It is international fans’ weekend in Sunderland and more than 130 visitors from the club’s 35 overseas supporters’ branches completed long-planned pilgrimages to watch Phil Parkinson’s side. They had travelled from as far afield as Taiwan and
Thailand, Australia and North America and Bulgaria and Gibraltar, and they will surely feel their assorted treks were worthwhile after watching Chris Maguire’s immaculately struck 81st-minute winner lift Sunderland to sixth, ahead of Ipswich on goal difference.
Like Paul Lambert’s visitors, Sunderland are desperate to regain a place in the Championship and the 32,726 crowd was swelled by 2,000 away fans still struggling to fathom how, precisely, it has come to this.