Update: Red & White Army’s Sunderland flag project close to reaching financial goal - help us!

The Red & White Army are looking to raise £10,000 in order to bring some life and colour back to the Stadium of Light as the first step towards improving the atmosphere at home games.

In conjunction with ourselves here at Roker Report, A Love Supreme and Wise Men Say we are aiming to produce flags and banners that will displayed in the Roker End, showcasing Sunderland’s local identity and proud history.

As the crowd funding page currently online states:

In the past, Sunderland has long been historically known as a vociferous, passionate and difficult place for away sides to come to. With the return of the Roker End, the Red and White Army would like to reinvigorate the Roker Roar within the SoL.

The independent and democratic SAFC supporters’ group The Red and White Army are working with supporters in the Roker End to increase the sense of local identity, history and tradition to help build the atmosphere. We will be buying surfer flags, smaller flags, large banners and anything else supporters come up with that will look class and get the place going.

In essence, we need to hearken back to the region’s proud industrial heritage, celebrate the historic successes of the past and combine that with the new era of Sunderland. We are all proud of this history and the new step the club has taken over the last six months, and these flags will provide a visual representation of doleful devotion, historic pride and show that we are Sunderland.

Please give what you can and let’s continue to make our club the best it can be. Thank you.

Where are we now?

The crowdfunding page is currently - at the time of writing - just £350 off the overall target of £10,000. We are incredibly close, and without your support couldn’t have gotten where we are so far.

But we need that one last push to get the initiative over the line.

We have been gathering designs both internally from graphic designers, and on a typeform submission page posted on RTG - where design ideas currently number in the sixties. Throughout this time, we have been coalescing with the club regarding access and storage while negotiating production costs and deadlines.

Most of these negotiations are now at an advanced stage, and as soon as the crowdfunding target has been reached we can finalise the design process and get production moving.

From surfer flags to larger wavers, two-pole verticals, scores of hand waves, banners, artwork in the ground and many more exciting ideas, the design process is both broad in magnitude and span, and potentially very exciting.

Photo by Mark Runnacles/Getty Images

How YOU can help

As a fully democratic supporters’ group, the final designs shall be opened up to you for a public vote. Soon enough we’ll be able to share many of these designs with yourselves, which we are looking forward to. You’ll be hearing much more from us over the coming weeks, with a fully open meeting on the subject just around the corner. This will be a forum to discuss all potential avenues, designs, volunteering opportunities and discuss the public votes on design. More details will be announced imminently on all of this.

However, we still need your help. From donating as little as you can to push us over the line, volunteering to help with the flags on match days, to submitting your own design ideas on our typeform submissions page.

Don’t worry if you aren’t artistically inclined, all initial submissions will be kept private and worked upon to be flag ready by our teams of designers.

Get yourself on flag design pages, MS paint or even the good old pen and paper, if you have an idea, send it in!

Ideas can be related to the proud history and local identity of the area, to legends of the past, or even inspired by some other famous flags elsewhere - just let us know what you would like to see on your flags, in your Roker End, for your beloved team.

How to donate

However, this can only be achieved by helping us raise the funds to bring a bit of the old Roker soul into the SoL. Head over to the Just Giving page and give as much or little as you want, be it just a spare £1 you have handy. Every little helps.

On Boxing Day we all smashed the League One attendance record with a fantastic and awe-inspiring 46,000 filing into the SoL to support the Lads. Ahead of the game a fantastic fan-led initiative even brought the joy of football and Christmas spirit to thousands who may have not afforded the luxury of watching the Lads dispatch Bradford on Boxing Day.

When Sunderland comes together as one, the result is something truly special.

Follow the link at to top of the page or below to help us do this, and let everyone know that we are Sunderland, and we’re Sunderland ‘til we die.