POEM

Netherlands-based Sunderland fan John Carney recently wrote an article for ALS titled "DISRUPTION PART THREE: LEVITATION". Subsequently John's Dutch friend, Dennis Lammers, was inspired to write a follow-up poem based on the article. Dennis is a lifelong NEC Nijmegen fan - not only are they third in the Dutch league and may qualify for Europe for the first time ever, they're also the club we signed Robin Roefs from in the summer!

"Wise Man Says at the Stadium of Light"

He flies in low over the northern sea,

paper in his bag, red in his veins.

John Carney, pilgrim of Wearside dreams,

chasing a club through the sun and the rain.

He was a boy once, small and silent,

hand in his father’s weathered hand,

learning the language of red and white

long before he knew the words for “land.”

Through turnstiles cold as Minchella’s spoons,

past breath that smoked in winter air,

his father pointed to the pitch

and said, “Son, your heart will live up there.”

From Dutch-grey skies to the Roker wind,

he walks that path he’s always known,

where chip-shop smoke and a cold night’s breath

wrap round a city built on bone.

The Stadium of Light wakes slow and bright,

a lantern hung on the river’s edge.

Each seat a story, each flag a prayer,

each battered heart a living pledge.

He writes of suffering turned to songs,

of twenty-five years in the wilderness,

of learning the cost of losing everything

and the quiet, stubborn rise from less.

And when the chorus of the crowd begins,

like a tide that pulls the moon in tight,

he lifts his head with the rest of them,

eyes on the pitch, soul full of light.

Then Wise Men Say rolls low and wide,

from one soft voice to forty thousand.

A trembling hymn of can’t help falling,

into a love that will not soften.

He hears his own lines in the way they shout,

in every tackle, every fight.

His pen is inked with rage and mercy,

his page a fragment of the night.

Because this is not just any club;

it is disruption wrapped in red and white,

a broken crown that chose to shine,

a northern star that learned to bite.

So he writes of futures not yet built,

of bigger stands and brighter days,

of keeping hold of the ones we’ve made,

of turning doubt to steady praise.

And if the giants circle round,

with bulging coffers, gleaming names,

he knows you can buy a thousand seats

and never buy these burning flames.

For in this ground of rust and echoes,

of coal-dust ghosts and river spray,

Sunderland walks its chosen path,

and John walks with them, come what may.

When final whistles split the dark

and fans spill out into the night,

he carries home that fragile truth:

the hurt, the hope, the flickering light.

He cannot help but fall again,

no matter what the table shows.

The wise man says it’s foolishness,

but the foolish heart still grows.

So let the anthem rise once more,

past fear, past doubt, past wrong and right.

He’ll write, they’ll sing, and side by side

they’ll levitate the Stadium of Light.