more limited.
It became somewhat of an aim to try and get to at least one away match a season and, Covid-19 aside, we’ve managed this.
The first away match we attended was a League Cup match at Birmingham in the 2014-15 season. Stellar names such as Connor Wickham, Jordi Gomez and Liam Bridcutt lined up for the Lads, and we ran out 3-0 winners. For an away day, it couldn’t get much better. A decent performance, a comfortable win and a relatively short journey time back home.
The 2016/17 season was one which provided more opportunity to get together and get to away games. Still in Northampton at this point but
away at university (albeit at Coventry so hardly a million miles away) we were able to get to three of Sunderland’s away games. Conveniently,
and slightly unusually, two of these were within the space of a few days. On the Sunday (in September) we got a ride down to Tottenham with some Tottenham fans who Harry had met through work.
The game was moved to a Sunday, and the match had a weirdly Sunday vibe about it. The Tottenham fans who took us down provided
us with entry to a Spurs only pub which is not something I expected from my first (and last) visit to White Hart Lane.
There was a friendly atmosphere in the pub, and we mulled over our chances beforehand and dissected the match on the way home. Harry Kane bagged the winner in a 1-0 win for the home side, but it could and should have been a hell of
a lot more.
Three days later we were back to the capital, this time via train. It was on this train journey that we ended up chatting with Chris Ramsey, former QPR manager and now MBE, who at that point was involved in the scouting set up at Loftus Road. We of course fancied our chances, as we
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