If you follow Sunderland AFC conversations, particularly online, you’ll notice there is a special category of hatred reserved for what is known as a “Durham Mag”, that being someone who lives in County Durham who supports Newcastle United. If you continue to follow this discourse and dig deeper, you will also note that Sunderland fans deem the concept of a “Durham Mag” to be illegitimate or superficial. But why exactly?
In the understanding of Sunderland fans, County Durham is deeply affiliated with the club’s identity. This is because Sunderland is traditionally a part of County Durham, and historically is the largest settlement in that area and of course, the River Wear runs through it directly. This gives Sunderland a spiritual connection with the Land of the Price Bishops, which sees it as rightfully being associated with Sunderland.
Newcastle on the other hand, as a Northumberland city situated on a different river, is dismissed as something different or an “outsider”. However, the reality is that the region is geographically in close proximity therefore it makes logical sense that the distribution of fans in some areas overlap. South Tyneside for example is one such clear area where loyalties are uncontroversially cut between the two clubs, but why not in the minds of SAFC fans, County Durham?
That is because Sunderland fans believe that the presence of Newcastle United in County Durham is illegitimate and they see it as a product of the post 1992 Keegan era, where it is claimed many plastic fans jumped on a “bandwagon” and merely started following Newcastle because they were a good team, and not because they had any traditional or heritage based reasons to do so. With this, there is also a legend associated with overweight NUFC fan Keith Roberts, known as “Beefy” who lives in Jarrow, that he was a SAFC fan who switched sides during the Keegan era.
But for Sunderland fans, a club that has largely struggled since the end of World War II, the notion of supporting the club through ones family and parents as a means of heritage, is exceptionally important and an integral part of its identity. This concept of support strongly distinguishes it from English elite clubs such as Manchester United, where many support them purely because they are good rather than loyalty to family or one’s hometown. Instead Sunderland fans see their attachment to the club as a form of belonging and an endurance of hardship, and subsequently see fans of the glory hunting type as inferior.
Therefore, Newcastle’s first entrance into the limelight has led Sunderland fans to believe a portion of their County Durham fanbase are illegitimate glory hunters who attached themselves to the club based on success as opposed to being heritage fans. The result is that SAFC fans tend to subconsciously divide the NUFC base into two tiers. Those they deem the true loyalists from Newcastle, Gateshead, Greater Tyneside and Northumberland, and those they deem as “plastic mags” from County Durham even extending into places such as Houghton, Penshaw and Seaham.
In conclusion, Sunderland fans, perhaps superficially, perceive County Durham as their own in identity terms, and the ultimate result is a psychological rejection of the idea Newcastle fans should be there, associating that primarily with events in the 1990s. This is why the idea of a “Durham Mag” has proved to be long controversial and why a Chester-le-Street Pub painting a NUFC mural was met with an uproar.