I'll See You In My Dreams

 Today is the first day of the 2024/25 English football season. It will be the first season that begins without my Dad, who died four months ago on 9^th April at the age of 76. My Dad and I have shared football together for as long as I can remember. I fell in love with football largely because of Eric Cantona, who I remember thinking was the coolest man alive. I dimly remember him returning to action after being suspended for his infamous kung fu kick on a Crystal Palace fan, scoring an equaliser against Liverpool and swinging around the stanchion behind the goal at Old Trafford.

All of this subsequently led to me wanting to follow Manchester United. I am surprised in retrospect that this man from Houghton-le-Spring who spent most Saturdays in his youth at Roker Park to watch Sunderland AFC didn’t object more vehemently to this. Perhaps he saw it as a decent excuse to watch higher quality players than he was used to. Dad always wanted to watch good teams playing good football. Even if one of those teams was Newcastle.

 He could at least take some comfort in his side having one moment in the sun, winning the 1973 FA Cup Final against Leeds. Ian Porterfield lashing the ball into the roof of the net. Jimmy Montgomery pulling off one of the greatest saves in the history of the sport (both BBC and ITV’s commentators announced a goal for Leeds before realising what had happened). Bob Stokoe’s awkward, jubilant run across the Wembley pitch. The stuff of legend.

As with all football fans of a certain age, he also witnessed England winning the World Cup in 1966, when he was 18 years old. Good grief, what a summer that must have been. When we occasionally butted heads on political matters and his issues with the state of the world, I would usually remind him of this. If I had seen England win the World Cup when I was 18 years old, I’m not sure I’d have the temerity to complain about anything that happened in my life ever again. I still hope that the generations of fans that have come since will have their own moment. It’s currently difficult for me to reconcile the achievements of Gareth Southgate’s England team with the fact that going so close only to fall at the final hurdle twice in four years mainly serves to make those “years of hurt” hurt even more.

Thanks to Dad’s passion and enthusiasm, I began to fall for Sunderland too. He always remembered this match far more vividly than I did, but I vaguely recall going with him to a Palace vs Sunderland match at Selhurst Park. His contact had secured tickets in the Palace end, who were largely unimpressed when I stood up and cheered a Sunderland goal. Fortunately, the Palace fans were not minded to take out any residual anger towards Cantona on a young boy.

A quiet understanding subsequently developed between us. United were my first team, Sunderland my second and vice versa. I feel reluctant to acknowledge this split allegiance even now. In the minds of most football fans, the only thing worse than supporting two teams is being a Southerner who supports Manchester United. I’ve come to terms with the fact that the purists will never accept me as one of their own.

I’m glad that I got to make one trip to the old Roker Park, kindly facilitated by John Fickling who Dad knew from childhood and was the Chief Executive at the time. It was to see both teams lock horns. Despite their underdog status against more illustrious opponents, Sunderland pulled an unlikely 2-1 victory out of the fire. I remember being quietly pleased that it had put a smile on his face. “Don’t worry, they’ll still win the league”, Dad said while we were leaving. He was right.

I presumed that Dad didn’t foist Sunderland on me as an attempt to save me from heartbreak. Two events in the late 90s seemed to bear that out, firstly driving forlornly away from Selhurst as a 1-0 Wimbledon win condemned Sunderland to relegation to the second division. A more direct intervention came on the day of the 1998 Division One Play Off final against Charlton Athletic. As he couldn’t bear to watch it, Dad took the entire family to Hever Castle instead. I found out later on Teletext that I had missed one of the greatest matches ever played at Wembley. It was 4-4 after extra time followed by heartbreak for Sunderland and for Michael Gray, who missed the decisive kick in a 7-6 penalty defeat. We would bicker about this for years afterwards. Dad felt the outcome vindicated his decision and I strongly disagreed.

Fortunately, Sunderland’s best run of form in my lifetime soon followed. Waltzing out of the second division with over 100 points the following season, it was backed up by two 7^th place finishes in the Premier League under Peter Reid, with Nicky Summerbee and Don Hutchinson supplying Niall Quinn and Kevin Phillips upfront to dispatch considerably more fashionable sides with ease. This period led to the fanzine A Love Supreme to produce a parody of “Daydream Believer” entitled Cheer Up Peter Reid which we played at Dad’s funeral, along with Status Quo’s cover of Rockin All Over The World, a favourite of many long car trips.

Quinn said about his time at the club that “Sunderland got under my skin” and it had gotten under mine too. My first visit to the newly constructed Stadium of Light came when Sunderland played Watford in the Premier League in 1999. I still couldn’t see too well when everyone stood up but remember clambering up onto my seat as Phillips drove forward with the ball. Among a crowd of limbs, I saw the top right-hand corner of the net. Then the ball flying into it. Then pandemonium. 40,000 fans going berserk. God, it was thrilling.

Inevitably though, it couldn’t last and they were relegated once more, leading to a sequence of events which produced probably the most heartbreaking moment of my life as a Sunderland fan, the 2004 FA Cup Semi Final. It feels like the FA Cup has lost its lustre in recent times, not helped by certain organisational decisions made by the FA themselves. I have always loved it. Any United fan who recalls the 1999 semi-final with Arsenal would. It’s the only competition in English football where the underdogs can have their moment in the sun, as Maidstone United memorably proved in this year’s competition.

In 2004, a once in a lifetime scenario emerged. United had beaten Arsenal once again in a semi- final the day before. The other semi-final was Sunderland vs Millwall at Old Trafford, both teams in the second tier. A Sunderland win meant not only a Manchester United vs Sunderland FA Cup final but that they would qualify for European competition for the first time in my life and for the first time since that famous victory in 1973. Presumably I don’t need to explain what transpired. 1-0 to Millwall and I still hate Tim Cahill to this day.

My Uncle, Dad and I trudged back to the car where it had started to pour down in typical Mancunian fashion. We stopped at a non-descript service station on the way home. I saw a girl wearing the Millwall goalkeeper’s shirt he had worn during the match, complete with mud stains. As I trudged up to KFC, I heard a booming voice from behind me. “Is this the queue for FA Cup final tickets?”. Sadly, as he was a Millwall fan, we’ll never know whether he was making a joke or if he was simply ignorant. On the off chance any offended Millwall fans are reading this, I’d suggest that they take my remarks in the spirit of their famously held maxim “No-one likes us, we don’t care”. Even United dispatching them 3-0 in the final with a modicum of fuss did little for my mood.

Some years later, with Sunderland enjoying their longest spell ever in the Premier League, we saw SAFC v.s United in 2009. Dad was a huge admirer of Paul Scholes and relished the opportunity to watch him in the flesh for United. He was less amused when he opened the scoring. Nonetheless, he enjoyed watching him pulling the strings in central midfield, even as a certain Portuguese player who arrived as a second half substitute commanded more of the crowd’s attention. United triumphed 2-1 this time round and perhaps that was only fair. Whilst enjoying a post-match drink, we looked out the window to see Sir Alex Ferguson walking towards the United team bus. These are only a few of three decades of footballing memories I was grateful to have shared with him.

Since he died, I’ve often worried that I’m not grieving in the right way. I worry that there are things that I have already forgotten about him. Fragments of things come back to me. I think I mainly love comedy because I love The Simpsons and I always enjoyed watching episodes with him, as he pretended that it was all beneath him whilst quietly enjoying it. I wanted to make him laugh more than anything and I suspect that it was that impulse that was partially responsible for taking me into stand-up.

What I mostly reflect on day-to-day is what a kind man he was. A grumpy man occasionally, a curmudgeonly one perhaps. But always kind. He loved his wife, his daughter and his son unconditionally and would have done anything for them. I often felt and do often feel that I’ve let him down and that I have not achieved a great deal in life. But he never gave up on me, even when I gave up on myself.

At one particularly difficult moment a few years ago, I told him that he should be ashamed of me. He said that he was very proud of my achievements and that he could never feel that way. On my worst days, that’s something that I try to hold onto. In 2009, we went to New York together and were walking along the sidewalk one day. A woman nearby with a lot of luggage was hailing a cab. She stumbled forward, sending cases flying into the road. Dad sprang into action and retrieved them before placing them in the back of the taxi. In one of the more cinematic moments of my life, the woman turned round and said, “I’ve found the only gentleman in New York City”.

The last football match Dad and I watched together was Chelsea vs Manchester United on 4^th April. Chelsea won 4-3, with goals from Cole Palmer in 90+10 and 90+11. It was the latest that a team in the Premier League have been ahead in a match and still contrived to lose. It was crazy, bizarre and exasperating. Such an extraordinary conclusion was perhaps a fitting way to end a lifetime of football watching. He had an accident at my sister’s house the following day and died four days later.

I was the last person to see him before he passed away. I am grateful at least that I had the opportunity to be alone with him one last time and to say what I wanted to say. I don’t know if he was able to hear what I said, or if it matters, but part of me hopes he did. This has been the longest four months of my life. The basic fact that there are still five months left in the year my father died in seems absurd.  I shouldn’t feel cheated or aggrieved by what has happened and a 76-year-old man dying is not a tragedy. But having made it through some admittedly very difficult health issues last year and stabilising, I hoped he might have some more time on the clock. Perhaps I always would have felt that way and that feels like a selfish impulse. Though I am finding it difficult, I try to be philosophical. He was at peace and did not suffer a protracted and painful end of life as he otherwise might have done.

At the end of the 2000s, Dad had to retire due to renal failure and underwent dialysis treatment for a sustained period. It was an immensely difficult time that I was often sheltered from as I was at university. Eventually a matching donor kidney was found for him, which gave him a new lease of life and meant that he was well enough to go on several cruises around the world with my mum. I am enormously grateful that he was able to have those experiences. I don’t think it would be right to lament the nature of the end of his life without acknowledging the good fortune that gave us fifteen more years with him.

By a curious quirk of fate, Sunderland kicked off against Leeds about an hour after my girlfriend Laura and I received the news. It felt sort of absurd to watch it but also sort of absurd not to. Amid a wretched second half of the season, Sunderland produced a stoic rearguard action to claim a 0-0 draw at Elland Road. It’s the sort of performance Dad would have been proud of. Laura’s late father Graeme was also a SAFC fan. She says that she likes to think the two of them are looking down on us watching the game. I’m reminded of a lyric from one of my favourite bands, The Wonder Years.

“Well I’m sure there ain’t a heaven, but that don’t mean I don’t like to picture you there”

Six weeks later, I travel to Sunderland with Laura to watch Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band at the Stadium of Light. It’s my first trip to the north-east in a couple of years and now feels like an unbearably poignant proposition. I’ve been going to see live music since 2003 but was a latecomer to the music of The Boss. I can’t remember where or when it was that I first listened to it. But I know that it was Thunder Road, which has become one of my favourite songs. 36 is the age at which I most painfully relate to the lyric “So you’re scared and you’re thinking that maybe we ain’t that young anymore”. A dispiriting Google reveals Springsteen wrote it at 24.

The song is based on a simple idea that everyone can relate to. Get in a car and drive away to a new life. I normally dislike songs that fade out, but Thunder Road is the exception. I imagine the two protagonists heading off into the distance as the music quietens, taking their hopes and dreams with them. After that I devoured everything he had to offer from Born To Run, The River and Darkness Of The Edge Of Town to Born In The USA and beyond.

I loved these rock and roll songs, songs that weren’t fashionable or cool but songs about life that felt genuine, honest, raw and real. Even if, as Springsteen self-effacingly admitted during Springsteen On Broadway, that he has written several songs about the experiences of the working man despite never working a day in his life. But such is the talent of one of the great storytellers.

I missed him playing Sunderland in 2013 and vowed that if he ever went back, I’d be there. I went to see Springsteen in 2016 at Wembley Stadium, thinking that it would probably be the only chance I would get to see him. It was the most extraordinary life-affirming experience. The band played for three hours and forty minutes, songs across their whole back catalogue, taking requests from signs in the crowd to change things up on the fly. It was like being at the world’s best party, everyone was invited and that somehow this party had been going on since before I was born.

Last year saw the band return to touring for the first time since Covid. They were tremendous at Murrayfield in 2023, somehow managing to defy Edinburgh’s unique microclimate for a memorable show in the sunshine. Hopefully they could bring similarly pleasant weather to the Stadium of Light.

It struck me that I had mostly seen Sunderland through the prism of the football club in my previous visits to the city and attempted to remedy that this time round, enjoying a visit to Roker Pier and a few sights on the outskirts. We drove through Houghton-le-Spring which did not result in the great emotional awakening that I had hoped. You have certain misguided notions about visiting your father’s childhood hometown. Maybe you’ll see ruddy faced boys cycling through the streets with loaves of bread or grizzled men returning home from graft. You don’t, of course. You see a Dominos Pizza and multiple outlets for the acquisition of vape pens.

We get to the day of the show. It’s raining. More accurately, the rain is biblical. Laura frets about the availability of ponchos at the ground. I feel like I know enough about capitalism to affirm they will be for sale. Mercifully, I am proven correct. Our entrance to the Stadium of Light is right by the statue of Bob Stokoe. On one of my previous visits, I heard a group of young lads say “Touch his foot for luck”. I liked that, so I do. I’m so grateful to be here with Laura but when we’re on the concourse, I feel a sense of loss and sadness that’s difficult to shake. I attempt to come to terms with the fact that I will never be at the Stadium of Light with Dad again.

Once we’re standing on the pitch, the wait under various types of inclement weather seems interminable. Springsteen’s crew sweep the rain off the stage. Drum kits are covered, uncovered and then recovered. We go about half an hour beyond the presumed start time. There’s a sense of nervousness and frustration in the air. Finally, The E Street Band emerge before inevitably a chorus of “BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCE” fills the stadium. They launch into Waitin’ On A Sunny Day.

“It’s raining, but there ain’t a cloud in the sky….”

The mood lifts immediately. It’s perfect. The world’s greatest party is back in full swing. A raucous rendition of “No Surrender” soon follows. “We learned more from a three-minute record than we ever learned at school” is not a sentiment that my father would have approved of, but it’s one that I feel an increasing affinity with. The rain is hammering down but no-one seems to care. Seeing The E Street Band here is an absolute blast. When Springsteen is facing away from the crowd, the camera filming the show frames him against the Sunderland club crest on the scoreboard at the other end of the stadium. It provides a lovely image of my passions, interconnected for one night only. The stage lights shimmer through the rain.

Show a little faith, there’s magic in the night.

About halfway through the set, the band vacate the stage. He introduces a solo rendition of Last Man Standing by honouring his old friend George Theiss who was in The Castilles (Springsteen’s first band in the late 1960s) and who sadly died of lung cancer in 2018.

“The grief we feel when our loved ones leave us is the price we pay for loving well”.

Suffice to say, this was somewhat emotionally resonant for me. Later on in his European tour, Springsteen plays a cover of Rockin All Over The World. Had he done so in Sunderland that evening, I might have had to review my long-held position on the existence of God. Even if the Almighty is not in attendance, I later discover that Peter Reid is. I’m delighted to discover that The Gaffer is also a fan of The Boss.

A couple of weeks earlier, while insisting on a Springsteen playlist in the car for revision (I’m a fun boyfriend), Laura asked me which song of his I most hoped to hear. I instantly reply Racing In The Street. It’s a sad song, but a beautiful one. Pianist Roy Bittan’s fingers stroke the piano keys of its intro and I immediately burst into tears. I completely lose myself in the next few minutes. A fellow fan at the Premier Inn later tells me he’s waited 30 years for him to play it live. It’s an extraordinary performance and an extraordinary moment.

The set ventures into more crowd-pleasing territory and Thunder Road precedes the encore. As previously discussed, it’s one of my favourite songs. The problem that the band have when playing it live is a question of tone. It’s not really meant to be sung by a boozed-up crowd of thousands like say, Sweet Caroline or Mr Brightside. Mercifully Born To Run and Dancing In The Dark very much are, pleasingly supplemented this evening by Glory Days, which has a hook that stays in my head for days.

After all the hits, Springsteen is left alone once more on stage with his acoustic guitar. He plays the final song of the night, a quiet tribute to those we’ve lost. In Edinburgh last year, it was a sweetly melancholic ending to a joyous evening. Tonight, it indeed feels as though my soul has been split at the seams.

Springsteen spoke at the Ivor Novello awards in London the following night.

“We played Sunderland last night. Hellacious weather. Driving rainstorm. Wind blowing and blowing and blowing. But standing in front of me in the rain, I realised. These are my people”.

They were Dad’s people. And in some small way, they are my people too.

Sunderland start their campaign away at Cardiff City tomorrow lunchtime. I will watch the match with my mum and with Laura. And we will profoundly miss the only gentleman in New York City.