Every other season they have been involved in campaigns where they were challenging at the top, or battling near or at the bottom of the table - regardless of the league they were in. Historically from the mid-1970’s, Sunderland have only had four seasons where they had midtable campaigns. In the 1980’s Sunderland had one midtable finish - 11th in the second tier in 1989 - in a season that pretty much mirrored our own ambitions at the start of this season, to consolidate after our promotion from the third tier last year. Two safe seventh-place midtable finishes at the turn of the century? Supporters around at the time will need no reminding that Sunderland actually rode much higher than that for much of those two seasons - third in December 1999 and second in January 2001.ĭelve further back into our history and the safe respectable midtable finish has largely eluded us over the last nearly fifty years, with only one in the 1990s - 1994 - but even that was after a relegation fight, The other seasons in that decade were mostly relegation fights and three promotion pushes under Peter Reid. It means you have to go back to 20, twelve years ago to find the last time that Sunderland had a true ‘midtable‘ season.īefore those two midtable finishes in the 2000s, starting from 2002, Sunderland played out eight successive seasons of flirting with relegation, relegation, flirting with promotion, actual promotion, relegation again, promotion again then more relegation battles. Approaching the end of season run-in, this is a situation that we repeated every year in League One, bar the one that was ended by PPG.īefore that, Sunderland were in an annual relegation battle for six successive seasons, and the season before that sequence - in 2012 - although we finished 13th under Martin O’Neill, it was not without early season relegation form that saw Steve Bruce sacked. It’s the end of the season, and going into the last game Sunderland once again find themselves in a match that could determine which league they are playing in next season - albeit via a shot at the play-offs.
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