The Régis Le Bris chapter at Sunderland will start gathering pace on July 19th when his new side takes on their first league opposition of preseason, in a friendly against Nottingham Forest in Murcia.
His task is to help try and get this institution back to the very top of the game. Once one of the leading clubs in the country, SAFC boasts a proud record and status that is outlined in a new book due to be released the day before the fixture; the date being somewhat apt as it takes us through well over a century of history and right up to the point where Le Bris was about to be appointed.
Perfect reading for those on the beach this summer, maybe even if you are out in Alicante following the Lads, Sunderland AFC: The Definitive History is Rob Mason’s latest tome. The most knowledgeable of supporters, there is nobody better than Rob, the club’s official historian, to have taken on such a project, and the title allows him to go into fascinating depth.
Those that have previously seen Rob’s mammoth *Absolute Record* and its accompaniment Absolute Record: The Players will be aware that they contain the stats and individual biographies of each player known to have pulled on a shirt in a competitive first team match for Sunderland. The Definitive History now adds the context around those details, a biography of the club itself if you will, and its 145-year progress from a fledgling interest in football to a dominant local club and then early pacesetter for the sport nationally.
A four-page bibliography at the back gives an idea of how much research has gone into his work. In truth, Rob’s pre-existing encyclopedic expertise on Sunderland means this was always going to be more than just a procession of regurgitated tropes. It is instead the culmination of the scores of previous books, publications, and articles he has written about Sunderland across five different decades – and can now be used as the ultimate reference point going forward.
Backed by lines of proud and passionate support since the very early days, the choice of image for the hardback cover – a packed-out new era Roker End carrying out a flag display – is the perfect nod towards a thread that has run through Sunderland’s history. Taken by photographer Ian Horrocks, who has himself done so much to document the club over time, the support is, of course, afforded the poignant final words of the book:
When the Stadium of Light recreates the world-famous Roker Roar, the supporters are doing what generations of their ancestors have done before: lifting their team in red and white to greater heights. That is truly very special indeed.
Thankfully, the paragraphs before that can be mainly positive too, such is Sunderland’s recent return from the nadir of the last seven years or so that have included two devastating relegations and a painfully long stint in the third tier. Hopefully, it is a club that under Le Bris is about to move forward and begin recapturing some of the past glories so lovingly chronicled in the book.
