A record crowd watched Sunderland Women’s narrow Wear-Tyne defeat to Newcastle United at the Stadium of Light on Sunday afternoon.
The Stadium of Light crowd in attendance was by far the biggest the club has seen in recent years, tenfold the one that watched the last time these two sides met in 2019. The official crowd was a stunning 15,387. A new league record attendance.
Beth Lumsden’s brace secured the three points for the visitors despite Emily Scarr’s late goal. Sunderland Women boss Mel Reay believes Sunderland were denied a clear penalty when Mary McAteer went down under a challenge in the box just before Newcastle scored their second goal. That strike was direct from a corner, which Reay believes could have been ruled out for a foul on goalkeeper Demi Lambourne.
It has been a disappointing start to the season for Sunderland but Reay says there wasn’t much in the game and urged her team to stick together.
"The result is the most important thing today, it's a derby,” Reay said. “And we didn't do enough to get over the line. It was a real battle out there, a good shift from both teams. We're a bit frustrated with some of the decisions, we think we've had a stonewall penalty turned down which would have given us the chance to go level. They're big moments in games like this.”
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