Despite everything, we still just like going to the match
Sunderland AFC is massively important to this city. Even our citizens who don’t like football (probably most of them right now) will concede this.
The club lends identity to the city that shipyards, mines and glassworks no longer can. Nissan, lest we forget, is actually Japanese. Premier League clubs are of interest around the world, so that’s where Sunderland need to be.
Unfortunately, they seem unlikely to claw their way out of even the third tier any time soon. Furthermore, many good, under-appreciated and underpaid people (not players) rely on the club for their livelihood.
‘Slump’ is a somewhat generous description of current results. ‘Skydiving’ would be more indicative. Meanwhile, the bewildering shareholder debacle has served to make all involved appear clueless.
The ever-expanding catalogue of incompetence could be said to have begun with the catastrophic appointment of David Moyes in 2016. But plenty others deserve blame; even if they don’t have sufficient backbone to accept any.
So what are the fans to do? The only practical course is to maintain their support; support which no other club would be likely to match after just one great day since 1937.
Other suggestions include protests and boycotts, which never achieve anything other than the opportunity for selfimportant people to appear on the telly waving bedsheets.
Of course, if people don’t want to attend matches due to the dreadful football; who could argue? However, if they then claim to be ‘boycotting’, they will further claim that they’re making a point; which they presumably imagine would otherwise pass people by. In reality, they too aren’t attending due to the dreadful football, but don’t wish to appear ‘disloyal’.
It’s nobody’s business how other people spend their money. Furthermore, turning up at the Stadium of Light doesn’t make anyone gullible or unaware. They attend because they simply enjoy the match. It isn’t just the football (clearly); there is a whole social element which would disappear for many.
Go. Don’t go. But if those who ‘boycott’ can desist from lecturing and faux-piety, then that would be appreciated.
Or boycott online shopping. That would actually serve a purpose.