This Netflix documentary is quite simply the best on-screen sports production I have ever seen. There have been countless great documentaries and series over many, many years and I’m absolutely sure I haven’t seen a good number of the best, but this one is far, far more than a football or sports documentary and this is why I rate it so highly. This is an exercise in social studies; urban psychology; personal exploration; the world of sports business; mental health; love; depression; hate and everything in between. It paints a rich and deeply textured intimate portrait of the city of Sunderland, its people and their club. Their club. An institution that channels the entire town; a beacon; the reason anyone beyond has even heard of the place and something to which every man, woman and child of the city is tethered for life. And it is these people that are the stars of this production.
Back in my youth, I toured the UK in a punk band many, many times. On one occasion we were in the north-east, possible playing Newcastle University and we stayed in a gaff in a place called Peterlee about a half-hour south, a new town built after the war. The part we were in was not the most beautiful place you could imagine. Inside this pre-fab terraced house, however, was a feast for the eyes. Every last fucking thing in the place was red and white. The entire home was decorated in Sunderland colours and I mean every last inch. So talk turned to football as you can imagine, at which point the gentleman host turned to me and pulled down his lower lip to reveal a tattoo which read “FTM” – which stood for ‘Fuck The Maggies’, Newcastle. A lot of this series reminded me of him – passion, obsession and a life lived not on the edge, but on the fringes.
Sunderland ‘Til I Die is all about the characters from these places, but a few of them really stand out – (Spoiler alert for those who’ve not seen it yet or have no idea how things go for them. Believe me, even full knowledge of every result won’t take away from the experience.)
Joyce Rome, the club chef, is just one of those people. You know the sort of mother figure you get in many workplaces whose face just lights up a room and drags you out of whatever mood you might be in. A true fan and a stalwart of the club, whose reading out of her text message from Chris Coleman after he’d been sacked is really all you need to know about the place of SAFC in the local community and the type of club it is. It also tells you a lot about Chris Coleman.
The local taxi driver fan who is the voice of reason throughout the team’s struggles. He seems like a truly nice man and again from a humble background. The scenes of him leaving his small terraced house among the rows and rows of houses to walk to the match, including on his own birthday, are great. Like the walk through Phibsborough, Inchicore, across the Square Car Park, or down Lansdowne Road, each step is marked in turn either by naive optimism or the dread that only experience can give you. Frank Styles’ mural of striker Raich Carter, captain of the league title winning team in 1936 and the FA Cup winners the following year, on the side of the Blue House pub loom large over his walk.
Then there’s one of my highlights when a fan sits down to listen to an away game from Bristol on his radio at home. He agonises and rages as they go 3-0 down by half-time. He is philosophical as he makes a cup of tea during the break. There’s no way he’s turning it off. They may get beat by 5 or 6 but this is what he does. He sticks by through every minute and never misses a second. They claw back to 3-3 and that same naive optimism is writ large across his beaming face once again. Only football can really do something like that.
All over this series there are snippets of fans raging into cameras from the stands, grieving another defeat outside the ground. Singing; abusing; chanting; crying; laughing and just surviving. It is a gripping and beautiful paean to the passion of the football fan. It has a plenty of nasty parts as well – the sheer menace for the pre-season friendly with Celtic surprised me to be honest, as small skirmishes break out and bottles get thrown on the streets afterwards. At one point during a league match, the rage is taken out on the cameraman, while the confrontation between Chris Coleman and a fan after relegation is unsavoury at best. But it’s a warts ‘n’ all series and there is no merit in brushing the realities of the game under the carpet.
And Chris Coleman does come across as a genuinely decent bloke whose hands were tied by the lack of investment and the general mire that he walked into. The quite ludicrous take of Aiden McGeady on his management style – he doesn’t shout enough – tells you more about the player’s own indiscipline or lack of wit than it does about Coleman’s style. It’s some comedown from managing Wales to the semi-final of a major championships though. As for the manager at the start, Simon Grayson, he seemed fine but was never going to spark enough life into that team or that club.
I’ve read a few comments online about the Chief Executive Martin Bain, much of them I thought unfair. Yeh he’s a bit slick, but I found that in general he came across ok, with his hands tied over finance in the same way that the manager’s was. It was a good insight into the constraints that apply and the manner in which things are always that little bit more complicated than they might seem to the outside – the refusal of Jack Rodwell to leave, a refusal which he was completely entitled to give, being one example.
As for the players, Darron Gibson drunken antics, which bookend the series are the stand out incidents. At the beginning of the season he tells a bunch of fans that half the squad are not bothered what happens while at the end he is involved in a pretty serious drink-driving accident which cost him his job while writing off a few parked vehicles at the same time. It could have been much, much worse. He’s at Wigan now and I hope he’s over all of these issues.
Others like Jonny Williams show that no matter how secure a footballer might be financially and no matter how much of a dream it may seem to most of us, this is a difficult job, mentally as well as physically. The sheer enthusiasm of Academy graduate and local(ish) lad George Honeyman is a tonic to the general cynical view of footballers, and relegation leaves him almost speechless with genuine sadness.
Everything you need to know about Sunderland ‘Til I Die happens during the opening credits. Set to the song “Shipyards” by The Lake Poets, aka Sunderland native Martin Longstaff, they let you know very clearly that this is a series about a city. A once thriving industrial city that has struggled to find an identity in the malaise of post-industrial Britain. With nowhere to turn to, they seek identity in the club. They also seemed to have sought it by voting 61% in favour of leaving the EU. This is a place that feels left behind because it has been left behind, and when someone compromises the only thing they have left, there is despair, anger and rage.
As an Irishman, there’s been a strong link with Sunderland in recent decades through Niall Quinn, Roy Keane, Mick McCarthy and a raft of players. Seeing this will only strengthen that. For the first time in my life, I’ll be watching the League One results with interest every Saturday. Watch this series by whatever means necessary. It is a gem.
A Yard of Grass 