Why are Sunderland AFC called the Black Cats?

How something can be both a nickname and “official” also requires explanation.

A simplistic reason is that 11,000 people voted for it in 2000. A vote seems to go against the spirit of nicknaming.

But with alternatives on the ballot paper as bad as Miners, Light Brigade and SoLs, the result was never in doubt.

Most football club nicknames are easily explained. Not so Sunderland’s. In fact nobody knows for sure why the team are called the Black Cats.

Purportedly, in 1805 the south pier at Roker housed a gun battery. One night a soldier heard loud wailing, which turned out to be from a black cat. The battery then became known as the Black Cat Battery. The football club, formed 74 years later, eventually adopted the same nickname, presumably because the stadium was nearby.

Other explanations exist, but they’re even flimsier and more apocryphal. Why it was necessary to append the battery story to the club is anyone’s guess.

The nickname became (slightly) further entrenched when one supporter supposedly smuggled a black cat into Wembley to watch the 1937 FA Cup final against Preston. Although standing in a 93,495 crowd with a cat stuffed in your pocket sounds downright irresponsible.

Still, the image has long been associated with SAFC. For example in 1909 the Echo reported: “There has been a big demand for its (black cat) portrait, more having been disposed of than of all the players put together.”

Thousands went to Newcastle for that season’s FA Cup quarter-final festooned in black cat mascots.

But is it really the nickname because someone decides. Or are nicknames organic?

Either way, it hasn’t really worked. Sunderland supporters in everyday conversation tend not to refer to themselves as “Black Cats’ fans”? However, it’s a useful alternative name for journalists.

Of course, black cats are entirely associated with good luck. Erroneously. Sunderland lost that 1909 cup tie. Good fortune accrued since officially adopting the nickname includes four relegations.

Reference books previously gave Sunderland’s nickname as “Rokerites” which is similar to the Black Cats nickname in that no one ever called them that either.

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