by The San Siro metro carriage in Milan was uncomfortably crowded and the handful of locals on board looked very uncomfortable as Newcastle fans chanted three words in full force.
“We hate Sunderland,” they chanted with some emphasizing the point by hurling empty beer bottles against the ceiling of the train. “Why?” asked a very famous Italian at last.
The answer will emerge at the Stadium of Light on Saturday lunchtime when the first Tyne-Wear Derby of 2016 kicks off.
Related: Daily Football | Sunderland rolling out the black and white carpet for their local foes
Much has changed in the intervening eight years, notably Newcastle’s Saudi-led takeover in 2021 and Sunderland’s drop into the third tier in 2018. The Wearsiders are now Championship residents but, although their current squad cost around £20m combined, more than £500m has been spent on Newcastle’s.
He says the FA Cup third round would normally look like it could end in embarrassment. But with Eddie Howe’s visitors reeling from a run of seven wins in eight games and not beating their local rivals since 2011, there is a certain nervousness in the air on Tyneside.
Four months after that Champions League draw at Milan and just over three weeks since Howe’s Serie A side snuffed out Europe’s hopes in the return, the rise in tension is almost palpable. The police have deemed the hostility between clubs so intense that 6,000 Newcastle fans have been banned from using the local metro.
They must avoid all conventional forms of public and private transport and cross the 14 miles separating the cities on a convoy of cheap buses flanked by heavy duty police. No one will be given a playing ticket until they arrive at the Beach.
The idea is to avoid the violence which saw a police horse punched in the face outside St James’ in 2013 by a Newcastle fan after the then Sunderland manager, Paolo Di Canio, angered his hosts by making a celebratory touchline. knee slide as the visitors won 3-0.
“The knee slide has been mentioned a few times,” says Michael Beale, Sunderland’s promotion-chasing manager, as he prepares for his fifth game since replacing Tony Mowbray. “But I can’t tell you what I would do if we won!
“The clubs are in completely different places from 2016. We’ve gone down to League One and now they’re the youngest team in the Championship, maybe in the country. My football players have big ambitions to play in the Premier League and the Champions League but they have everything to prove against the great opposition.”
The team’s success has certainly varied since March 2016 when Championship-bound Rafael Benítez’s Mike Ashley-owned Newcastle drew 1-1 at home to a Sunderland side managed by England manager Sam Allardyce.
But if the black and white flag strung across a bridge in northern Italy in September declaring “You won’t see Mackem in Milan” highlighted a growing chasm on the pitch, so will continued parity endure .
Regardless of the millions invested in refurbishing Newcastle’s training ground, Sunderland’s Academy of Light remains the best facility, and the 49,000-capacity Stadium of Light is among the best in England. Furthermore, while Kyril Louis-Dreyfus can’t remotely match Saudi wealth, Sunderland’s Swiss-French majority owner is a billionaire.
However, Louis-Dreyfus is struggling to win local hearts and minds. If fans were upset by Mowbray’s hard sack they are outraged by Sunderland’s initial decision – now overturned – to redecorate in black and white Newcastle’s hospitality club of 700 fans paying £600 each for Derby tickets.
Sunderland gave the go-ahead for a Newcastle-themed bar decoration at the Stadium of Light for Saturday’s FA Cup derby last month.
It is understood Newcastle were invited in December to submit designs for the Black Cats Bar, which will provide corporate hospitality for traveling fans for the third round, and were signed off by a senior member of the Wearside club’s staff.
The move is understood to have been intended to reduce the possibility of opposition supporters damaging the area, which usually carries the heart of Sunderland.
Sunderland fans reacted furiously on Thursday when images of banners bearing the messages “Keep the Black and White Flying High” and “We are United” appeared on social media. The Geordie spelling “Howay” in black also replaced the Sunderland slogan “Ha’way the lads” in red.
Sunderland quickly apologized for a “serious error of judgement” and announced an immediate review, with chairman Kyril Louis-Dreyfus saying he was “embarrassed and hurt” by the “inappropriate gestures”, which was achieved. PA Media
One of Louis-Dreyfus’ predecessors, the businessman and philanthropist Sir Bob Murray, would not have made such a naive mistake. More significantly, Murray is adamant that, as Sunderland’s owner, he would reject any attempt at a Saudi buyout because of the kingdom’s “human rights abuses”.
Beale steers a more diplomatic course. “There is a time and a place to comment on the ownership of football clubs and what is right and wrong,” says the former Rangers manager. “We will focus on a very interesting game. Financially, we are building something very different here with young players. One club is on the verge of reaching the top quickly, while the other is trying to take a development path. It’s two different visions.”
Beale added that, apart from money, there was no big difference in “size, support or status” but Howe demurred. “I’m not going to get into a war of words with any manager but I don’t think it’s wise to make those comparisons or comments,” he says. “We know who we are and what we have.”
Former Sunderland captain turned local BBC radio commentator Gary Bennett is looking forward to finding out whether Beale’s leading man Jack Clarke, midfielder Dan Neil, forward Jobe Bellingham (brother of younger Jude) and others fulfill their potential on Saturday. “It’s a great platform for Sunderland players,” he says. “There’s nothing like a north east derby – the noise will be something else.”
That soundtrack has happily changed since 1985 when Bennett was subjected to horrific racial abuse in Newcastle. It was the era when the National Front regularly recruited outside St James, but, more positively, that incident was the catalyst for the founding of the transformative education charity Show Racism the Red Card.
“The north-east is now a much more diverse, understanding and educated place,” says Bennett. “And on top of that, the clubs are extremely diverse; there will be so many nationalities playing in this derby.”
The similarities between Newcastle’s green strip and the national flag of Saudi Arabia have prompted accusations of state affiliation but Bennett points out that Howe’s team have not won anything. “They are very, very rich now,” he says. “But they have to continue to recruit well. Finances alone don’t win trophies.”
Sunderland club historian Rob Mason supports the point. “The early 1950s brought Newcastle three FA Cups in five years and Sunderland won none, despite being the moneybag team of the era, known as ‘the Bank of England club’,” he says. “That failure during their time as the biggest spending team in the country is a warning to those who think silverware will automatically follow money. Newcastle are massive favorites but this is the FA Cup and everyone is expecting Wearside to pull off one of the biggest derby wins of all.”
Jim Montgomery is optimistic that Sunderland can win. The club’s former goalkeeper and hero of the 1973 FA Cup final win against Leeds invited Bob Moncur, who captained Newcastle to their last major victory, the 1969 Fair Cup, to sit alongside him. “I’m sure we’ll have some laughs,” says Montgomery, highlighting the humorous side of a rivalry shared by many families across the Tyne-Wear co-city. “Sunderland were thralls in 1973 so we know what can happen.”
Montgomery was recently treated for prostate cancer at the Sir Bobby Robson Cancer Trials Research Center within Newcastle’s Freeman hospital, funded by the late England coach’s charitable foundation.
As a former manager at Newcastle, Robson proudly suspended Sunderland and Middlesbrough football warfare to help set up a project that continues to save lives.
Despite widespread skepticism about the Saudi regime, there is a similar pan-regional consensus that Newcastle’s owners should be encouraged to help deliver the much-needed economic “balancing up” program that the UK government has failed to deliver.
Visible infrastructure improvements are yet to come but the kingdom’s ambassador to the UK has dined with local business leaders in Durham, the Saudi companies SABIC and Alfanar are investing billions in the development of green fuels on Teesside and the airline plans national, Saudia send direct flights. to the Gulf from Newcastle airport.
At the moment, however, football is primarily responsible for putting an overlooked region back on the map. “This game is not just about the northeast,” says Beale. “It’s the tie. The whole nation is looking forward to it.”
