If you are a football fan of any description, you should be watching Sunderland ‘Til I Die.
Considering we’re all spending a lot of time indoors these days, the JOE team has picked out viewing recommendations for TV series, old and new, to get stuck into to keep boredom at bay.
Title: Sunderland ‘Til I Die
Where can you watch it? Netflix
Number of seasons: Two seasons
IMDB rating: 8.2/10
Why you should be watching: There aren’t many better teams Netflix could have chosen to put at the centre of its documentary project.
The documentary was supposed to follow Sunderland’s journey back to the Premier League after they had been relegated to the Championship for the first time in 10 years.
Instead, they got relegated again. All of that is covered in Season 1, which produced some immense moments of drama.
You had Darron Gibson being caught drunk and bad mouthing his teammates, you had Chris Coleman nearly coming to blows with a disgruntled fan and two managers being sacked in the space of six months.
So you’d imagine that would be tough to top, right? Not by a long shot.
Without spoiling anything, Sunderland’s season in 2018/19 was somehow even more disappointing for fans of the club.
They failed to set League One alight, despite having a wage bill on a Premier League level and seemingly fell at every significant hurdle presented to them.
But what makes Season 2 of Sunderland ‘Til I Die so entertaining is the introduction of new (and now former) director, Charlie Methven.
Methven somehow manages to be even more of a David Brent-style character than Martin Bain, the star (we use that word lightly) of the first season.
Don’t believe us? Take a look at this short clip:
There isn't a single bit of this Sunderland 'Til I Die s2 clip that isn't *chef's kiss* pic.twitter.com/2SxSqCeHsf
— Netflix UK & Ireland (@NetflixUK) April 1, 2020
You can literally feel the cringe hit you in the face.
Like the first season, there are some characters who viewers will root for as well. Promising forward Luke O’Nien is absolutely adorable, and it’s amazing to see just how much football means not only to the fans, but the city of Sunderland as a whole.
If you love your football, the highs and lows will resonate all too well.
But if you’re feeling in any way emotional, we suggest you skip the theme tune. For a show about football, is such a beautiful and melancholic theme really necessary?
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