Have you heard about **Haway The Podcast**, the official Roker Report Podcast? We’d love you to check it out and give it a listen!
[CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE!](https://rokerreport.sbnation.com/2025/3/8/24379894/weve-got-an-important-announcement-about-our-podcast)
Follow Charlotte’s coverage of Sunderland Women on YouTube!
[CLICK HERE](https://youtube.com/@thelassesledger?si=OhitsONfaw-nOwMy)
I still think about that Sunday as if it is stitched into the inside of my ribs, 18 February 2024. Sunderland Women 4–3 Lewes.
Eppleton in the cold, the kind of cold that gets into your fingertips and makes you tuck your hands into your sleeves until the football warms you up from the inside out. I’ve been to matches that mattered more on paper; matches with bigger crowds and higher stakes. But I’ve never seen anything like this and I don’t think I ever will again.
Every time someone brings it up now — usually with a shake of the head and a laugh that still sounds half-disbelieving, I feel the same feelings rise in me: a mixture of pride, shock, joy, and something deeper — something like belonging.
Because this wasn’t just a match. It was a moment — a moment that grabbed every single one of us by the collar and refused to let go.
I went with Ant and Ollie, as I always do.
The three of us have our little rituals and superstitions, the things we say and don’t say on the walk up to the ground. We’d joked earlier in the week about how Sunderland “never do things the easy way”, but none of us had any idea what kind of emotional assault course we were about to be thrown onto.
The walk up to Eppleton felt familiar. The same pavement. The same chatter from the same groups of fans. The same smell of coffee drifting from the little stand near the entrance and the same sense of anticipation that always seems to hang in the air even on the coldest days.
We stood behind the goal that Sunderland would attack in the second half — our usual spot, the one where you feel every goal like it’s happening inside your own chest.
I didn’t know then that I would walk away with my hand bruised and bandaged for a week because I’d punched the advertising boards so hard in celebration. If you’d told me that before kick off, I would’ve laughed, but by full time, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
The cold that day was the kind that does not just sit on your skin but sinks into you.
It made my breath come out in little clouds, my toes feel like they were wrapped in ice and it made the pitch look harder and sharper, as if the grass itself was bracing for impact. But there was something else in the air too, something warm, buzzing and alive. The kind of feeling that makes you think — even if you don’t say it out loud — that something might happen today. Something worth remembering.
The Lasses’ line up felt strong.
Claudia Moan in goal, as steady as ever; the kind of presence that makes you feel like everything behind the back line is safe.
A defence featuring Amy Goddard and Brianna Westrup. Goddard with her reading of the game, her timing and her ability to step in at exactly the right moment, and Westrup with her strength, her aerial dominance and leadership.
In midfield, the graft and intelligence of Katie Kitching and the creativity of Jenna Dear — Kitching with her engine, willingness to do the dirty work and ability to knit things together, and Dear with her vision, touch and ability to make something happen out of nothing, whilst up top, it was Emily Scarr, who always looks like she’s one moment away from doing something outrageous.
There was a quiet confidence in the air. Lewes were struggling in the table, but they’re one of those sides that never roll over. We knew we would have to graft for it, and the truth is that this match carried more weight than anyone wanted to admit.
That season had a different kind of energy running through it.
Sunderland were not just surviving in the Championship anymore. Instead, they were pushing, growing and developing into something bigger. Every week seemed to bring another moment where people looked at each other and said — half joking and half terrified —“We might actually do this, you know.” Promotion was not a fantasy nor was it a polite hope whispered in the background. It was real, tangible and close enough that you could feel the shape of it in the air.
The table, meanwhile, was tight. Ridiculously tight.
A single win could launch you upwards whereas a single slip could drag you back into the pack, but Sunderland were right there, refusing to blink.
They’d spent the first half of the season proving they belonged at the top end. They’d spent the weeks leading up to this match proving they could stay there, and now, in mid-February, they were still in with a genuine chance of finishing first. It was the kind of possibility that makes your stomach twist in the best way.
That is why this match mattered more than the fixture list suggested.
On paper, it was a routine home game against a side struggling near the bottom, the kind of match you’re supposed to win if you are serious about going up. But football doesn’t care about paper — it cares about pressure, expectation, the weight of knowing that every point counts and that every mistake could be the one you look back on in April and think, “That was it. That was the moment it slipped.”
Sunderland had already had their share of those moments in seasons gone by. Too many afternoons where the performance was there but the result was not. Too many days where the margins went the wrong way, and too many occasions on which hope had been allowed to grow only, to be brought back down again.
So when Lewes scored early, it was not just frustration that rippled through the crowd — it was fear.
Not panic, not despair, but that quiet, familiar fear that whispers, “Not again. Please, not again.” When Sunderland turned it around to lead 2-1, the relief was sharp enough to taste. When Lewes equalised, the tension tightened again, and when they went 2-3 up in the second half, it felt like the kind of moment that could define a season in the worst possible way.
This wasn’t just about three points. This was about momentum, belief, identity and the sense that Sunderland were not just competing at the top of the table but belonged there.
A comeback win would not just keep them in the race — it would confirm that this team had the resilience, the character and the sheer bloody-mindedness that promotion campaigns are built on.
That’s why the atmosphere behind the goal felt different that day; why every misplaced pass made people flinch, why every half chance made hearts leap, why stoppage time felt like a test of faith and why the equaliser and the winner did not just feel like goals. They felt like declarations. Proof that Sunderland weren’t going anywhere.
What none of us expected was the sheer chaos of the opening minutes.
I’d barely settled into my spot when Lewes took the lead. Four minutes in, a scrappy moment, a ball whipped across and turned into her own net by Goddard.
It was one of those goals where the whole crowd makes the same noise, a kind of collective “Eh?” followed by a groan. I remember looking at Ant and saying, “Typical, that. Absolutely typical.” But before the frustration could even settle, Sunderland hit back — instantly.
A minute later, Scarr did what Scarr does, picking up the ball, driving forward with that determination that makes defenders panic, and burying it.
Five minutes on the clock. 1-1, and the roar from behind the goal was like someone had plugged the terrace into the mains. I felt the cold lift off me like steam. That’s the thing about Scarr. She doesn’t just score goals — she changes the temperature of a match.
And then, before we had even caught our breath, Westrup made it 2-1 with thirteen minutes gone.
A corner swung in, bodies everywhere, and Westrup rose above the lot of them like she’d been lifted by the wind. The header was perfect: downward, powerful and unstoppable. I remember grabbing Ollie’s coat and yelling something incoherent, something like “Get in, man!”
The whole place was bouncing and it felt like we were about to run away with it, but Sunderland never run away with anything. Not in my lifetime, anyway.
Lewes settled. They dug in, and on the half hour mark, they got a penalty.
Hollie Olding stepped up and slotted it. 2-2, and the atmosphere went flat. Not angry nor panicked, just flat, someone had let the pressure out of the day. I remember folding my arms and muttering, “Here we go again”, because that’s what it felt like. Another afternoon where we would dominate, graft and fight, yet somehow end up with less than we deserved.
The second half was tense. Properly tense. The kind of half where every misplaced pass makes you wince and every half chance makes your heart jump.
Lewes grew into it. They started to believe, and when Reanna Blades put them 2-3 up in the seventy third minute, it felt like the world tilted. It was a brilliant finish, to be fair to her — calm, clinical and the kind of goal that silences a crowd. I remember the sound of it. Not quiet, exactly, but stunned. A kind of collective exhale. I looked at Ant and Ollie and saw my own worry reflected back at me. Not anger. Not despair. Just that sinking feeling of, “Is this really happening?”
But something else was happening too. Something I didn’t recognise at first.
The players’ heads didn’t drop and they didn’t look beaten. If anything, they looked sharper. More alive, as if the goal had flicked a switch — and the crowd felt it. You could sense it moving through us like a current. A belief that was not loud or dramatic, but stubborn. Proper “Sunderland belief”. The kind that says, “Aye, we’ll see about that.”
The minutes ticked by: eighty, eighty five, eighty eight.
Every attack felt like it might be “the one”, whilst every clearance from Lewes felt like a personal insult. I could feel my pulse in my fingertips, and then we hit stoppage time. Seven minutes. Seven whole minutes. I remember shouting, “Plenty of time,” even though my voice was shaking.
Ninety plus five. A scramble in the box. Bodies everywhere. The ball bobbling like it had a mind of its own. And then Dear — calm, composed, brilliant — stepped onto it and smashed it home.
3-3. The noise behind that goal was not just loud; it was primal. A roar that came from somewhere ancient. I felt it in my bones. I felt it in my teeth. I felt Ant grab me, I felt Ollie shouting something right in my ear and I felt myself punch the advertising board so hard that pain shot up my arm. I didn’t care. None of us cared. We were level and alive. We were Sunderland.
And then — God help us — there was more.
Ninety plus seven. Another attack, another surge, and the ball fell to Dear again. I swear that time slowed and the whole world held its breath. And she hit it. Cleanly. True. Perfect.
The net bulged, and Eppleton lost its mind.
The world didn’t just explode. It disintegrated, with limbs everywhere, bodies flying in every direction and people grabbing whoever was closest. I remember the sound first, a roar so loud it felt physical, like it punched the air out of my lungs. And then everything went white hot and instinctive. I punched the advertising board again. — harder, this time — and pain shot up my arm, but it barely registered.
Ant didn’t even stay rooted to the spot.
He took off, running behind the goal like he’d been launched, arms in the air and absolutely gone. Ollie was doubled over laughing and screaming at the same time. No one knew what to do with their bodies or their limbs. People were falling over, hugging strangers, grabbing the back of their own heads like they couldn’t believe what they’d just seen. It was pure, unfiltered pandemonium; the kind of celebration that only happens when something inside you snaps in the best possible way.
The final whistle felt like a release, as if the world had been holding us underwater and had decided to finally let us breathe. The players collapsed; hugging, screaming and laughing. The fans did the same. I looked at my hand and saw it swelling already, but it felt like a badge of honour and a physical reminder of what we’d lived through.
On the walk out, everyone was talking. Strangers were hugging and people were shaking their heads in disbelief. Someone behind me said, “I’ll never see anything like that again.” And I remember thinking, “Aye. Same.”
This wasn’t just the comeback, the goals or the drama.
Instead, it was about the feeling. The connection. The sense that we’d all been part of something bigger than ourselves and of something that would be spoken about for years. And it has been. Every time the match comes up now, people get that same look in their eyes, the look of someone remembering where they were when something extraordinary happened.
For the club, it was a statement; a declaration that Sunderland Women weren’t just surviving, they were fighting, growing and believing. For the players, it was proof of their character, their resilience and their refusal to accept defeat. For the fans, it was a gift. A memory to carry and a story to tell.
And for me, it was the day I bruised my hand celebrating a goal in the seventh minute of stoppage time. The day I felt more alive than I had in months. The day I stood behind a goal with Ant and Ollie and watched Sunderland Women do something miraculous.
I’ve been to many matches and I’ll go to many more, but I know deep down, that nothing will ever quite match that afternoon at Eppleton. The cold. The chaos. The noise. The fight. The joy. The absolute pandemonium of it all.
It was the best game I’ve ever been to. And I think it always will be.
See More: