Darren Bent reckons the Sunderland fans were the only ones who “made me feel like I was walking on water.”
Now 40, the former Black Cats striker joined the club in 2009 from Tottenham Hotspur and had an 18-month spell on Wearside, bagging a host of goals and endearing himself to all on Wearside.
Despite gracing the likes of Ipswich Town, Charlton Athletic, Spurs, Aston Villa and Derby County, he cites his spell in the North East as one of the best and, on the PL 100: Darren Bent programme on Sky Sports, he explained just why.
“All they care about up there is football,” he enthused. “There’s no temptation, I was miles away from everything and every day, seven days a week, it was about football. If you go up there and do well, people talk about you for years to come. So for me going up there, it was easy. From the moment I walked through the door the fans took to me. Obviously I scored five or six goals in my first six games, that always helps.”
He added: “I will say that, every club I’ve played for, they [Sunderland] were the only fans that made me feel like I was walking on water at times. Even when the team was struggling they would carry us through. We’d run a bit harder, work a bit harder, try a bit harder and it was a really fantastic period in my career up there.
“Every time I went on that pitch I wanted to score goals. I have got to give credit to the boys I played with at Sunderland as well because we were a really tight bunch. It showed on the pitch because we beat a lot of teams that season we had no right to beat but because we were more together than they were we would get a result.”
He recalls the famous beach ball goal against Liverpool and added: “I remember that game. I should have had four. I had a one-v-one, I hit the post, I hit the bar.
“I just remember Andy Reid crossing the ball in and my first thought was just to hit the target. If you hit the target that’s all you can ask. Even when it hit the beach ball and went in, I just thought ‘that’s a goal’. I ran off celebrating.
“People say to me now did I aim for the beach ball, did Iu know it was there. I remember the referee coming up and saying ‘Darren did that hit the beach ball?’ And I said, ‘I think so, why?’ He said, ‘the goal shouldn’t have stood’ and I said, ‘well, can’t do anything about it now.’ It was a freakish thing, To me at the time I just thought it was just another goal but to everyone else it was the most bizarre goal they’ve ever seen.”
He added: “In the Premier League, the 18 months I spent there was fantastic. I didn’t want to leave but the owner had made a deal and wanted to sell me to Aston Villa.
“I was settled up there. Me and the fans had a great relationship and they had just voted me their player of the year, and I won the Football Writers North East player of the year. So it was a tough decision to leave but I felt it was the right decision at the time.”
