Page 27 - 364645 LP243221 A Love Supreme 48pp A5 Aug22

‘FOOTBALLERS
A R E S T U P I D , D A D ’’
I have few memories of the Stadium of Light that go back further than 2012, but the three or four that I do have... I hold dear to my heart, as I know that those games, now I look back, were the foundations upon which my love for football was built.
When writing this, I thought back to the days I spent at the Stadium, compulsively obsessing over Lee Cattermole, raiding the buffet and shouting at the ‘stupid’ footballers who wouldn’t get up off the floor and to be honest, very little has changed.
But, as I moved through school and the years, I lost the love that I was beginning to develop, and so went to fewer matches, shouted a great deal less and began to see the game I now adore so much as very ‘uncool’.
Anyway, as time passed, and Sunderland got arguably worse and worse. I still found myself listening to commentary, watching highlights and subconsciously checking the scores.
There was always a spark there, it just needed to be relit.
And almost 7 years on from one of my first games, it was.
By the 2018/ 2019 season, Sunderland had fallen a hell of a lot further down the leagues than where they once stood, but I found that to be all the more invigorating.
Playing teams I’d never heard of, in places I’d never heard of proved to be all I needed to be won over by the sport I loved... all over again!
The Checkatrade Cup final rolled around, and I was never going to say no to a weekend spent with my Dad watching a team I became strangely fond of. I’d never been to Wembley before, and I never expected to fall in love with it the way I did.
The people were devoted to this club, we’d travelled the length of the country for this one game, and despite the scoreline that day, there was a real underlying meaning. That day, the child in me returned, and my love for football was back burning bright again.
I said a while ago, I could be cringy and say, ‘that was all history’, but I was right when I said that it was only the beginning.
Three years, three play-offs, a global pandemic and a promotion have passed, and I have never been more grateful for anything ever, than I have been for 90 minutes away from life. Thank you Sunderland.
One game I remember in particular was the first home game of the 12/13 season, Sunderland
v Reading. I don’t think it stopped raining for about a week before the game, and it didn’t plan on ceasing in enough time for the pitch
to be anything less than a 7,140 square metre swimming pool. As a result, the game was called off and Martin O Neill’s much anticipated signing, Steven Fletcher, could not make his debut.
Despite the initial disappointment, in hindsight, this was probably the start of something bigger for me, it was the realisation that it is not the game itself that matters, but the people. Those who I am with, those who I’d later meet and perhaps it’s the love for the ‘beautiful game’ that comes second.
From that point onwards, I was hooked, drawn in by the loud crowds, a certain CDM and the fact matchdays were a full day I could spend with my Dad, both a rarity and a treasure.
ALOVESUPREME
ISSUE259
27
BY AMELIA LAYBOURN