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It is international fans’ weekend in Sunderland and more than 130 visitors from the club’s 35 overseas supporters’ branches completed long-planned pilgrimages to watch Phil Parkinson’s side. They had travelled from as far afield as Taiwan and Thailand, Australia and North America and Bulgaria and Gibraltar, and they will surely feel their assorted treks were worthwhile after watching Chris Maguire’s immaculately struck 81st-minute winner lift Sunderland to sixth, ahead of Ipswich on goal difference.
Like Paul Lambert’s visitors, Sunderland are desperate to regain a place in the Championship and the 32,726 crowd was swelled by 2,000 away fans still struggling to fathom how, precisely, it has come to this.
What malign forces pulled Sunderland, six times champions of England and residents of a stadium with a capacity of nearly 50,000, down to the third tier? Ipswich – Uefa Cup winners under Sir Bobby Robson and playing at this level for the first time in 62 years – are similarly desperate to escape these reduced circumstances.
In Sunderland’s case the hiring and firing of 12 managers in 10 years certainly helped accelerate a dramatic plunge from the Premier League. For a while this season that grim tally looked set to rise yet again but, following a shaky start in which he won only two of his first 14 games after succeeding Jack Ross, Parkinson has restored stability.
This was his team’s fifth clean sheet in six games and sixth win in nine. He deservedly won January’s manager of the month award, as did, incidentally, Melanie Reay, his counterpart at Sunderland Ladies, who currently top the female game’s third tier.
It is quite a turnround after home fans, fuelled by a vicious social media campaign, demanded Parkinson’s sacking at Christmas when the club’s owner, Stewart Donald, was also urged to sell up and quit the Stadium of Light.
Fortunately for the international supporters, Saturday’s mood was more harmonious. Not that there was much for them to cheer about in the course of an opening 45 minutes dominated by Ipswich. “We should have had the game won in the first half,” said Lambert.
Arranged, like Sunderland, with a back three, his side seem to be trying to emulate Sheffield United with the Scot encouraging his wide centre-halves to overlap and overload the flanks.
The policy ultimately fizzled out, but initially it was responsible for creating a series of decent chances, the best of them coming when James Norwood dinked the ball over Jon McLaughlin, the home goalkeeper, only for Jordan Willis to make a last-ditch clearance.
At that stage Sunderland were looking nowhere near as innovative on the pitch as they are off it. Last week Prince William was at the club, visiting its newly opened mental health hub, a pioneering drop-in centre for fans of all stripes. The Duke of Cambridge was reportedly greatly impressed by an initiative showcasing the potential football clubs and communities have to change lives when they work together.
Pulling together to positive effect proved very much the theme of an infinitely improved second half for Sunderland. Home momentum was building, even if Charlie Wyke directed an inviting rebound straight at Tomas Holy after Lynden Gooch’s shot rebounded off a post.
The impressive defender Bailey Wright subsequently struck the woodwork from 10 yards but, eventually, Maguire reminded everyone how to finish, shooting low past Holy from 20 yards after the influential substitute Kyle Lafferty touched on Wyke’s cross.
“I just thought Lafferty’s physicality might make a difference,” said Parkinson, whose side sit five points short of the second automatic promotion slot with a game in hand on Wycombe in second place. “I’m so pleased,” he added. “When the atmosphere is like today’s, this is a great place to stand on the touchline.”
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