Who has had the best derbies: Sunderland fans or Newcastle United fans?
Based on the narrative that the media is desperate to help push, there seems to be only one answer to that question.
It’s been 14 years since Newcastle United fans last saw their team win a Premier League derby, while it’s just under 11 years since Sunderland fans enjoyed a Premier League win over their rivals.
I don’t dispute these facts, BUT I dispute their relevance.
Unlike, say, the derby win that Newcastle United fans enjoyed all the way back in… 2024!
Apparently it doesn’t count, like in the FA Cup.
Imagine if the Mackems had won that match 3-0 in January 2024, do you honestly think the media would dismiss that as irrelevant this week? I don’t think so.
It would be talked about endlessly and would be the focus of media coverage, with Sunderland fans repeatedly asking if they thought their team would give Newcastle United another thumping like that 3-0 just 23 months ago.
Instead, the story has been hijacked by Sunderland fans and a complicit media.
They want to focus on what happened more than a decade ago. What relevance does more than ten years ago have to do with the here and now? The owners, the managers, all the players, none of those who were there more than a decade ago, will be involved on Sunday.
While, compared to January 2024, the two clubs now have the same owners, one has the same manager, while a large proportion of the players involved 23 months ago are still at the two clubs, ten of the Newcastle players who came on the pitch in that 3-0 win are still at St James’ Park.
History boys (and girls)
What is your experience of the derby in the post-Newcastle United era?
Why should what happened more than 10 years ago be more relevant than what happened 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago, in the memory of life?
Here’s my derby history, so Newcastle United and Sunderland fans alike can sit back and listen to the history of the last 45 years, and then decide who the best derby dogs are…
If we take time from mid-April 1980 and move forward to early April 2013, how many times have I and other Newcastle United fans seen Sunderland fans enjoying a derby win?
During those 33 years there were 31 derby matches, so how many of the 31 saw Sunderland fans celebrate?
Put it this way: you can count them on one hand and still have change.
That’s right, over a period of 33 (thirty-three) years, Sunderland fans saw their team win four out of 31 (thirty-one) games. It just wasn’t something you ever really worried about because it happened so rarely.
The four victories in that period were May 1990, August 1999, November 2000 and October 2008.
So from 1980 onwards, Sunderland won one derby in almost twenty years. If you want to measure 19 years in time, compare it to something. If you go back 19 years, none of us had heard of Mike Ashley at the time.
In that 33 year period the derby record was played 31 Newcastle wins 13 draws 14 Sunderland wins 4
Speaking of Mike Ashley, we then experienced two years of derbies that summed up the entire Ashley era: between April 2013 and October 2015, Sunderland won six derbies against Newcastle United, with Pardew, Carver and McClaren as managers.
I’m not saying it didn’t bother me when Newcastle lost these six ‘in a row’, but at the time I was so disheartened by the Mike Ashley era and he was about to relegate us just seven years after his first ‘success’, it was just part of that whole malaise for me. The derby defeats summed up why we so desperately needed to get rid of him and his ambitionless agenda. Just try to survive in the Premier League with as little money spent as possible and fill St James’ Park, the training ground and everywhere else, with as much free advertising for Ashley’s retail empire as possible. I honestly don’t think Mike Ashley cared that we lost those games to Sunderland as long as they were played in the Premier League and everyone saw his Sports Direct adverts on TV.
Sunderland fans have had their few glory years and I can’t blame them for enjoying it.
However, over the past 33 years I have only had to allow them to win four times, on average once every eight years or more, four out of 31 and therefore only a ratio of one in eight. After October 2015, it’s been over a decade (and counting) without Sunderland winning a derby, and it’s not our fault they’ve hidden away in the second and third tier for so long.
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