David Stockdale has already celebrated promotion once this month – at the non-League club where he is majority owner.
He will miss Droitwich Spa lifting the champions' shield for winning West Midlands Regional League Division One because of a pressing engagement at Wembley with Wycombe Wanderers. But whatever happens in the League One play-off final, you won't find Stockdale letting the grass grow under his feet.
He has had more clubs than Tiger Woods, runs an expanding property business and he is an award-winning community champion for comforting the bereaved after an air disaster. Oh, and he's just won the Golden Glove for keeping the most clean sheets in League One at the age of 36.
Sunderland haven't just got to find a way past Stockdale at Wembley – the Mackems must find navigate a one-man empire. Although he never won a full international cap, Stockdale was good enough to be called into England squads under Fabio Capello. He had to withdraw from the first one – to get married – but Capello forgave him, even sending a good-luck message on the morning of the wedding.
And Stockdale still makes you believe a man can fly, as MK Dons found out to their cost when the Chairboys made it to the play-off final earlier this month.
After a 19-year career spanning 445 appearances at 16 clubs and 132 clean sheets, he's preparing for life after football with a portfolio of 40 properties – literally a cottage industry. As 51 per cent owner of Droitwich, he has also delivered the Saltmen to a new home, including a community 4G pitch.
“We are about to take the keys after developing the complex,” said Stockdale. “It's been about two-and-a-half years in the making, and it's nice to put something back into the game at grass-roots level when football has been good to me. We have just been promoted after a six-month unbeaten run to reach step six of the national football pyramid, so it's a good time to bring the club 'home' after years of playing outside the town.
“At any level of the game, it's good to see so many happy faces in one place.”
Stockdale has always been an enlightened soul, and his pastoral work at Brighton, visiting grieving families affected by the Shoreham air show disaster which claimed 11 lives, earned him recognition as a PFA community champion. “To win that award was very special, something very close to my heart, because the Shoreham tragedy touched a lot of lives,” he said. “It was haunting to drive to training every day past the spot where it happened.
“But as a club, Brighton handled it with great sensitivity and I was proud to be part of that collaboration between a football club and a community in shock.”
As for his latest assignment at Wembley, Stockdale has read the room and the Chairboys know their place in the screenplay.
“Everyone knows what Wycombe are about, and we know our limitations,” he admitted. "We don't do things the easy way, we may not be the prettiest footballing team or the easiest on the eye, but we're OK with being the underdogs. Sunderland are a big club, a massive club, they have a fantastic stadium and a fantastic fanbase, but the more they want it, the bigger the pressure.
“When we won promotion at Wembley two years ago, the only fans in the ground were cardboard cut-outs and it didn't feel real. This time, we have a chance to feel the noise, to do it in front of our families and take everything in.”
