Train issues and the fact that we are hurtling toward the most expensive time of the year meant that we decided the simplest way to get to Fulham would be to stay in Milton Keynes. A completely normal decision. A sensible, well measured choice. It certainly does not mean we have lost our heads at all.
Yet as we pulled off the M1 and the first signs for the MK stadium came into view, a wave of melancholy crept over me. Could I possibly miss the League One days? Surely not. I must have opened the Christmas sherry too early.
At the time, the arrival of our final away day in that league could not come quickly enough. It felt like a sentence we were desperate to finish. That it came in the form of a gritty 1-0 win at Morecambe was strangely fitting. But looking back, there was a certain novelty and comfort wrapped up in those grounds we visited.
We all dreaded the slog to Accrington Stanley. We groaned at the thought of yet another long journey to Portsmouth. Bolton away never filled anyone with joy and I have fully accepted that I will never make it to Home Park, I am at peace with that.
Even so, there was something oddly romantic about those trips. Something that sneaks up on you only years later, tucked away inside the memories of cold train station platforms and plastic cups filled with cider black.
Before League One I had never really fancied away days. Then came my first, a thrilling 1-1 draw with Scunthorpe that I went to with my Dad. In the years that followed I met Rory, found a group of fellow idiots and suffered through countless days of pure misery with them. Yet when I look back, I think those might be some of the best days of my life.
We discovered pubs and bars we would never have found otherwise. We met up with people, who have become some of my closest friends, and on tiny little train station platforms in the middle of nowhere we made each other laugh until we cried. We stayed in almost every Premier Inn and Travelodge in the country and rejoiced whenever we discovered that Uber Eats did in fact deliver in our area. Those are the moments that have stayed with me, the ones that surface when I think about how far we have come.
When I talk to my future children about my time as a Sunderland supporter I will tell them that I was there when Patrick Roberts scored at Sheffield Wednesday. I will tell them I’ll always remember the power of Dan Ballard’s header. I will admit that I cried when Tommy Watson scored. But I will also tell them about the forgotten away ends that we filled week after week. I will tell them that our supporters are the greatest in the world because even in the darkest days of the club we still sold out every away end from one side of the country to the other.
I will tell them about that freezing cold trip to Doncaster where, despite planned tennis ball protests and the humiliation of our lowest ever league position, we turned up in our thousands and watched the lads win 3-0. I will talk about Jack Ross, Phil Parkinson and Alex Neil. I will laugh as I remember Conor McLaughlin and Laurens de Bock. I will shake my head in disbelief that we once decided to bring back Danny Graham.
With the away days we have had this season, the eruption of the stands at Chelsea, the joy at Forest and even the anticipation of what March might bring when we take that short trip up the road, I have to admit there are fleeting moments where my mind drifts to the past. Standing in an uncovered concourse at Fulham, the rain pouring down and ultimately watching us lose 1-0, are any of us thinking about the days when a 2-1 win at Cambridge United felt incredibly significant?
Maybe it is rose tinted glasses. Maybe it is simply the safety and softness of hindsight. But I do still have memories and moments from League One that I never want to forget.
But please, for the love of God, do not ever send us back there.
