Sunderland spent too long in the League One wilderness admits Peter Reid - but he insists no club is immune to failure. The Black Cats won promotion to the Championship last month via the play-offs at Wembley, ending their four-year stint in League One.
The club slipped into the third tier in 2018 following back-to-back relegations, and found itself competing at that level for only the second time in its history. Much has been said - and written - about the indignity of Sunderland, a club that has been six-time champions of England and that has twice won the FA Cup, finding itself in the third tier, but in reality there have been many famous clubs who have found themselves in a similar situation including over the years Leeds United, Manchester City, Aston Villa, and Wolves.
And former Black Cats boss Reid, who was in charge from 1996 until 2002 and led the club to back-to-back seventh-placed finishes in the Premier League - the club's highest top flight finishes since the mid-1950s - told ChronicleLive: "Listen, things happen at football clubs. Sheffield Wednesday are down there [in League One], Portsmouth are down there, Charlton are down there, so it's not a given.
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"Were Sunderland there too long? Yes.
"The main thing is, though, that they are out of League One now and back in the Championship and heading in the right direction again."
Reid was at Wembley to see Sunderland beat Wycombe in the play-off final, and finally lay to rest the ghost of his own play-off final defeat with the club in 1998 when the Black Cats fought out an epic 4-4 draw against Charlton Athletic after extra-time, before losing on penalties. "You'd like to go up automatically, of course you would, but going up through the play-offs and winning at Wembley is still a fantastic way to do it," said Reid.
"It's great for the Sunderland supporters to have gone there and seen their team win at Wembley in such a big, big, game. I'm not knocking the EFL Trophy that they won last year, not at all because winning any competition is great, but winning promotion will have felt like a much bigger deal and they deserved it.
"The manager and the players did extremely well in the play-off final. There was a lot of pressure, but they handled it really well.
"They were solid at the back, the keeper looked really good, and I thought [Alex] Pritchard and [Patrick] Roberts were outstanding on the day. It was a thoroughly deserved win.
"The fans were brilliant - it was just a great day, particularly coming so soon after Everton stayed up on the Thursday! It was a great week for me."
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