Amazing Good Friday atmosphere sees Bristol City past Sunderland in BS3 (2025)

It was another amazing game and amazing atmosphere at Ashton Gate stadium on Good Friday. It was a perfect start to a Bank Holiday weekend as a Bristol City fan; marvellous in more ways than one.

Sunderland fans came to Bristol in numbers and huge credit to them for travelling the five hours plus on a Bank Holiday, having already assured their place in the end of season play-offs. I've driven to the Stadium of Light on many occasions and it's a long old way. It must be strange for the Sunderland players and fans alike, knowing that any result between now and the end of the season makes no difference to their end-of-season position.

If we do make the play-offs, we may very well come up against Regis Le Bris' side again. However, as Gary Owers said on BBC Radio Bristol after the game, league games during the season have no bearing on play-off matches. It's a reset and teams go again, in a knock-out cup format rather than league. What I will say is that we have played well in both games against the Black Cats and similarly played very well home and away against Sheffield United, Coventry City and Middlesbrough.

I pray that we can stay in the top six and if we do, we don't need to fear anyone no matter who we play. That's not me being arrogant and I'm not saying we would win all three games and achieve Premier League status for the first time in our history, just that we don't need to fear any of the teams in the mix.

Before the game, we welcomed back former midfielder Marvelous Marvin Elliott who received his legacy cap. Marvin is a midfielder, whom like Gerry Gow before him, a generation of City fans holds up as the benchmark for what a midfielder should be. Whilst making the most Championship appearances for the club, 263, Elliott scored 28 goals. It was great to see him back and highlights again the great work that the club and Former Players Association do.

A lot of the talk in the build-up to the game centred around the injuries to Mark Sykes and Max O'Leary. Sadly, Liam Manning confirmed in his pre-match press conference on Thursday that Sykes's quad injury is likely to rule him out for the remainder of the season, which is gutting news for Mark and the team. Sykes has been so influential in games this season, popping up with crucial goals and he will be a big miss. I'm sure all City fans wish the popular Irishman well and a speedy recovery.

Max turned his ankle on the Loftus Road pitch at Queens Park Rangers last Saturday and social media was full of posts suggesting Max would miss this game and that Stefan Bajic would start. Manning had said that Max had trained and that a decision would be left until late as to whether City's number one would be able to start in goal. Thankfully at 2pm when team news landed, he was there as the first name on the teamsheet. The only change made was George Tanner coming in for Yu Hirakawa. Sunderland are a good side and Le Bris opted to make a few changes and rest players with the play-off games no doubt in his thinking.

There was a massive moment early in the game when Nahki Wells raced through and was clipped by Sunderland defender Trai Hume. Wells was not completely central to the goal and my initial thought was that his touch seemed to be taking him left rather than direct to goal. Referee Oliver Langford had no hesitation in awarding a free kick and sending off Hume, reducing Sunderland to 10 men. Langford was the man in charge away at Oxford United at the start of February and sent off both Joe Williams and Ross McCrorie.

Law 12: Fouls and Misconduct under the IFAB Laws of the Game 2024-25 states that it is a sending-off offence if a player is denying a goal or an obvious goal-scoring opportunity to an opponent whose overall movement is towards the offender's goal by an offence punishable by a free kick. It was a foul, and Wells' overall movement was towards the goal, therefore, by the letter of the law, it was a red.

We had a huge amount of possession in the first half without really testing Sunderland's goalkeeper Anthony Patterson. There were a couple of long-range efforts from Williams and Rob Dickie but not too much else to show for our dominance of the ball.

Sunderland weren't overly adventurous and it was a moment of brilliance from 19-year-old Spanish forward Eliezer Mayenda Dossou that gave the Black Cats the lead. Picking up the ball deep in his own half, Mayenda nipped between Williams and Dickie, who both went to ground early, and he was then in a one-on-one foot race with Zak Vyner.

Vyner is clearly not as comfortable playing on the left-hand side of the three-man defence, but a player of his vast experience simply couldn't allow Mayenda to come inside. Zak had done well not to commit or give away a free-kick which would undoubtedly have seen Langford even up the playing numbers but he had to keep him left and not allow him to come in.

Jason Knight and George Tanner should also have perhaps got a challenge in, but Mayenda beat them all and finished smartly past the helpless O'Leary. It was a blow but as has been the case this season, the fans stayed with the side and I felt that we would get back into the game. Patrick Roberts could have made it two not too long after, but O'Leary was there to make the save and push the ball wide.

Head coach Manning opted to make the one change at the break bringing on Hirakawa for Tanner and it proved to be the right call, with Hirakawa causing Sunderland all sorts of problems.

It took our own moment of brilliance to get back on parity and it came from Dickie. Picking up the ball following a poor clearance, Dickie brought it inside with the outside of his foot before sending a delicious curling and dipping right-foot shot into the roof of the net. It was perfectly in the corner and Patterson could only stand and watch. I loved the finish but loved just as much Dickie's reaction, imploring his teammates to get the ball whilst running straight back to his starting position. What a pro, what a leader.

So, who would write the next part of the story? Up step McCrorie, who'd seen a shot minutes earlier cleared off the line. Wells played in substitute Anis Mehmeti and his cross was met by a poor touch from Jobe Bellingham. Then, there was our own Braveheart McCrorie to fire the ball left-footed into the net, albeit via a deflection off Bellingham. We created other chances, most notably, a fizzing curling effort by Mehmeti but importantly we saw the game out to seal the victory.

The scenes at the end were fabulous and I have seen a clip on YouTube from 'The Devon Mackem' calling out our fans as the best in the Championship and even the EFL. He loved Section 82 and the bouncing around of the home stands. Section 82 were immense again, staying long after the final whistle, resulting in Manning coming back out to acknowledge their support.

Manning said after the game that the home support was, and I quote, "Incredible! That's what it's about turning up and being around people that you enjoy the company of, turning up and being proud of the team and club you support. The fans gave everything."

Our 3 Peaps in A Podcast player ratings were: Max O'Leary 6.0, George Tanner 6.0, Rob Dickie 7.5, Zak Vyner 5.0, Cameron Pring 6.0, Ross McCrorie 7.5, Joe Williams 6.5, Max Bird 6.0, Jason Knight 6.5, George Earthy 7.0 and Nahki Wells 7.5 *MotM.

For the substitutes who must play a minimum of 20 minutes (including injury time) we went: Yu Hirakawa 7.0, Anis Mehmeti 6.0 and Scott Twine 6.5. A game average player rating of 6.5.

That is an overall season-to-date average player rating of 6.22. For Liam Manning, it was 7.5. His substitutions were spot on again and it was a massive win for his side. I gave the game a rating of 7.5.