Tees–Wear Derby

17.01.23 1138

The Tees–Wear derby is an English football match contested between Middlesbrough F.C. and Sunderland A.F.C. This is a local football derby as the teams are only 30 miles apart, with two rivers separating them.

The River Tees flows between Hartlepool and Redcar, which is near Middlesbrough and the River Wear flows mostly through County Durham and the city of Sunderland. These two rivers are where the name ‘Tees–Wear derby’ originates.

The second Tees–Wear derby of the 2022/23 Championship season will take place on the 22nd of January at the Stadium of Light. The first Tees–Wear derby of the 2022/23 campaign came at the beginning of the season and Middlesbrough won the match 1-0 at home.

At the time of writing, there have been 149 Tees–Wear derby matches across three competitions. The bulk of the games have been played in the league, although not all in the same division. Of the 134 league games played, Sunderland holds the advantage with 56 wins in comparison to the 45 wins of Middlesbrough.

Sunderland also hold the advantage in the FA Cup, with 4 wins from 9 matches, and Middlesbrough claiming just the 2 victories. Moving to the League Cup and that is one competition where Middlesbrough have excelled, beating Sunderland 4 times in 6 fixtures, leaving the Black Cats with just 1 win to their name.

The 1990s was a period when the rivalry between Sunderland and Middlesbrough intensified, both on and off the pitch.

Both teams were competing in Division 1 and were playing at their old stadiums at the time, with fan violence sometimes overshadowing the football on the pitch. Both teams now play at new venues and this seems to have calmed the tensions between the two sets of fans.

If we look at recent fixtures between Sunderland and Middlesbrough, it is the latter who have enjoyed the upper hand. Middlesbrough have won 6 of the last 7 games between the two teams and have remained undefeated in those 7 matches.

There have been 5 victories in the league and one win in the FA Cup for Middlesbrough. Sunderland have been finding it tough to score goals in the Tees–Wear derby recently and they have failed to find the back of the net in 4 of the last 5 fixtures between the two teams.

A single goal has been enough for Middlesbrough to win 5 of the last 7 Tees–Wear derbies and Sunderland need to work on their attacking play if they are going to reverse the current trend.

We must go back to the FA Cup in 2012 to find the last time Sunderland beat Middlesbrough and that match went into extra time. The last time Sunderland recorded a victory over Middlesbrough inside 90 minutes was in 2008 and they came out on top 2-0 at home in the Premier League.

Both clubs are currently in the Championship, with the aim of winning promotion back to the Premier League.