And here on 606, with me, Robbie Garbage, we have a new caller on Line One. Tarquin, which club do you support?

Hello, thanks for having me on. I’m an Arsenal fan for my sins.

Ever heard things like this?

And next on ‘Absolutely Pointless’, couple number two. Tell us something about yourselves.

Hello, I’m Sebastian, and I’m a Chelsea fan for my sins.

What’s this ‘for my sins’ business? It implies extreme hardship and pain over the years, and absolutely no awareness of what pain is.

They’ve possibly never seen their club relegated, and they’ve probably seen their club win a major trophy in their lifetime. Which sins are these? I’d have to spend years on community service and helping old ladies across the road for the rest of my life to atone for the ‘sin’ of being a Sunderland fan!

Of course, it’s all relative.

Our fanbase was accused of the same ‘entitled’ behaviour when we were in League One, and without meaning to, some fans came across as assuming we were too good to be in League One.

Of course, the majority of us accepted that’s where we deserved to be, given the way the club was being run, but deep down, we all knew that Sunderland AFC was too big a beast to be languishing in the third tier of English football.

I’ve never been one to think that my club was any more deserving than any other, so it really annoys me when things like ‘for my sins’ comments pop up from established Premier League clubs’ fans.

Welcome to Anfield for the start of the 2025/2026 season, as Liverpool take on Bournemouth.

Well, no. It wasn’t the start of the season, was it? That happened two weeks earlier when the League One and League Two clubs kicked off.

The media, in all its forms, has an absolute obsession with the Premier League, with the other seventy two clubs and all the other pyramid teams an afterthought.

I hope I never turn into an ‘entitled’ fan; of course, after saying that, it’s a joy to hear and to read about all things Sunderland, with a greater frequency than we’ve been used to over the last eight years, but it’s in remembering where we’ve come from in recent times that’ll keep me grounded.

Last week, I was watching my stepson play a warm-up match for his U16 team and a fellow dad spotted the Sunderland crest on my shirt (I should add that this is in a Worcestershire league), so we chatted about the play-off matches and our eventual promotion.

Without wanting to bore him too much, I politely asked him who he supported.

“Cheltenham Town”, came the response. Well, if you’ve ever fallen off a ladder or suffered a serious accident, you might have experienced that strange phenomenon, where time seems to slow down and almost gives your brain more time to react and adapt to the situation.

It seemed like quite a few seconds before I conjured up a reply, but in reality, it was probably almost immediate. “Oh, right, Cheltenham. And how do you think they’ll do this season?”. I’d never had someone respond “Cheltenham Town” to that question, but fair play to the guy.

He’d been a season ticket holder for many years, and his son was also now a season ticket holder. It was interesting to chat about his team, as they’re perhaps the club I associate most with the lowest point in our history: that rainy, bleak, cold Tuesday evening three years ago, at the Jonny Rocks Stadium, when we lost 2-1 in League One.

I’ll never forget walking across the car park after the game with my stepson and pointing out the Sunderland bus to him. I glanced down for his response (three years later, I’m looking up to him!) and saw that he was crying. I’ve never felt so guilty — what have I done, opening the ‘supporting Sunderland path’ to him for the rest of his life?

But this Cheltenham dad had surprisingly low expectations for his club, and I asked if his ambition was perhaps to see them play in the Championship one day.

“Good grief, no! I’d be content if we could establish ourselves in League One and become a good, steady League One club. Our infrastructure and support just doesn’t lend itself to anything bigger”

It was an answer that was both honest and made me appreciate being a Sunderland fan — where our ambition always has been to get as high up as possible in the top tier. The sky’s the limit.

I think this ‘entitlement’ trap wears thinner the older one gets, and the rollercoaster of supporting the Black Cats takes on more rails and more twists and turns as you travel through life, so when we beat Wycombe at Wembley after that Ross Stewart strike, I met my older brother beside the Bobby Moore statue after the game.

I was with my stepson, and ‘big brother’ was sitting elsewhere. We embraced when we saw each other; sheer relief to be out of that awful league. A purely instinctive reaction, and a recognition that this was one of the upward sections of the Sunderland rollercoaster in our timelines — or, depending on your view of rollercoasters, it could’ve been the start of a new downward section, as that’s where the excitement is!

As we embraced and slapped each other’s backs, I was aware that my stepson was thinking, “What’s the big deal? We’ve only beaten Wycombe bloody Wanderers!” He was still very young, but it’s with a lot of satisfaction that recent events have helped him to start to build the first ‘upward section’ of his own rollercoaster.

So, back to the Premier League days, or more accurately, top flight days.

The League One playoff match was a top day, as were the wins over Coventry City and Sheffield United — days that won’t leave me.

Of course I want my club to initially stay up — which, by the way, I think we might do with room to spare — but I refuse to become entitled. I refuse to kick off and criticise hurtfully, and I refuse to expect us to beat Burnley or Brentford et al. Of course, I hope we do, but there’s support and negative support.

There’s nasty criticism and constructive criticism. There’s an awareness of knowing that posting a response may unduly knock a player’s confidence, or of being ignorant of the power of social media. We need to get the Stadium of Light rocking every game — that’s our job.

Let’s see how far we can go with this management and ownership. They’ve certainly only built exciting sections of the funfair to date, and I for one will try very hard not to feel entitled. Ha’way, me bonnie lads!