ten things...

Sunderland
1 In the 19th century Sunderland was booming with coming of the railway, new docks and much building. What they lacked was a football team but by those 1880s they had two. And the river Wear luckily also had two available banksides.
2 Sunderland AFC had a rival in Sunderland Albion. The thing was, they entered different leagues and that could only help promote one. But who ever heard of the Football Alliance as a household name?
3 AFC hit the big-time in the Football League almost straight away and before turn of the century were three times champions. Albion folded and their crowds went off to watch proper football.
4 After playing in a succession of grounds, they settled at Roker Park. All this development cost money and of course players were expensive assets, so got sold off to provide funds.
5 Prior to WW1 a good run in the FA Cup meant they could possibly do that first ever double of the 20th century. In a climax at Crystal Palace in front of amassed hordes, their nerve finally broke just as they went over the top.
6 After coasting thru those twenties and thirties there was war in the air again when this Roker outfit bagged some more silverware. It must have been dodgy black cats luck, or something similar to cause a second great team to be broken up by repeated international hostilities.
7 In the fifties they tried to buy success as the 'Bank of England' club. The football authorities then extended countrywide to four divisions in 1958. So there was plenty of room left in div2 as Sunderland went from flush to bust in a decade.
8 While Roker Park staged World Cup soccer in '66, the club was wallowing back in div1 and unable to jump on the bandwagon. We saw world Cup Willie, that lovable lion but they had eleven pussies on their pitch in comparison.
9 Seventies and eighties were up, down and up again periods to say the least. But worse was to come when in '87 McMenemy led them into div3, when newly introduced play-off knockouts only added to yet more ups and downs.
10 The Stadium of Light on the site of a former colliery by banks of the Wear, was supposedly an answer to a northeast prayer. If you've been, you want to go again and with their recent form, pray it might be sooner rather than later.