Even those who don’t like football know how great 1973 was for Sunderland

It’s a pity that the club has not achieved anything so laudable since 1973. The 1980 Daily Express 5-a-side Trophy triumph didn’t quite do it; ditto the emotionally charged 1989 Durham Senior Cup glory.

But it isn’t the mere absence of anything better than 1973 that makes it so special. Even SAFC’s (ahem) forthcoming glories won’t top it.

People watching the game on Friday on a screen in the Fire Station will still have had sweating palms during its final 10 minutes; even though they know perfectly well how it ends.

Still, there must be sneering. Not everyone is besotted with football. However, I can think of no other human activity which a certain type of person could be so perversely proud to be uninterested in.

Is there anything more boring than someone repeatedly announcing how bored they are by a football. If you don’t like something, but it does you no harm – ignore it.

Watching the documentary Meanwhile Back in Sunderland, still on YouTube showing what May 5th 1973 really meant, makes us realise just how dim the comment “It’s only a game” really is. Paradoxically those who spout such cobblers delude themselves into an entirely erroneous feeling of superiority.

When feeling especially clever, they might utter the toe-curling: “It’s just 22 people kicking a bag of air about.” No sphere of human activity can be held in a positive light using this witless style of analysis.

Beethoven’s Fifth becomes “noise”, Hamlet is “just words that some bloke has made up” and Citizen Kane “some people pretending to be some other people”.

Ergo, football is obviously not “just 22 people kicking a bag of air about” – and Wembley 1973 is still momentous for this city.

No one is obliged to shed salt tears every time the event is mentioned. But it remains worthy of respect and football haters would do well to remember that. The more perceptive ones already do. It remains magnificent.

Yours sincerely, E.I. Addio.