Ex-Mansfield Town man reveals Sunderland's classy gesture to local non-league club last campaign

Sunderland continue to do their part for non-league clubs in the North East, Hebburn Town manager Daniel Moore has revealed.

Hebburn won the Division One East title, earning promotion to the Premier Division, during the 2023-24 campaign, which saw the club go on a tremendous winning run towards the back end of the season under former Mansfield Town player Moore, who also spent eight years in the army before becoming a manager.

During Hebburn’s run-in, however, the club’s schedule was disrupted by the bad weather conditions in the North East, which caused several fixtures to be rescheduled and the club’s training program to be interrupted.

In a classy move, however, Sunderland offered their facilities at the Academy of Light to the non-league team, with the Black Cats able to provide one of their indoor training barns to Hebburn Town as they fought for promotion towards the back end of the campaign.

“Sunderland were fantastic,” Moore told The Echo when asked about the weather situation towards the end of the campaign. “I think it was last season when we had that many games called off. We ended up going and winning the league and we won 16 out of 18 games from the third of January but obviously, the weather was pretty bad around that period.

“Sunderland helped us out. They let us get in there and train on the indoor pitches so obviously with bad weather and we were playing every other week it was good to get in there and use the facilities and they were brilliant in accommodating us I think we went there about three or four times and it just helped us.

“It's just a good experience for the lads as well instead of going playing the 4G pitch down the road or whatever, you get to turn up at Sunderland everything's laid out properly, and you are enclosed, and it's a bit private, so it was brilliant, and then obviously we've had a few pre-season friendlies as well which is brilliant for us when you get a few through the gate.”