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BBC News
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Women's Rugby World Cup trophy in Sunderland ahead of opener
Excitement is mounting ahead of the first game of the Women's Rugby World will play host to the opening match of the tournament on 22 August, with England's Red Roses taking on the USA at the Stadium of the build-up to the event, the trophy will be displayed at Sunderland's Keel Square on 6 June from 12:00 BST to 16:00."Having the opening match here is a brilliant opportunity to showcase our city on the international stage," said Michael Mordey, leader of Sunderland City Council. The authority said the 2025 tournament had already sold more than twice the number of tickets compared to the last event in New Zealand four years competition's managing director Sarah Massey said: "[It] promises to be a landmark tournament for the sport and the trophy tour provides a brilliant opportunity to ignite excitement across England." Sunderland is the last city to publicly display the trophy, which has already been on display at the other seven host cities. Follow BBC Sunderland on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
The Independent
24-05-2025
- Sport
- The Independent
Sunderland prove comeback kings in every sense to seal dramatic Premier League return
There are ways to say goodbye. Tommy Watson's last few minutes as a Sunderland player proved their last few in the Football League. Their eight-year exile from the top flight was ended by a player who was just 11 when they were last relegated from the Premier League. As they won the £200m match, the richest game in world football, they may not need the millions they will bank from Watson's impending move to Brighton. But if he is going to the Premier League, he departed by dragging them up with him, a 95th-minute winner transporting the Roker Roar, the sound of the Stadium of Light, to Wembley. It was quite a comeback by Sunderland: on the day, after Sheffield United dominated the first half to lead, and over the last four seasons. They have come a long way in a short time. Three-and-a-half years ago, Sunderland lost 6-0 at Bolton in League One and sacked Lee Johnson. Then, given their history, fanbase and stadium, they were arguably English football's greatest underachievers. Three weeks ago, no club had ever gone into the play-offs in worse form than Sunderland, with five straight losses. But they have become specialists in turnarounds. Regis Le Bris, an unknown French appointment has proved an inspired choice as manager, and they are a Premier League club again. One of the grand old clubs have done it with youth. Kyril Louis-Dreyfus is the boy king of an owner. Eliezer Mayenda was the youngest scorer in a Championship play-off final for 32 years. The 20-year-old had that status for all of 19 minutes, until the 19-year-old Watson surpassed him. His was already a famous name on Wearside. Sunderland won three league titles under Tom Watson in the 1890s; some 130 years later, Tommy Watson scored the goal to take them into the Premier League. Many another who has gone down in Sunderland folklore was here to see it: Jim Montgomery and Peter Reid, Niall Quinn and Kevin Phillips, Jermain Defoe and Jordan Henderson, Sunderland's past now knowing their future includes the top flight. A club who waited almost half a century for a Wembley win after the 1973 FA Cup now have three in five seasons, the last two bringing promotion. For the second time in three months, fans from the north-east were jubilant at Wembley. First Newcastle, then Sunderland: previously success-starved rivals have had plenty to enjoy this year. The curse instead sticks resolutely to Sheffield United. They have won promotion in a Test match but never in a play-off, despite 10 attempts. Their last victory at Wembley was 100 years ago, in 1925. Good things are supposed to come to those who wait. Not for United. The side who started the season bottom of the table, subtracted points, who claimed 92 to finish on 90, who took the lead at Wembley and had their chances to double it instead face another season in the second tier. Football has a cruelty: for Chris Wilder, who stood on the brink of a third promotion with his boyhood club; for Kieffer Moore, who almost headed the Blades into the lead after 70 seconds, with Anthony Patterson making a magnificent save. A goal did indeed stem from Moore: but Sunderland's winner. He got the inadvertent assist, United target man instead picking out the Sunderland substitute. Watson placed his shot in the far corner. He hails from County Durham. The Spaniard Mayenda was signed from Sochaux two years ago, part of Sunderland's policy of buying young, and his goal was more emphatic, rifled into the top corner after a wonderful, defence-splitting pass from Patrick Roberts. If it suggested that Roberts should have started – and that maybe Le Bris recovered after getting his initial 11 wrong – Sunderland's substitutes had the far greater impact as United lost their way. The first Sunderland change had to come early. Luke O'Nien seemed to dislocate his shoulder as Moore won his second-minute header. Yet Sunderland's spirit animal of a centre-back was bounding down the touchline in celebration when Mayenda struck, partying through the pain barrier with his arm in a sling. For Sunderland, a fantastic finish followed a subdued start. In a game of two halves, they only turned up for one. It proved enough. They had conceded when a devastating counter-attack brought a delightful, dinked finish. A rare attack was then the worst form of defence for them, Gustavo Hamer leading the break after a Sunderland corner and feeding Tyrese Campbell, who lifted a shot over Patterson. But Hamer, the Championship's player of the season, and Campbell, a footballer picked up on a free transfer by Wilder, were removed at 1-0 up, powerless as they were stripped of the tag of heroes. United thought they had doubled their lead and should have done. Harrison Burrows had a volley disallowed because Vinicius Souza was offside and in Patterson's line of sight. Then the substitute Andre Brooks capitalised on Dennis Cirkin's mistake. It took a fine save from Patterson to deny him. He kept Sunderland in the game and they responded. First with Mayenda, then Watson, each far too young to remember Quinn and Phillips, each now joining them in Sunderland's hall of fame. Indeed, Watson now joins them in Sunderland's past. Just the third goal of his fledgling career may forever remain the biggest and the most celebrated. It will almost certainly forever prove the most lucrative. But it was about so much more than the £200m.
Times
23-05-2025
- Sport
- Times
Enzo Le Fée: from prison to Wembley — rise of unique Sunderland star
In the corner of a footballing cauldron, the 5ft 7in Enzo Le Fée, from a village of 7,000 people just outside of Lorient, bends down and picks up the is 20 seconds from the end of 212 minutes of the Championship play-off semi-final between Sunderland and Coventry City and the aggregate score is tied. He had already placed it in the corner area, just away from the corner flag, but there is a final moment of intimacy. Le Fée brings the football to his lips and kisses it. Why? 'Because the ball is like a wife,' he says. 'You know, you love to caress.'The giant clock at the Roker End of the Stadium of Light ticks towards the very last second of
BBC News
22-05-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Black Cats out to complete season's purpose
Sunderland head coach Regis Le Bris says the team are determined to complete the "purpose" they set out last summer and win face Sheffield United in the Championship play-off final at Wembley on Saturday (15:01 BST) with Premier League football the prize for the Bris arrived at the Stadium of Light last June to take over a team who had finished 16th the previous stadium, but one which set a lofty goal."We are exactly where we wanted to be at the start of the season," he said. "When we first met with the players, I asked them 'what is the purpose of the season?' They told me they wanted to get promoted. Here we are and we have this opportunity." Few had Sunderland down as one of the teams likely to mount a promotion challenge, but they have not been lower than fourth all Le Bris said that watching some of their matches from last season showed that, with a bit of tinkering, the raw materials of success were in place."For me it was not a surprise but for a team that finished 16th, maybe the step could have been a bit high," he said."When I analysed different games, it was really obvious that this team was able to play really good football but had a lack of consistency."For me, it was possible to improve the consistency through the methodology, through the work we can have during the season."The weakness was identified and then it was a question of work and different improvements during the season."Of Sunderland's starting XI in the two legs of their play-off semi-final success over Coventry City, Luke O'Nien was the only player aged over 30 and Patrick Roberts the only other past with such a big occasion in prospect at Wembley, there could be nerves in their young Le Bris does not expect them to be overawed with the Premier League in touching distance. "It's not always a question of age, it's a question of connection with the path," he said. "You can be 17 and you can be ready for this fixture. Or you can be 30, and probably have problems managing your emotions. "The players seem mature for this event."
BreakingNews.ie
22-05-2025
- Sport
- BreakingNews.ie
Sunderland want to be remembered for more than Dan Ballard's header
Skipper Dan Neil does not want Dan Ballard's winner which took Sunderland to Wembley to be the best memory of a season which could yet end with a return to the Premier League. Ballard's last-gasp extra-time header in the second leg of the Black Cats' Sky Bet Championship play-off semi-final showdown with Coventry sent the Stadium of Light into raptures and Regis Le Bris' men to headquarters, where Sheffield United stand between them and a return to the top flight on Saturday. Advertisement For the home fans who witnessed it, that moment will live long in the memory, but as important as it was, for Neil it was merely a stepping stone to a bigger prize. ⏱️ 10.32pm Exactly one week ago. A city erupted. — Sunderland AFC (@SunderlandAFC) May 20, 2025 He said: 'It feels a bit surreal we've been involved in one of those moments that will be talked about for a long time. It's an unbelievable moment, but one thing we've all said is we've got to get the job done. 'We don't want to just be remembered for Dan Ballard's header, we want to be remembered for going all the way, getting back to the Premier League.' If Sunderland as a club have unfinished business this season, so too does Neil as an individual. Advertisement The 23-year-old midfielder was one of a series of Academy graduates to be given his chance as the Black Cats rebuilt following a slide which had taken them from the Premier League to League One, where they spent four seasons. However, he did not make it on to the pitch from the bench the day they beat Wycombe in the play-off final in May 2022 to climb back into the Championship and he was denied a chance to right that wrong two seasons ago when Luton ended their hopes in the semi-finals. Now Neil is hoping to exorcise all those ghosts by helping to end the Wearsiders' eight-year exile from England's top division. Dan Neil was an unused substitute when Sunderland beat Wycombe at Wembley in May 2022 (Tim Goode/PA) He said: 'I was obviously delighted when we won promotion out of League One and to have been part of the squad and played a part over the year. Advertisement 'I lost my place in the team towards the end of the season and not getting on the pitch at Wembley has been a bit at the back of my mind. 'Two years ago when we played Luton, I was in the team, chance to get to Wembley… that's another reason I was so buzzing when we got past Coventry.'
