Reply With QuoteHuge clubOriginally Posted by TWGL1
Obsessed with football up there
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Allocation 2,846 , for our game ,have sold 2,300 so far ,fantastic supporters
Huge club
Obsessed with football up there
Whenever Sunderland's support is mentioned on this board, it invariably brings back memories of the time they came to Ninian Park (early 80s?) and made it feel like an away game for us. I was approaching the ground along Tudor Rd and had not witnessed such away support like it.
1979 ?
Somewhere around that time.
It was May 1980. Crowd was 19,834. Considering the home game against Swansea a month earlier had drawn a crowd of 14,634, it puts the Sunderland support into perspective.
Given all the old footage available, that Billy Ronson goal against Swansea is one I've never seen. My old man wouldn't let me go to the game.
I suppose it demonstrates how much our home support has grown over the years. The next Cardiff v Swansea fixture is expected to attract around 25/26,000 with an away crowd of around 1,800.
my first year as a season ticket holder .
Sunderland support was huge that day
When you factor in Sunderland's population is about half of Cardiff's and that they have a massive club just a few miles up the road, it puts their support in perspective.
Footy mad up that way. I wonder if having a big club just up the road actually improves support as the local rivals are more visible and on your doorstep all the time.
The current metro population of Sunderland is 345,000. With many other neighbouring places with decent populations such as Durham, Chester-le-Street etc it has a large catchment area to the south of Newcastle. In fact I’ve worked with lads from Blyth, which you’d assume was a Mag stronghold, who are Mackems through and through. I went with them years ago to a first division relegation clash at Maine Road, 15,000 away fans, Moss Side was awash with red & white. You say a massive club up the road, you can rest assured, Sunderland are just as big as Newcastle.
look at Aston Villa too with 5 major clubs around them thats if you include Coventry . They have a huge fan base possibly bigger than Leeds/ Sunderland / Newcastle .
On the way to that game, a Sunderland fan dressed as a Gorilla and his mate (not of the female Gorilla type) approached me as I walked down Sloper Rd, and the Gorilla said out loud, in a good natured manner, “oh look, finally a Cardiff fan”. “Three nil” he added chortling away.
“Yes, 3-0 to City”, I had to agree.
I guessed he didn’t take it too well, because of the expletives coming forth, and the way he was stepping towards me with clenched fists.
But his mate quickly diffused any situation and started laughing at his Gorilla friend, slapping him on his silverback, and said “he got you there!”.
So I continued on walking to the game, together, with my 2 new best mates, and what seemed like a million good natured Sunderland fans.
I can’t remember the final result, but I seem to recall that it was a draw in suspicious circumstances, given that depending on other results, a draw would give them the title, and we would avoid relegation.
Apparently Sunderland have sold 2,771 tickets
So they haven't sold them all - there are 75 left! Big club indeed..
All joking apart - They were known as the Bank of England club back in the pre war days, a huge supporter base across the North East and travel in numbers most clubs cannot match.
If you've not watched Sunderland til I Die yet it's well worth a watch (Netflix). Much more interesting I thought than All or Nothing Man City/ Arsenal/ Spurs.
Take it from Newcastle -
“Sunderland’s a massive ATF”
https://youtu.be/brZlUfTtPmw
Did the jacks bring many fans back then? They didn’t in the late 80’s…..
Absolutely brilliant 👍
Sunderland are a big club
But they are not as big as Newcastle who get 50000 in the championship
Apart from the plastico clubs nobody can match that
In our defence we have a smaller catchment area than NUFC and it's been getting even smaller over the last thirty years or so. With the Saudi money the gap between the two clubs is going to resemble Juventus and Torino.
Gateshead .....Newcastle?
Jarrow , South Shields , Washington, Shildon , Bishop Auckland , Durham ........your lot?
Gateshead is the classic if you can't beat them join them. The town's identity is overwhelmed by Newcastle. Newcastle United's Chairman voted for the town's football club to be booted out of the league in 1960. Yet there are probably more fanatical NUFC supporters per head of population in Gateshead than in N-U-T itself.
South Tyneside, Hebburn, Jarrow and South Shields have always been split between black and white and red and white; but were probably 70/30 in our favour. That all changed when Keegan returned in '92. Among the under forty-years-old football fans there it's probably more than 70/30 in Newcastle's.
Washington, although technically part of greater Sunderland, has a lot of people who've moved from Tyneside and has a lot of black and whites.
Durham, Consett, Chester-le-Street and West County Durham are split with an increasing percentage of Newcastle fans. Bishop Auckland is sadly majority Newcastle these days though bizarrely West Auckland is still probably more red and white. Shildon is a small place.
So Newcastle United has the entire county of Northumberland with a tiny few exceptions, mainly descendants of Durham miners who at some point moved to the Northumberland coalfield. They have Gateshead and increasingly the rest of the South bank of the Tyne. They have half and growing support from West and South County Durham and before long will have countless bandwagon jumpers from throughout the U.K..
We retain Sunderland and the East Durham coast down to Peterlee.
Although historically our record can match Newcastle United's their support has in the vast majority of seasons slightly exceeded ours. I fear in the future their success on the field and their support off it will leave us in their wake. But we'll still have our club!
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