On The Road
WHY SUNDERLAND FANS ARE SNUBBING THEIR OWN SIDE TO SUPPORT SOUTH SHIELDS
THE Tyne and Wear Metro rumbles behind the main stand at Mariners Park. Eight stops down the line is the Stadium of Light.
It used to be the case that Sunderland supporters would barely glance at this Northern League outpost en route to Premier League football. Now, they get off the train.
Why? Last season, South Shields FC won 32 consecutive matches — an unofficial world record — as their campaign climaxed with victory in the FA Vase at Wembley. They were also league champions and lifted two regional cups.
Their star player is former Sunderland midfielder Julio Arca, 36, and joint-manager is Graham Fenton, the Geordie who is infamous in these parts for the two goals he scored for Blackburn to dent Newcastle’s title hopes in 1996.
‘ The aim is the Football League,’ Fenton explains. ‘The owner (Geoff Thompson, a local businessman) is ambitious and makes no secret of that. Just two years ago the club was homeless before he stepped in and these are exciting times.’
On Saturday, y, the Mariners were bidding for a place in the first round of the FA Cup for the first time. Their opponents were National League side Hartlepool United, whose supporters camped overnight during the week to get tickets. Sunderland and Newcastle fans have joined the regular crowd of 1,500. This fixture, though, is a sell- out at 2,900. Traffic around the ground an hour before kick-off is surprisingly sparse. That is because everyone is already inside.
There is a singer in a pitchside marquee. While dads drink beer and listen to covers, the kids play football on a bog outside. One dad hollers, ‘Here, son, don’t get hacky’. He doesn’t listen and shortly after the youngsters are fishing their ball from a patch of marshland. Just yards away, however, the pitch is pristine. You soon learn why. When the game kicks off, South Shields outplay their opponents from two divisions higher. Arca is the architect. He doesn’t run and doesn’t have to. Alongside him in midfield is Matty Pattison, formerly of Newcastle. He is the best player on the park.
On 27 minutes, South Shields take a deserved lead when striker Carl Finnigan — whose last club was Township Rollers in Botswana — capitalises on a slip by Scott Harrison and smashes past Scott Loach. Before half-time, Pattison hits the bar and Hartlepool look beaten. Word comes through that Sunderland are losing at home to QPR, just seven miles away.
‘Well that’s no surprise,’ says Les Greenwood, a Sunderland fan of 50 years. ‘I gave up my season ticket and got one here, I wasn’t enjoying it. I felt disillusioned, I won’t go back.’ Raised voices emerge from the visiting dressing room and whatever is said — or shouted — works. Hartlepool score twice by the hour mark through Devante Rodney and a fine Nicky Deverdics free-kick and that is how it stays. Arca is forced off after a whack on the shin and, on full time, he is sat head bowed on the floor of the dugout. He knows this should have been a 26th straight win in cup competitions.
‘We lost the game in the last 10 minutes of the first half by not scoring a second or even a third,’ says Fenton, who boasts a record of 64 wins, four draws and three defeats alongside managerial partner Lee Picton. ‘It feels strange to lose a cup game, but I can’t fault the lads or the support. We’re going for a third promotion in three years. It will be difficult and we need this sort of crowd every game to make it happen. So if there are any disgruntled fans on Wearside, they’re welcome here.’
They may have reached the end of the line down the Metro tracks at Sunderland, but this feels like the start of a special journey.