alfie

#SAFC #TilliDie Non Executive Director, Leo Pearlman’s post on LinkedIn today… “Strip everything else away and the games that matter are defined by one thing: the fear of losing. Not the table, not the form, not the injuries, just that feeling, sitting in your chest all week, growing louder by the day. Because this isn’t just a game. This is tribal, properly, unapologetically tribal. In a world where so much of sport has been polished, packaged and sanitised, this remains something else entirely. Raw, emotional, real. This is a pride that isn’t performed, it’s inherited. A connection to place, to people, to history that doesn’t need explaining because it’s simply understood and it’s that history that raises the temperature. The memories, half-clear, half-myth, passed down, retold, claimed by everyone whether they were there or not. A Gary Rowell hat-trick. Gates and Gabbiadini dragging us through a play-off semi-final. Quinn and Phillips in the torrential rain. Sorensen’s save, Shearer in tears. Di Canio on his knees. If 3,000 were there, you’ll find 30,000 who swear they were and that’s exactly how it should be. Because this is the game we spent years in the wilderness dreaming of. We’ve not been on the run we’d have wanted. The squad is stretched, you can make every rational argument about why this is a difficult moment to walk into St James’ Park. But none of that really matters, not in the way modern football tells you it should. Win, lose or draw this won’t define our season. It won’t decide relegation for us and it won’t determine European places for them. History says there’s nothing in it either, level on 54 games a piece, blow for blow, over more than a century. But that misses the point entirely. This is about something far bigger than outcomes. It’s about pride, in a city, in a club, in who you are. It’s about bragging rights that last far longer than the weekend or even the season. It’s about identity. That’s why you feel it now, days before a ball is kicked. That knot in your stomach, that edge to everything. Because it matters, it always has and it always will. Regardless of the result, we’ll be proud. Proud of the journey. Proud of the shirt. Proud that Sunderland is back where it belongs and being spoken about accordingly. But just imagine it. Beating our friends up the road, home and away, in our first season back. Go on then, one last time this season…let’s get carried away.” 👏👏👏 #HawayTheLads. #TilIDie

Love this from Danny Dyer on @PeterCrouchPod. 👏