Everything was exactly where the fans wanted it to be in the Stadium of Light last Sunday. Alan Shearer, present as a television summariser, was within easy mocking range and, with the win over Sheffield United, Sunderland were in the FA Cup semifinals. A draw which pits them against Tranmere or Millwall in the last four brings the club close to Cardiff.
This tournament has brought back bounce to a ground previously burdened with cares. The manager, Mick McCarthy, had been trying hard to keep his vow of inconsequence. Until recently he stuck to soporific comments, as if it were safer for Sunderland to doze their way to recovery from trauma. The sole tub-thumping came just before the fifth-round tie.
‘Birmingham are no giant compared to Sunderland,†McCarthy insisted. ‘You might say it’s the other way round.â€
The FA Cup can fortify a club whose financial problems might have proved terminal. Sunderland have leaned on the competition as if it were a walking stick and perhaps they will soon be ready to stand on their own two feet.
The old frenzy may even be on its way back on Wearside. There is a slightly ghoulish tendency there to treat the death of Bob Stokoe last month as a portent. He was the manager in 1973, when Sunderland, then in the old second division, became the first team for 42 years to win the FA Cup while outside the top flight.
Leeds United, the pre-eminent club of that period, were the stooges, so the parallel would be completed by Sunderland vanquishing lordly Arsenal at the Millennium stadium on May 22. Manchester United, if it comes to it, would also fit the bill well enough.
By all that is rational, this ought just to be the weak-minded rambling of inveterate dreamers. The 1973 side contained Dave Watson and Dennis Tueart, who went on to represent England. Of the current line-up, Paul Thirlwell is a former under-21 international and Julio Arca is much too good for the first division, but no one pretends that the modern-day Sunderland are teeming with promise.
McCarthy attempted for a while to fend off the sentimentality.
‘Birmingham aren’t coming up here to enjoy a game in memory of Bob Stokoe,†he said on the eve of the tie. Nonetheless, there was an ambivalence as he wondered if he could exploit the emotions.
The following day, he was showing a video of the 1973 triumph on the team bus and the players went on to scrap their way to the 1-1 draw that was followed by a 2-0 victory at St Andrews in the replay. If McCarthy has mixed feelings about the FA Cup then so too must other figures at the club.
They will think of Sheffield United, whose struggle to the semifinals of both knockout competitions last year meant that they did not have enough fight left in them to achieve promotion. Sunderland already realise the workload ahead in the first division. They need to win their four games in hand to pull within a point of second-placed West Bromwich.
And yet the FA Cup is necessary to shore up the faith that Sunderland can be important again. The club have still to get over the disgust at the manner of their relegation from the Premiership. There was barely a twitch as they took two points from their last 20 games. That disgrace was the responsibility of a squad containing 16 players who earned £1-million or more a year.
Michael Gray was the last of them to leave, when he was transferred to Blackburn during the transfer window and Sunderland are relieved by the speed with which they have shed those heavy salaries. The wage bill, at £17-million, is still double that of West Bromwich, but the club, with attendances approaching 30 000 for league matches, can bear to pay an average of £10 000 a week.
In any case, chairperson Bob Murray is starting to feel the benefit of the sport’s impoverishment. No longer do footballers hold the upper hand in negotiations. Short-term deals are all the rage at the Stadium of Light and, with 15 players out of contract in the summer, Sunderland couldeasily revamp their squad if they earn promotion.
Having rescheduled its £38-million debt, the club’s breathing is no longer so laboured. All the same, a healthy lifestyle gets monotonous and the prudence is palatable only because of the FA Cup thrill. This week was a bad time to sneer at the sense of destiny in the support. Who did Sunderland, who first won the cup in 1937, beat in that year’s semifinals? Millwall, of course. —