SAFC: What it means to me...

Growing up in Oxfordshire, it's fair to say there were not many Sunderland fans around me. In fact, other than my family, there are only about five other people in my area who I know are Lads fans!

I often get asked the question: "why do you support Sunderland?" and the answer isn't as simple as it is for others. My Gramp was aware of all the glory supporting children when he was at school and he grew up loving the colour red. But instead of choosing Manchester United, Liverpool or Arsenal, he decided to choose a random red team. This team turned out to be Sunderland, who are 234 miles away from where he grew up. He then bought my dad up as a Sunderland fan and he then passed it on to me and my sister.

Before taking me to all the way up the country, my dad used to take me to local games, where my love for football started. After weeks and months of attending Banbury United games, my dad finally took me to the Stadium of Light at the age of 4. My first game was, in Sunderland fashion, a 1-2 loss to Blackburn Rovers on September 29th 2007 and since then, my love for the club has grown.

Fast forward to 2015 and after years of going to the majority of home games and the odd away game, my dad committed to season tickets for himself, myself and my sister. The Big Sam season was just incredible, the highs of beating Newcastle, Chelsea and Everton at home, mixed in with Norwich and Swansea away saw unbelievable optimism on Wearside. And even after the five years that have followed Allardyce's departure, following Sunderland home and away has almost become religion. Together as a fanbase we have travelled to stadiums we wouldn't have imagined travelling to a few years ago: Accrington, Luton and Morecombe to name a few. I love it!

When I moved to London in September of 2021 I said to my dad that I may have to start missing a few games because the travelling may become too much. In fact It has done the opposite! For Sheffield Wednesday away in November I got a National Express coach to and from the game and didn't get back to Wembley until 7am the following morning, all for a 3-0 loss. Nowadays I can't bare missing a game because I know that all I will be doing is refreshing Twitter every ten seconds anyway. The dream for me is to write about Sunderland as that would mix my main two passions: Sunderland and writing.

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SAFC means everything to me, and the best bit about it is following them around the country with my family.