“One Night In Red And White Heaven”

It had happened — we’d done it. “

Daniel Ballard of Sunderland celebrates scoring the winning goal in the 120th minute to send Sunderland to Wembley for the play-off final during the Sky Bet Championship Play-Off Semi-Final Second Leg match between Sunderland and Coventry City at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland, England, on May 13, 2025. (Photo by Scott Llewellyn | MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images) | NurPhoto via Getty Images Prior to the visit of Coventry City just over a year ago, you’d have to travel back to 2004 for the last time a Championship playoff semi-final second leg was staged at the Stadium of Light. After falling short of automatic promotion during 2003/2004 and putting up a determined fight during the first leg at Selhurst Park, Crystal Palace were the visitors, Mick McCarthy was standing stoutly in the home dugout and it’s fair to say that the stakes that evening — whilst we perhaps didn’t realise it at the time — were nowhere near as high as when the Sky Blues visited over two decades later.

Of course, we all remember the sense of dismay that defined that evening as the Eagles pulled a flip reverse, getting the better of the Black Cats and eventually winning a berth in the Premier League under then-manager Iain Dowie. Jeff Whitley’s chip, Gary Breen’s composure, Mart Poom’s heroics, McCarthy’s anger as the penalty shootout went pear-shaped…surely we all felt the same acute sense of frustration when the music stopped, and so when it came to the 2004/2005 and 2006/2007 campaigns, we didn’t bother with the anxiety of an extra three games and all that entailed — we just achieved promotion via our league form and won the title in the process. However, this time, the route back to the Premier League was far more hazardous, even if you could argue that the squad with which we attacked the 2024/2025 campaign — and as it turned out, the final Sunderland squad assembled under the sole leadership of Kristjaan Speakman — was far more exciting, creative, potent and more of an all-round threat than the nearly-men of 2003/2004.

Furthermore, in Régis Le Bris, we had a head coach that had made an enormous impact during his maiden campaign in English football, despite an end-of-season slump in form that left many fans (myself included) feeling worried about just how the playoffs might unfold and whether this side had the mental strength to see the job through. After a long, hard and at times frustrating season, we knew that taking the final steps was going to be a tough assignment and that everyone would have to hold on tight. Indeed, was ‘Til The End an ethos of real substance or a slogan that although effective in 2022, might crack when placed under a new degree of pressure?