This is what it was like to be a Sunderland fan in Trafalgar Square ahead of Championship play-off final

Full disclosure, folks, this was supposed to be the Sunderland Echo’s MC Turbo D gig review. Like America at the height of the Tupac/Biggie beef, Mackem Twitter has been awash with debate over the cultural suitability of rap music in recent days, but in Trafalgar Square on Friday night, the expected strains of that sweet, divisive New Monkey are, alas, nowhere to be heard.

Instead, as is usually the case when the red and white army makes its unusually frequent march to this de facto enclave of Wearside, the sweeping mood is one of giddy anticipation, tinged with the jangle of rattling nerves.

Ultimately, though, those fraught misgivings are for the morning. Sunderland fans have travelled by rail, by road, and in some cases, by air, to be here in the capital, and for tonight at least, the atmosphere is one of a long-awaited family reunion. Gaggles of fans stretch as far as the eye can see, and, in their more intrepid instances, up the sides of fountains and monuments like clambering ivy. They swap war stories and fond memories, occasionally putting aside their conversations to muster up chants that peel and echo out over the horizon like bouts of rolling thunder.

Even above the packed streets that snake and dart through Covent Garden and on towards the beating heart of the gathering throng, the sky is stained red with the smoke of countless loosed flares, and the songs of Eliezer Mayenda and his disdain for a certain Geordie songsmith bounce along in rampant throes.

Rounding the corner into Trafalgar itself is to set eyes on an oasis of sorts, a Mackem utopia in which everything, right now and perhaps forevermore, is possible. The smiles are beaming and broad, the embraces earnest and grateful. Beach balls are volleyed into orbit with carefree abandon, and the steps before the National Portrait Gallery bristle and buzz in a tableau of retro shirts and nursed cans. It’s bucket list stuff, with a fair few bucket hats thrown in for good measure.

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As darkness creeps across the vaulted skyline, a carnivalesque hue descends. The refrains grow ever louder, the unruly optimism ever more tangible. Faint acquaintances materialise out of the happy horde, only to be greeted like dear, lifelong friends. Flags and scarves are draped from makeshift parapets or held aloft to unbridled cheers. Fireworks arc high above the statues and rooftops, exploding in shades of green and gold and red and white. There is nothing like this, and even if there was, nobody would do it like Sunderland.

Make no mistake, there will be more than a few pounding heads around Wembley on Saturday afternoon, but ask anybody who was at Trafalgar Square on Friday evening, and they will tell you that it is a worthwhile cross to bear. Moments like this do not come around all that often, and are to be cherished accordingly.

Perhaps Sunderland will be promoted this weekend, and perhaps they will not. Either way, one thing remains undeniable; they really do take over everywhere they go.

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