Sunderland 2-1 Newcastle United (2013)

Sunderland 2-1 Newcastle United

Barclays Premier League

Sunday 27th October 2013

Fabio Borini celebrates (Photo: Getty Images).

In nearly 20 years of watching football, I've seen all manner of games at various levels in England and if asked which one had the best atmosphere this would be a very good contender.

It was 'derby day'; it coincided with me birthday - something which I've actually dropped quite lucky with on a few occasions, and it turned out to be a cracker in front of what was a rip-roaring, raucous sell-out crowd who were unbelievable.

To paint a picture of the footballing landscape at the time of this encounter, Sunderland were becoming perennial strugglers in the Premier League and had only stayed up the previous season due to the impact which unpredictable madcap lunatic Paolo Di Canio had had.

The Italian somehow galvanised the Black Cats to lead them to survival when they looked destined to drop, and he earned huge popularity with fans for his wild celebrations in a 3-0 win at St James' Park at the start of his tenure in April. Nevertheless, as is usually the case with Di Canio, the impact doesn't last and it wasn't long before he managed to royally p*ss off his senior players. Alienated from them, they were winless, hopeless and pretty much on a hiding to nothing in the early weeks of 2013/14, before the decision-makers at the Stadium Of Light opted to axe him in favour of Gus Poyet - a man whose stock was high because of the success he'd had at Brighton & Hove Albion.

Newcastle were managed by the enigmatic Alan Pardew at this time and though his popularity often swung back and forth with supporters, the Magpies had made a good start to the season and were challenging in the top half of the table - probably feeling confident of going to the SOL and winning.

Tickets were easy to obtain. Having been to Sunderland on a couple of occasions in the past (versus Chelsea in 2005/06; another time where the noise was incredible - especially after Liam Lawrence briefly put the hosts ahead, and against Stoke City in 2011/12 - Won 4-0), I was on the club's database and therefore had no problems buying a ticket. A benefit of the 48,000 or so capacity is that they rarely sold-out in the Premier League, other than for the big games, so there was usually a good sprinkling of tickets available on General Sale so long as you acted fast and didn't mess about.

I'd got up to Sunderland early on the Sunday morning, changing trains in Newcastle which was eerily quiet if I recall correctly, because the travelling Toon Army faithful were in a 'bubble' enforced by police which restricted their movements to and from the game.

Having got inside the ground early, the excitement was tangible and it built up accordingly before the ultimate 'crescendo' where the volume was raised and 'Dance of the Knights' played aloud over the PA system - to cause feverish excitement as it meant the teams were in the tunnel. In terms of building an atmosphere, setting the scene and getting everyone excited, few clubs do it better than Sunderland.

It wasn't long before there was drama and excitement on the pitch as it took Steven Fletcher less than five minutes to open the scoring when he rose highest and powered home a cross by Adam Johnson (the less said about him the better!) to provoke wild, fist-pump celebrations as Sunderland supporters began to believe they might be on course for their first league win of the season.

The Black Cats were dominant up to half-time but a sluggish start to the second half saw Newcastle take charge, turn the screw and level things up before the hour mark with Mathieu Debuchy on-hand to finish from an initial effort by Hatem Ben Arfa. A turnaround was almost quickly competed with Yohan Cobaye unleashing a shot which flew narrowly wide as Sunderland's goal lived a charmed existence.

At this point, many might have feared the worst considering the hosts' awful form and that they were on the back-foot, but substitute Fabio Borini became an unlikely hero when he made a close-to-immediate impact with a powerful 20-yard drive which was too much for Tim Krul, flew into the net and lit the blue touch paper as it sparked more wild scenes, a mini-pitch invasion and complete and utter joy and jubilation.

It was some minutes before the game re-started with the pitch needing to be cleared, and the 10 minutes or so which were left of proceedings were tense, edgy, nervous with feelings of 'sickness to the pit of your stomach' for many supporters but Sunderland held on and come the final whistle... oh boy did they not half celebrate another of what turned out to be a string of straight successes over their enemies.

It was a knife-edge atmosphere outside the SOL afterwards with police, police dogs, riot vans around 'en masse' to try and keep the peace and prevent the same disorder which had marred the meeting at St James' Park six months earlier, with even the 'copper chopper' in the skies above monitoring things.

Ultimately, the inevitable happened for Sunderland in terms of relegation. They dropped out of the Premier League in 2016/17 but not before Newcastle had managed their own catastrophic cock up having dispensed with Pardew in favour of 'the best coach in the world' in John Carver, struggled massively, before Steve McClaren failed to inspire things and brought about a drop which even Rafael Benitez couldn't prevent.

One day, Sunderland will be back in the big time - their natural position in the footballing pyramid is at the top table and though it might take a while for it to become a reality, their next meeting with Newcastle (especially after what will be a prolonged absence) could easily be as tense, explosive and brilliant as some of the clashes in this era!