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SAFC and me From the terraces of Roker Park to modelling Bob Stokoe’s F.A. Cup winning tracksuit, photographer Ian Wright takes Matthew Thomas on his journey with our football club. Ian swings his trench coat over the chair, squeezes my extended right hand with vigour and sits down with wide eyes and a big grin. A notepad emerges from his bag and a page full of scribbles, bullet points and cues lands face-up on the desk. Almost instantaneously, Ian pre warns me that he likes to talk and apologises, which is funny. I could have spent two days listening to Ian, never mind our two-hour chat during a humid April morning at the National Glass Centre. Ian Wright, the son of a working-class family from Fulwell, is an infectious character. An individual with a magnetic force field of positivity who personifies Sunderland’s characteristics; proud, hopeful, wary and ballsy. He photographed our football club during its divine time at Roker Park, he was at the epicentre of Sunderland’s 2018 World Cup host city bid and the Bob Stokoe statue outside the Stadium of Light was based on Ian’s physical similarities with Bob. Yet his journey with SAFC began thanks to a hand-drawn Bruce Lee portrait and his father’s unwavering pride. “It’s funny how I got into photography and publishing. I was told during a meeting with a college career advisor that I needed to focus on finding ‘a real job’, such was the attitude towards arts during the 70s. My inherent passion is drawing and 28
Bruce Lee was my idol growing up. "I sketched a portrait of Bruce from Enter the Dragon, showed my dad and he decided to keep it in his corner shop store in Pallion. Any and all customers would be given a glimpse of my drawing and by happenstance, a staff member from Edward Thompson Printers was in the shop and mentioned to my dad that there were a few vacancies and that I should write in. "It all spiralled from there really. I got the job that summer and began working on matchday programmes and various projects for SAFC. You could say Bruce Lee landed me a job working for SAFC.” So, off Ian went. 16 year old, beaming with pride, heading to the football club every other day and turning up to 3:00pm kick offs with a home shirt peeking out his shirt collar. The life that any football fanatic dreams of. SAFC is a social institution, never mind a professional football club. It’s a melting pot of personalities, opinions and backgrounds. A hub that allows a workingclass community to breathe as one. Something Ian was well aware of when
documenting the club, its players, fans and staff. “My friends would all be in the Fulwell End watching the match and I’m sitting on my stool, snapping and clicking away. It was difficult to switch off from ‘fan-mode’ and it caught me out on a few occasions. My hero was Gary Rowell and he scored against QPR I think. My boss asked me if I captured the moment he scored, of which I assured him I did until he shouted at me saying: “I know you didn’t get the goal because I saw you on Shoot! and you were too bloody busy jumping about celebrating!”.
