Jack Ross: 'That confirms Sunderland is one of the biggest clubs in the country'

Aiden McGeady’s first-half winner secured the 1-0 win over Bradford City that lifted Sunderland back to within five points of the top of the table, but despite a number of controversial second-half refereeing decisions adding to the drama, events on the pitch only told part of the story.

The main headlines were written off the field, with a crowd of 46,039 enabling Sunderland to set a new record for the biggest attendance recorded in League One in its current guise.

It is almost 40 years since a third-tier game attracted a bigger gate, and Sunderland were able to post the third biggest attendance in the country yesterday, with only Manchester United and Liverpool playing in front of more fans.

“I think I've said often enough, you don't really appreciate how big this club is until you're in it,” said Ross. “I say that to people all the time when they ask me how the job is going. A lot of people say, 'Yeah, it's a big club', but it's a huge club. This showed that again.

“I've said it a lot recently, but it is genuinely a privilege to manage this club There's not many clubs you could manage in the country who could do that today in any league, so it is an honour to do it. It's a responsibility but I enjoy that.

“When I came into the job, people said, ‘If it's going well, you'll fill this place’. I was thinking, ‘That's going to be a challenge’. The only time I maybe thought it might be possible is if we were in a position where we were going to achieve success, so to see those numbers out at the midpoint of the season is quite incredible.

“Sometimes, at a football match, you can tell there are football tourists, but today they were football fans. You can tell by the noise and the atmosphere created. That again is probably just a reflection of what this club is like.”

When Ross took over in the summer, he spoke glowingly of the size of the club he was joining. Yesterday, Sunderland attracted more fans to the Stadium of Light for a League One game than Tottenham were able to lure to Wembley for a Premier League game against Bournemouth.

“That's remarkable,” added the Black Cats boss. “To only be beaten by two attendances in the whole country is remarkable, especially on Boxing Day when traditionally all clubs get big attendances.

“It's absolutely outstanding, and a lot of people at the club away from me and the players deserve a lot of credit for that. They've managed to rebuild things in a short period of time. We want to make sure this is not a one-off now - we want more days like this.”

McGeady ensured things did not fall flat on the field, although having dominated the first half, Sunderland had to survive a series of scares after the interval.

Referee Darren England failed to award Bradford what looked a stonewall penalty when Max Power appeared to foul David Ball, and also opted not to dismiss Tom Flanagan despite the Sunderland centre-half appearing to push Bradford defender Nathaniel Knight-Percival in the face.

There were as even more controversial moment with nine minutes left, with Jon McLaughlin allowing Jack Payne’s long-range strike to slip through his grasp. Replays suggest the ball crossed the line before McLaughlin flopped on top of it, but assistant referee, Mark Dwyer, kept his flag down, and England waved play on.

“I would be disappointed if that's all we focus on from today's game because I thought my team were good,” said Ross. “I would also say I haven't seen it again yet, but if it is over the line and it's a bit of fortune we needed to get the result, I'll take it because there's been a few occasions this season where I would argue we haven't been on the right end of that. But there was a lot more things I would look at other than that.

“If you'd ask me before the game I'd have said, ‘We just want to win the game’ because of the responsibility on us, but I enjoyed watching the game today.

“There have been games this season where we haven't been great and we've dug out results, and I know it wasn't comfortable in terms of the scoreline, but I thought for big parts of the game we were good. I thought we were exciting to watch and created a lot of opportunities. We needed that type of performance.”

Unsurprisingly, Bradford manager David Hopkin saw things differently, suggesting the size of the crowd might have swayed England’s decision-making in Sunderland’s favour.

“You've seen it, I've seen it, I think we've all seen it,” said the Bantams boss. “You could even see by Jon's body language, he's like a salmon stuck in the net. I could see it through the side netting and that's why I ran down the touchline.

“These decisions go against you when you come to big arenas to play. But great credit to my players because even with that, and I thought we had a stonewall penalty we were denied, we made one mistake in the first half and it's cost us three points.

“I didn't need VAR, I could see it was in from where I was, that's why I was nearly down by at the linesman because I could see it. The players are down and obviously I am too. It's a good yard and a half, two yards over the line. The decision was poor.

“David Ball had a stonewall penalty claim – why would he dive when he's through on goal? If you get in front of somebody and you hit the ground, he's not going to dive from there when you're running at full tilt.”