Sunderland AFC – What Might Have Been?

Any football supporter wishing to visit Sunderland, either as an away visitor, ground hopping, or for the fact that you support the Black Cats, will be in hoar of the size of the Sunderland Stadium of Light which towers over the river which runs beside the stadium.

In the mid 1990’s, Sunderland followed the trend of several football clubs up and down England when they moved from their historic Roker Park, waving goodbye to 98 years of history when they moved in 1997. The old girl is now a housing estate. The Taylor Report which was drawn up following the Hillsborough Disaster in April 1989, concluded that all the top two divisions must become all-seated stadium, which forced many grounds to move. Improvements to Roker Park would have cost the club £20million and reduced the capacity to 25,000. An old-style stadium, similar to Everton, the ground was surrounded by housing, with expansion an impossible task.

What would have been the new Roker Park had planning permission being accepted. As published in The Times newspaper on 29th October 1992.

It left Sunderland chairman Bob Murray with little choice than to move. In 1992, they drew up plans to move to unused land next to the Nissan car plant in Washington, building a 48,000-capacity stadium at a cost of £120million which would have included 12,00 parking spaces, restaurants, shops, cinema, bank, and a petrol station, as well as a club museum. The stadium would also pay tribute to Wembley’s Twin Towers with the contemporary design being dubbed the ‘Wembley of the North.’ Despite the design, and future prospects being popular amongst the supporters of Sunderland, the move failed to get off the ground following a successful objection from Nissan.

Had the stadium gone ahead, it would have been the countries first large-scale new stadium of its kind for several decades. The stadium, except for Wembley, would have been the largest ability ground in the country at the time.

Unfortunately, the move didn’t come to fruition and had to wait until planning application was accepted on the old Monkwearmouth Colliery, until they got the new stadium that the wanted, which was opened in 1997 at a reduced capacity of 42,000. It is a mystery as to why this new Roker Park wasn’t used as the blueprints which would become the Stadium of Light.

Whilst the Stadium of Light is impressive, football fans are left wondering at what might have been?