Remember when League One was fun for a bit? Remember Lee Cattermole smashing home his second of the game in front of an away end that more resembled a mosh pit than a football stand? Remember when standing on terraces in Accrington felt like a novelty rather than a grim reality of everyday life?
Those memories are becoming more and more distant by the day because this was supposed to be temporary, this was supposed to be a whistle stop tour of provincial English towns before we returned to The Championship at the first time of asking. Instead, four years down the line, we head into yet another encounter with Gillingham sitting outside a playoff place.
Of course, any clash with Gillingham brings with it certain grim connotations, after all it was Kent’s only professional football club who first condemned Sunderland to the third tier back in 1987. Back then, a 4-3 victory at Roker Park was not enough to cancel out Gillingham’s 3-2 first leg advantage and we were relegated based on the away goals rule. To make matters worse, just 14 years after guiding the lads to a historic FA Cup triumph, Bob Stokoe was in the dugout as the unthinkable happened.
Fortunately, I wasn’t alive at the time but family and friends I have spoken to have recalled a funeral-like atmosphere around the club in the immediate aftermath, Sunderland playing in the Third Division simply didn’t happen. Of course, we all know what transpired and the club rose from the ashes giving the diehard fans who stuck with the team instant reward for their loyalty.
The following season we were promoted and just three years after the darkest of dark days, we started the 1990-91 campaign dining at the top table once again.
Until a few years ago, this was a cautionary tale of how bad the club could fall and although people of a certain generation look back on that Third Division season with a great deal of fondness, those who attended games during that era saw it as almost a badge of honour. Any complaints during tiresome Premier League campaigns were met by your dad and his mates telling you how lucky you had it and they were there when we were in Third Division.
2018-19 should have been that for my generation, it should have been a right of passage that was talked about for years to come, after a ten-year slog of hardly winning a game in the Premier League followed by instant relegation from The Championship, an immediate promotion would have had a similar galvanising effect on the club.
Now, even if we were to pull off a miracle and gain promotion this season, it would feel like a blessed relief as opposed to any genuine sense of delight or achievement. We are now so accustomed to life in this division that fixtures and defeats that once felt like an indignity, are now met with a shrug of the shoulders.
To put our current plight into a bit of context, if we fail to go up this time around, then a whole generation of children will have gone through their secondary school journey knowing Sunderland as nothing but a League One football club.
Prior to 2018, the last time we finished lower than third in The Championship was back in 1995 and as it stands our longest unbroken run outside the top division of English football was six seasons.
In order to equal this run we would need to achieve back to back promotions, and while I’m not saying that feat is unlikely, if Alex Neil pulls it off he should be installed as Prime Minister, Great Britain’s entrant in the Eurovision Song Contest and Head of the FBI.
This is why I get exasperated at the mere suggestion that Sunderland supporters are too demanding and are in any way fickle, when in reality the level of general restraint on show would make Ghandi blush.
Every time we think we have bottomed out we find a new way to outdo ourselves, if we fail to get out of this league yet again, we are once again faced with the unenviable situation of having a host of players out of contract and loans expiring; this is before you even consider the potential interest in the likes of Dan Neil and Ross Stewart.
We would also be starting from scratch in terms of our recruitment and we would be heading into the new season with a manager who joined midway through the previous season under immense pressure to get the following campaign off to a flyer. There would also be a big question mark over whether we ‘trust the process’ in terms of our Sporting Director setup.
Although it is admirable to have a stable, off field set up, it cannot be denied that another season in League One would be at least in part down to Kristian Speakman. Although our summer recruits may have looked impressive at the time, there has been question marks over the majority of them in recent weeks and months.
Even overtly positive signings such as Dennis Cirkin and Callum Doyle have struggled for form and fitness, while both Ron-Thorben Hoffman and Leon Dajaku have struggled to hold down a long term first team place.
Barring the odd half decent display, Corry Evans has failed to live up to expectations, Frederick Alves had his loan terminated, Niall Huggins has hardly kicked a ball due to injury and even top performers, Nathan Broadhead and Alex Pritchard have had long term struggles with injuries. Naturally, you can’t directly blame Speakman for the injury record of these lads, you have to question the logic in signing some players with chequered pasts when it comes to fitness levels.
Alex Pritchard is an exception to this given his undoubted quality at this level, but in hindsight the decision to take a chance on Evan is baffling to say the least.
In January, mistakes were repeated as we brought in talented players in Clarke and Roberts who have only just begun to approach match fitness as we approach the final month of the campaign, Danny Batth has made just four appearances and Jermain Defoe’s one last dance turned out to be more of a drunken amble around Cooper Rose dancefloor.
So, the question remains: do we persist with the ‘model’ and replace Speakman? Do we persist with Speakman despite his failings or do we rip it up and start over yet again? All of this of course is set to the backdrop of continued uncertainty over the ownership and the influence of certain individuals.
I really hope Neil can get this team over the line, but if we don’t we face a season of lower crowds, a disillusioned city and another summer of mass changes. No matter how much it has been normalised by some over the past couple of years, it cannot be forgotten that historically if SAFC are not in the top flight, it is their objective to win the league and this state of League One purgatory can simply not be tolerated.
