Last-minute header seals Wembley spot for Sunderland over Coventry

Times

14-05-2025

' 'Til the End.' It is the Sunderland ­play-off slogan, slapped all over the team bus, and oh my goodness, ­Sunderland did that all right.
It had been announced that two minutes of stoppage time were to be played at the end of extra time, and the giant electronic clock in the Roker End at the Stadium of Light was at 31min 59sec when an Enzo Le Fée corner came flying into the Coventry City penalty area.
It struck 32:00 just as Dan Ballard crashed his header off the crossbar and beyond the Coventry goalkeeper Ben Wilson, a Sunderland fan, and into the Coventry goal, and at that moment everything in Sunderland descended into wild chaos.
All around were 43,000 Sunderland fans going crazy. The ground almost shook. In the Sunderland technical area they had charged on to the pitch. Ballard struggled but eventually managed to tear off his shirt before swinging it around his head as he ran towards the supporters like a man possessed. He was not alone in the look. Everywhere was pandemonium.
All football was right there.
Régis Le Bris, the Sunderland head coach, wore a look of bewilderment.
Coventry players stood still, too stunned to move. Some put their shirts to their faces. It seemed to take an age to restart the game, and when it did, it was pointless. There was no time left.
Within a further second the referee, Andrew Madley, had blown his whistle and at that point Le Bris was mobbed, his players rejoiced and those in sky blue fell to the turf or covered their faces once more with their shirts.
Ecstasy and agony right there. Play-off football had once more conjured up something so extraordinary that it was difficult to comprehend the varying scale of emotions.
Some Sunderland fans ran on to the pitch. There was a scuffle between a Sunderland fan without a top and Frank Lampard, the Coventry head coach who dragged a team who were 17th in the Championship in November to one who dominated most of the 212 minutes of this semi-final, only to be done in its final second.
Lampard was diplomatic on the incident when he slapped the phone out of the shirtless fan who tried to take a celebration selfie with him on the pitch. 'There were a few silly fans that came over, a minority,' he said. 'It's disappointing.'
Even Lampard had not seen anything like it. Nor did he deserve to be confronted by Sunderland supporters. There will be questions about why that was allowed to happen. It was perhaps a couple of hundred fans who made their way on to the pitch, and they were jeered, briefly, for those in the stands of the Stadium of Light were lost in the joy of celebration.
They had named the main stand at the ground the Jimmy Montgomery Stand before kick-off, and that merely heightened what was a frenzied atmosphere. Perhaps it was some Monty magic that inspired such a dramatic conclusion.
That moment from Ballard will live as long in the memory as Montgomery's save in 1973 that helped Second Division Sunderland beat First Division Leeds United in the FA Cup final at Wembley.
More than half a century later and they are still fighting to get out of the second tier of English football. They have not been in the Premier League since 2017, relegated under David Moyes. That feels like a lifetime ago, but they are potentially only 90 minutes from a return. A squad assembled for £18.4 million must now get past Sheffield United to return to the big time. They will believe anything is possible after a night of such incredible drama.
Lampard had stood, incapable of movement, when the game finished. He was alone then, on the corner of the Coventry technical area. The finish was cruel for its method but also cruel because Coventry were the better team.
'Football is cruel at times. I'm proud of what we have delivered and the way we have played from where we came from,' Lampard said. 'I hope our fans are proud of the team. It is not a nice drive home for any of us tonight.'
Coventry had more possession, more control, more efforts, more corners. They had an equaliser in the tie when only 15 minutes remained.
Milan van Ewijk crossed deep from the right, Ephron Mason-Clark stole in ahead of Trai Hume and cleverly placed a right-footed finish beyond Anthony Patterson into the corner of the Sunderland goal. There were the best part of 3,000 fans from Coventry, way up behind a goal, and they went wild in celebration.
How that emotion would alter, how the game would change, how quickly they would want to leave when Ballard struck with the final second of a play-off game and Sunderland became an epicentre of absolute delight.
'Today the atmosphere was crazy,' Le Bris said. 'We went through difficult moments. The energy was contagious. We played with 12 men. To score this late and to win the opportunity to play at Wembley was absolutely fantastic. You play football for these emotions.'
Sunderland (4-4-2): A Patterson 7 — T Hume 6, D Ballard 7, L O'Nien 7 — P Roberts 6 (R Mundle 95), D Neil 67, J Bellingham 6, E Le Fée 6 — W Isidor 6 (C Rigg 83), E Mayenda 7.Booked Isidor, Roberts, Bellingham, Le Fée.
Coventry (4-2-3-1): B Wilson 6 — M van Ewijk 7, B Thomas 7, L Kitching 7, J Dasilva 7 —M Grimes 8, B Sheaf 7 (J Eccles 73, 5) — T Sakamoto 7, J Rudoni 8, H Wright — E Mason-Clark 8 (B Thomas-Asante).Booked Sheaf, Wilson, Thomas.
Referee A Madley.