Sunderland director Leo Pearlman's lengthy reflections after poor 2023-24 Championship season

Sunderland non-executive director Leo Pearlman has penned a lengthy reflection on the 2023-24 season after the final game against Sheffield Wednesday.

The Black Cats lost against The Owls at the Stadium of Light in the Championship last weekend, a result which meant Mike Dodds’ team finished a disappointing 16th place in the second tier after last campaign’s play-off finish.

Sunderland lost 22 games during the season with only two teams losing more: Rotherham United, who were relegated, and Sheffield Wednesday, who were locked in a battle to survive the drop until their final day win on Wearside.

Pearlman, whose company Fullwell73 produced the Netflix docu-series Sunderland Til I Die and the hit BBC sitcom Gavin & Stacey, reflected on the state of the club in a recent LinkedIn post.

“Having reflected on yesterday’s game and indeed the last few months of the season, I write this as a fan & nothing more,” Pearlman wrote on social media after the Sheffield Wednesday game in the Championship last weekend.

“Over the last decade, we have lost our identity as a club, where is our pride, our arrogance about who we are, what coming from Sunderland & wearing the famous red & white stripes means to us? The Stadium of Light should be somewhere that we as fans are excited to come, somewhere we spend the whole week dreaming about, somewhere that fills us with pride, makes the hair on the back of our neck stand on end, makes us feel 10ft tall.

“It should equally be somewhere that puts the fear of god into opposing fans & players. It should be the last place they want to come, somewhere they write off when the fixture list is released each year. When was the last time any of us felt this way & more importantly how do we reclaim that identity and pride?

“What we have in Sunderland is unique, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. There are 91 other football league clubs but not one of them has our greatest attribute, our fans. We are a club steeped in the history of our City, bred and fed by the Monkwearmouth Colliery & the banks of the River Wear upon which we’re built. Our industrial heritage, our stubbornness, our community, put simply, we’re built different.

“The need to own & celebrate our identity is on all of us. It’s on the club’s owners and board to recognise & exemplify, it’s on the players to demonstrate every single time they walk out on the pitch, regardless of what’s to play for, it’s on the manager to understand & deliver upon and it’s on us, the fans, in the way we show our support.

“On Saturday when the current crop of players lucky enough to wear our badge, ran out onto a pitch that any fan would give their right arm to grace, wearing white shorts, to the Z Cars, we were reminded of our greatest ever, Charlie Hurley. The King exemplifies that identity we’ve lost and must reclaim, we all need to find the Charlie Hurley within us, owners, players, manager & fans, one club, one identity, one goal and a **** load of pride!”