Cricket clubs, rugby clubs, churches and pubs have all been the catalysts to the forming of many football clubs, but Sunderland began life in October 1879 after a meeting of schoolteachers. The club was originally called Sunderland and District Teachers Association Football Club, but after a year non-teachers were allowed in and the club changed its name to Sunderland Athletic Football Club. The club’s old badge is made up of a shield with the club’s red and white striped kit fronted by a football with AFC on its panels, and the rest of the name of the club is at the top or chief as it is referred to, under a ship. (PIC 1) The ship is symbolic of one of the region’s most important industries, shipbuilding.
Ships were being built in Sunderland as long ago as 1346, but sadly along with the coal industry from which Sunderland developed as a port, shipbuilding, to has suffered greatly. Maybe it’s because of this that football has meant so much to those in the north east, by providing an escape from those critical times hard to deal with. The Roker roar was the stuff or noise of legend, and it was to coincide with the move from Roker Park, to the 43,300 all-seated Stadium of Light in 1997 that the new badge was unveiled. (PIC 2) I do like this badge because, although it is fairly new compared to ancient coats of arms, it has an old look about it and is full of local significance. I would like to thank Heather, who sent me an information sheet on the badge but did not sign her surname on the compliment slip, although she did sign off with a kiss in the form of a cross, which I intend to collect next time I am in Sunderland. Thanks Heather X. I think it best if I quote directly from the information sheet that Heather sent: “The club wanted to ensure that the distinctive crest paid tribute to the club’s loyal supporters by including images from across the region”. The badge certainly achieves its ambition and has a central shield divided into quarters featuring two unmistakable local landmarks. Top-left is a well-known landmark called the Penshaw Monument: “Included to acknowledge the depth of support for the team outside the city boundaries”, (PIC 3) says Heather, and she continues: “Bottom-right is Wearmouth Bridge which links the north and south of the city”. (PIC 4) The two remaining quarters contain the club’s colours. A colliery wheel crowns the club crest in honour of the strong mining traditions of County Durham, and acts as a reminder that the Stadium of Light lies on land once occupied by Wearmouth Colliery. Entwined with the colliery wheel is the club motto “CONSECTATIO EXCELLENTIAE” which translates as, In Pursuit of Excellence, a fitting tribute to the club and its fans. The supporters of two lions have been adopted from the Sunderland coat of arms. In the arms, the lions stand on an anchor and pick, symbolic of shipbuilding and mining.
As far as the club’s nickname is concerned they used to be known as the Rokerites or the Rokermen, but this became redundant, for want of a better word, when the club moved to the Stadium of Light. So a new nickname was needed and the club asked its supporters to come up with one and as you can imagine the club were soon swamped with ideas. Imagine the honour of being the fan that came up with the club nickname. After much umming and arring suggestions were whittled down to just five and they were: The Light Brigade, The SOL’s, The Miners, The Makems and The Black Cats. I liked the Light Brigade and SOL’s in honour of the ground, but I think Newcastle fans would have been quick to add the R from Roker to SOL’s, and The Miners sounds like the under-16 side. Makems or Mack Lads may have been OK as it is a localism, but “The Black Cats” were chosen. The black cat has a link with Sunderland going back to 1805 when a gun battery on the river Wear was renamed The Black Cat, after men manning the station heard a mysterious meow from a wailing black cat. A hundred years later, in 1905, a black cat was pictured sitting on a football next to Chairman FW Taylor, and three years later a black cat turned up on a team photograph. Black cats started turning up everywhere, in Sunderland AFC related cartoons, in matchday programs, on tie pins worn at an FA Cup Final, but black cat folklore was finally sealed when twelve-year-old Billy Morris was believed to bring Sunderland luck by having a black cat sat in his pocket throughout the 1937 Wembley Cup Final, when Sunderland came from behind to beat Preston 3-1. After the win, a black cat was fed and watered at Roker Park for many years. Nowadays you can be entertained at half time by Samson and Delilah the club mascots at the Stadium of Light.
The fans and club are also known as “The Makems”, a term derived from the old shipbuilding days when it was said: “We makem we takem”, meaning we make them, the ships that is, and we take them, as after building the ships they would then take them out to sea. The name Sunderland was used from the 17th Century and before that it was Wearmouth as it is situated at the mouth of the River Wear. The name comes from sundered or split apart, when it separated from the monastery at Monkwearmouth, now an area on the north side of the river. The word land is of Germanic origin, meaning an area belonging to. So, Sunderland means an area belonging to people separated from the monastery. Newcastle is the club that provides the other half of the great atmosphere at the local derby, and the other local rivals are Middlesbrough. To uncover more on “The Black Cats” pounce on the lap of www.safc.com
