Reader’s Corner: “I just want to win at Wembley!”

Oh, what a night! Forget late December back in ’63; 13th May 2025 was a very special time for me, and anyone else who was part of that beautiful bedlam will be reliving it and watching videos of it for probably as long as Frankie Valli’s hit song has been played on the radio.

It was one of those moments that don’t happen very often, that you convince yourself don’t happen to your club as the final seconds are slipping away. But this time it did, and it was epic. It wasn’t a goal that won a cup or a league; it could actually amount to nothing in the end, but it’ll stay in the memory forever.

Did we deserve it? That’s debatable, and ultimately pretty irrelevant, but we won the tie, and we’re off to Wembley again, meaning once all of the carnage had eventually ceased, everyone of a red-and-white persuasion went home happy.

In all honesty, though, even if it didn’t happen and we lost on penalties and our season was culled there and then, while obviously deflated, I still think I would have walked away from the game with a large sense of pride and gratitude.

Proud of what our football club had done to make the night not just a football match, but an occasion. The club asked, and the fans delivered. My God, did they deliver. From the first of the hopeful hordes that turned up outside the Stadium of Light to greet the team bus to the last of the delirious diehards to leave the ground, they created an atmosphere unlike anything we’ve had in a long, long time. Even when Coventry pegged us back and we looked bereft of ideas and attacking threat, the crowd stuck with and roared on their team, like Roker Park used to roar. Everyone from the club media and PR team, to the fan groups and the folks at This Is Wearside who organised that sensational pre-match display, deserve immense credit – and it was hugely appreciated by all who were there.

Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images

But that’s not the gratitude I was referring to. It was more a feeling of being thankful that we can still have nights like that. It had the “big game” feel from the minute I woke up: the SAFC songs playlist in the car on the way to work – Prokofiev, Ready to Go, Wise Men Say, and, of course, my own version of Paint Your Wagon (if you know me, you know!). The churning of the stomach through most of the day that relented for brief moments at a time to attempt to get some food down. And walking to the ground, there was a buzz, an anticipation, a hope.

After everything we’ve been through, after back-to-back relegations and four years languishing in League One that could have all but killed the club, and with it any prospect of playing games like that in front of 46,000 people. For many others, it probably would have, but we’re still here, we’re still Sunderland ’til we die, and we’re still that powder-keg club that only needs one spark to blow the lid off the whole thing.

Maybe that spark will come at Wembley in a week’s time. It’s a one-off game, and anything can happen. Am I feeling the “big game” nerves again already? Absolutely, yes. Am I confident we’ll do it? Absolutely not – again, if you know me, you’ll know. Sheffield United’s attacking options concern me; my Wembley record terrifies me – four games, four defeats, having missed the Wycombe win for my wedding!

Photo by Steven Paston/PA Images via Getty Images

I desperately hope we can do it, pray that we have one more win in us to get this club back where it belongs. Yes, if we do go up, we’ll all be under no illusions about how difficult it will be to stay there – it might be nigh-on impossible to stay up first attempt these days, who knows? – but if we do get there, I’ll worry about that in August. Actually, I tell a lie; I’ll probably start worrying about it two weeks into the transfer window when we haven’t signed five new players already!

But those are very much hypothetical worries that can wait. For now, I just want to win at Wembley. I want to celebrate that win with my dad, with my brother, and uncles, and friends, and 35,000 more of the most deserving supporters in football. Just one more moment like Tuesday night.

But if not, I’d like to think that we’ve seen enough, not just this week but this season, to hope that every little thing is gonna be alright.

And we’ll always remember 13th May 2025 – what a header, what a night!