Among the many joys of the eight-part Netflix series Sunderland ’Til I Die is a glimpse of football that is seldom seen, and little discussed in the media. Not the behind-the-scenes problems faced by managers with limited budgets and a distant owner looking to sell. That’s all fascinating stuff, though not quite as warts-and-all gripping as Premier Passions, the 1998 fly-on-the-dressing-room-wall account of Sunderland’s relegation, in which Peter Reid’s team talks would have made a stevedore blush.
No, what was most revealing was the plight of professional sportsmen a rung or, as it would turn out, two down from the elite. Sunderland, who in the documentary had been relegated to the Championship and were on their way to League One, had operated as a kind of transit hub for pros going in different directions. There was young talent on the way up (the England goalkeeper Jordan Pickford had moved to Everton), old talent on the way down (John O’Shea, five times a Premier League winner with Manchester United), players on loan who hadn’t quite worked out elsewhere (the Wales midfielder Jonny Williams, borrowed from Crystal Palace), and players whose bright futures seemed suddenly behind them (the former Everton prodigy Jack Rodwell).
Watching the Premier League, you see footballers who, by and large, perform at a very high level week in, week out. It gives a deceptive picture of football, rather like seeing the tip of an iceberg peeking out of the sea and not realising there’s a massive pyramid descending beneath. Sunderland had dropped below that waterline, not necessarily because their players lacked talent, but because they couldn’t produce a consistent level of form. But why?
This is the mystery that hastens hair loss for coaches and managers. In the case of Williams, the answer seems clear. It was a mixture of bad luck with injuries (and luck is an underrated contributor to success) and a chronic lack of confidence. He tells a psychologist that he’s “scared to lose the ball. Scared to miss. Scared of failure”. Put like that, it’s a wonder he manages to put his kit on. Obviously he knows he’s good. He just doesn’t know if he’s good enough.
One of the finest pieces of journalism written on professional sport was the late David Foster Wallace’s 1996 extended essay on Michael Joyce, then ranked the 79th-best tennis player in the world. Most of Foster Wallace’s readers wouldn’t have heard of Joyce, and yet he was a sublime player, devoted to the game and his improvement, and destined to be forgotten. As Foster Wallace coolly observes, Joyce could hit a winner at any angle. He just couldn’t do it “quite as well as Agassi, or as often”. That’s the difference between the very good and the great.
Watching Williams on his magnificent slalom runs is to witness a highly accomplished sportsman at work. But there’s the simultaneous recognition that he, like Michael Joyce, will never make it to the very top. Last month he joined Charlton Athletic in League One.
The question is, if success is all about wanting more, never settling for second-best and all the other cliches that haunt dressing rooms and training grounds, can a player ever find satisfaction in being in the third tier of his or her sport?
Sunderland are desperate to get out of League One (before Saturday’s fixtures they were fourth with games in hand), and presumably their players are too. But will they be failures if they don’t manage it?
One of the most impressive players of those prepared to go on camera in the documentary was George Honeyman. A product of Sunderland’s youth academy, like Pickford, he started his career in the Premier League and was determined to establish himself in the team. And he has done, becoming the club captain, but in League One, where instead of facing Liverpool he’s up against Accrington Stanley. In the Darwinian fight for survival that is professional football, Honeyman has still achieved something important. Not just because there are plenty of players who don’t make the grade in League One, but because it is clear in the documentary how much he wants to be in the team.
One player who remained understandably camera-shy was Rodwell. He wasn’t in the first team but was rumoured to be picking up £70,000 a week – a legacy of Sunderland’s profligate years. The then chief executive, Martin Bain, was desperate to get the one-time England and Manchester City player off the wage bill, and apparently told him to “be a man” and leave the club. Rodwell stayed. You could see why Sunderland’s staff and supporters were frustrated with him. And you could see why Rodwell, who joined Blackburn at the beginning of this season, was reluctant to say goodbye to that kind of money. But it’s hard to see his career, thus far, as superior to Honeyman’s. He’s played at a higher level than his former teammate, and he’s earned a lot more money, but he has never “realised his potential”.
That phrase is one of the few cliches in sport that transcends its usage. Potential is critical and yet it’s hard to quantify. No one, for example, predicted that Harry Kane was going to become one of the most sought-after strikers in the world when he was being loaned out to Leyton Orient and Millwall.
All that can be gauged is the effort and commitment a player puts into fulfilling their talent. Michael Joyce went on to reach the rank of 64th-best player in the world, 15 places up from when Foster Wallace wrote about him. We don’t know or care who the 65th- or 63rd-best players were at the time, but you can bet Joyce did.
Sunderland ’Til I Die captures the drama of sporting hopes and disappointments so powerfully that it has actually inspired my wife, a lifelong sports refusenik, into taking an active interest in football. But while the club was suffering its collective trauma, it also showed something of what it takes for an individual to rise above the doubts in his head, the boos of the crowd and the pressure of the moment, to attempt to deliver his best.
That forgotten struggle takes place each week in sports grounds that are strangers to success though seldom ambition. On Saturday Newport County will play host to Manchester City in the fifth round of the FA Cup. If it’s a competition that has lost much of its status, it remains one of the few places you can see professional sport in all its manifold glory, from the superstar elite all the way down to the players who are only just very good at what they do.