Faithful focusing on next business

A year on the Wear:The rain fell hard as marbles the day Ray Leonard got married. He didn't care, he and his bride Chris were up to the alter resplendent in their Sunderland kits to the music of Prokofiev. They came back down to the theme from Sports Report.

It was County Durham in June and Ray and Chris were planning a honeymoon to Ireland. Funnily enough, it coincided with Sunderland's pre-season tour. As Ray explained at the outset of his wedding speech: "I really, really, love . . . . the club."

Ray, whose first Sunderland memory was being at Roker Park as a ten-year old in the 1973 FA Cup run, said he knew it was love with Chris after he'd taken her to Sunderland versus Coventry City "on August 29th 1999" and she came away bewitched.

Now they sit beside each other in the North Stand clutching season tickets and a quite amazing respect for the men in red and white stripes in front of them. Considering that large chunks of the past 34 years have caused Ray grievous emotional harm, his fortitude merits mutual admiration.

"I am a supporter, I support the club" - that's Ray's stance, has been, always will be. Therefore a conversation with Ray about Sunderland's status after five games of their return to the Premier League differed in tone to others this week.

"I am absolutely positive that we are not going to go down," Ray said, "it isn't going to happen. I don't have blind faith but I do back Keane's judgement.

"Yes, Wigan was a nightmare and there was a lack of commitment and fight and the Luton performance sounded worse than Wigan. And yes, we were outclassed by Liverpool.

"But we weren't demolished by them the way that Derby were. At Man United we were well-organised and had two good debuts from Jones and Higginbotham. So there's been a lack of consistency but it's way, way to early to judge the season.

"In the long-term I still feel really confident in the whole direction of the club. There is infrastructure, investment and a sense of direction from the chair and Drumaville. Quinn and Drumaville said that if we won promotion, they'd invest. And they have. What more can they do? Keane's continual confidence in the future is great and I think there is a critical mass of Sunderland supporters who feel we are starting a journey that could actually see us realise our aspirations and fulfil our belief that we are a huge club."

Martyn McFadden has edited the Sunderland fanzine, A Love Supreme, for ten years and runs a fans' shop adjacent to the Stadium of Light. McFadden said he met a new Sunderland fan, from Limerick, at the Birmingham game.

"He told me he'd never seen Sunderland lose," McFadden said incredulously. "Two years ago I felt like I'd never seen Sunderland win." McFadden's comment is illustrative of the fact that until Sunderland build a strong present, they cannot escape their past. "Last time we were down by October," he said of Mick McCarthy's final season on Wearside, the record low 15-point season.

"But we've had our expectations raised by the takeover. People expect more than us being in the bottom three, but the thing is the management and board expect more now too. It has been an indifferent start to this season but we worked out this week that Roy Keane has been involved in 55 transfers in the past year. That's one every 6½ days, it's been a whirlwind." Some of those transfers are now the subject of debate. McFadden, and others, vouched for the increasing terrace dissatisfaction with Dwight Yorke. There are questions as to why Graham Kavanagh is not being used, why Liam Miller is not prominent.

David Bourne, Andy Richardson and Stephen Watts are three other season ticket holders. In their 30s, they have been going for decades between them and sitting around a table on Thursday, they also mentioned some specific team concerns. Yorke was named again, and Greg Halford. Dean Whitehead's injury came up again and again.

None wanted to extrapolate too much from five games but then the next three: Reading at home, Middlesbrough away and Blackburn at home, were viewed as crucial. Boro away was the seventh game of that 15-point season, they remembered, after which they had four points and nil optimism.

That is the points tally now, of course, and each would feel more comfortable if it were surpassed by the time of Boro. "We need a win and a draw," Bourne said to nods of agreement. His next comment illustrates the innate, perhaps compulsive pessimism of Sunderland fans: "Reading could be a season-breaker, if we lose. If we can't turn over Reading, who can we turn over?" "No-one's at that stage where they are doubting," Watts interjected.

"We've got to win one of the three. It's about getting the pressure off, then we can kick on. But Blackburn will be tough and we've only got three goals, two from Chopra and one form Stern John, who's gone. But did you see George Burley said Kenwyne Jones will be to Sunderland what Didier Drogba is to Chelsea? Burley knows his stuff."

The trio love Keane but know he is learning on his feet and they hope he is being challenged internally by his staff. "Is anyone strong enough to stand up to him?" was a question posed.

"Can he change his style, adapt from the pass and pass and pass of last season? Richardson asked. "Because the Premier League is much more physical." Hope, doubt, fear, belief, the old Sunderland yo-yo has clearly not been erased. But the smiles are still there. "You want to go again," Watts said, "it's not just a duty.