There are probably more dramatic ways to realise how far your football club has come. A last minute winner, a promotion, walking into a European stadium for the first time. Mine happened on a ramp at Peterborough station because there were swans on the railway line. 

We were supposed to be going to Brentford. Instead, somewhere along the way, our train was cancelled and we were told to get off at Peterborough and find another route south. It was frustrating in that very specific way that train travel to football tends to be: everyone checking apps, working out connections, calculating how much later you are going to arrive and wondering why, exactly, a group of swans had been allowed to derail the entire journey. 

So we got off at Peterborough and started making our way towards another platform. We were walking down one of those long ramps you get at railway stations, caught up in the mild chaos of suddenly being somewhere you were never supposed to be, when another group of football fans started walking up towards us. 

At first I barely registered them, I glanced at the colours they were wearing, as any football fans do in passing.  

There was a second where my brain seemed to get there before I did. I looked at the shirts again. Sheffield Wednesday. I felt this completely involuntary smile spread across my face, because suddenly the coincidence felt too perfect. I pulled my phone out as we kept walking, opened the fixtures and checked. 

They were playing Peterborough. 

Of course they were. 

By the time I had confirmed it, we had almost passed each other. That was the strange thing about it. The whole moment probably lasted seconds. They were walking up the ramp. We were walking down it. Nobody stopped. Nobody said anything. To them, I was presumably just another Sunderland supporter heading somewhere else. To everyone else around us, it was nothing at all. 

But for those few steps, I felt as though I was walking straight past Sunderland from four years ago. 

It was a Sliding Doors moment. 

Four years earlier, that night at Hillsborough had felt enormous to us. That play off semi final was one of those ties where everything felt like it was hanging in the balance. Sunderland had spent four years in League One by then: four years of trips to grounds we never imagined we would become so familiar with, four years of false dawns, Wembley defeats, ridiculous results and the constant feeling that surely this would be the year we finally got out. 

Wednesday stood between us and another chance at Wembley. I can still remember the tension of that second leg at Hillsborough, the feeling when they scored and the horrible certainty that Sunderland were about to find another new and inventive way to break our hearts. Then Patrick Roberts scored. We went to Wembley, we beat Wycombe and we finally escaped League One. 

And now there they were, coming towards me on a railway station ramp. 

As they disappeared behind us, I suddenly thought about everything that had happened since. Three years after that night at Hillsborough, Sunderland were promoted to the Premier League. Now, four years on, we are about to play in Europe. Not Conference League qualifiers in July, not some hypothetical European adventure we talk about when imagining where the club might one day get back to, but the Europa League. Sunderland AFC, in Europe. It still sounds slightly ridiculous even writing it. 

Football moves so quickly that sometimes you do not properly notice the distance you have travelled. You are always thinking about the next game, the next signing, the next problem or the next league position. Even promotion celebrations eventually become pre season discussions about whether the squad is good enough for the level above. There is rarely a moment where somebody tells you to stop and look backwards. 

Peterborough station did. 

For a few seconds, those Wednesday fans became a marker on a timeline. There was Sunderland then, desperately trying to escape League One, and Sunderland now, travelling to a Premier League away game with a Europa League fixture waiting 11 days later. Same supporters. Same club. Completely different world and I think that was why I was smiling. 

It was pride, more than anything. Not the loud kind that comes with lifting a trophy or winning a derby, but something quieter. The kind that catches you unexpectedly when you look backwards and realise just how far you have travelled. 

Seeing those Wednesday shirts did not leave me bitter or arrogant. If anything, it made me remember exactly how much that night at Hillsborough meant. They are permanently woven into one of the defining moments in Sunderland’s recovery. Without that goal, without that play off run, without Alex Neil and that team finally dragging us out of League One, who knows what happens next? 

There is a temptation with football to divide everything neatly into eras: League One Sunderland, Championship Sunderland, Premier League Sunderland. But they are not separate stories. They are the same one. The people who stood at Hillsborough wondering whether we would ever get out of the third tier are the same people now checking flight prices and wondering what Sunderland might do in Europe. 

Maybe that is why such a fleeting moment felt so significant. For a handful of seconds on a ramp in Peterborough, those two versions of Sunderland seemed to exist alongside each other. One group of supporters walking one way, another walking the opposite way, our paths crossing briefly before both carried on to wherever football was taking us next. 

Then they were gone. 

I put my phone back in my pocket, carried on down the ramp and went to find our train. 

But I spent the next few minutes thinking about Hillsborough, Wembley, the Championship, promotion, the Premier League and Europe. Mostly, though, I thought about how easy it is to forget to be proud of your football club when you are constantly worrying about what comes next. 

Sunderland have given us plenty of reasons over the years to wonder what on earth we are doing following them around the country, but every now and then football gives you a tiny moment that makes the whole journey visible. 

Mine lasted no more than a few seconds. 

Two sets of football fans passing each other on a ramp at Peterborough station, heading in opposite directions. 

And some swans on the railway line that made sure I was there to see it.