JACK ROSS does not want Wednesday’s bumper Boxing Day attendance to prove a one-off, and is hoping to persuade some wavering Sunderland fans to return to the Stadium of Light for tomorrow’s home game with Shrewsbury Town.

The Black Cats boasted the biggest gate in England’s third tier for almost 40 years as 46,039 fans watched the Boxing Day win over Bradford City.

The club’s crowds have consistently topped 30,000 this season – a remarkable enough achievement in League One – but Ross is hoping Wednesday’s sense of occasion can be replicated as his side push for promotion in the second half of the season.

Sunderland host Shrewsbury tomorrow looking to close the five-point gap that currently separates them from league leaders Portsmouth, and while Ross does not expect the crowd to be as big as it was on Wednesday, he is hoping his side’s performance against Bradford will have persuaded some returnees to show their support again.

“It will be interesting to see what the attendance is for the Shrewsbury game,” said Ross, who spoke of his pride at leading the Black Cats in the wake of Wednesday’s scenes. “I would never just expect people to turn up because I know the financial commitment involved in that, and the whole club helped that with the ‘Gift of Football’ so that people who couldn’t ordinarily come were able to do so.

“I’m sure there were people who went on Boxing Day who can’t do it every single week, but we’re grateful to them for doing it and if we can get some of them back on Saturday because they’ve enjoyed the day, then brilliant.”

On countless occasions in the past, Sunderland have built up to a big day, only to fall flat on their face when it eventually arrived.

Wednesday’s victory was far from routine, with Bradford having a strong second-half penalty appeal turned down and feeling badly wronged after referee, Darren England, failed to award a goal even though replays show Jon McLaughlin allowed Jack Payne’s shot to cross the line.

Nevertheless, Sunderland emerged with a win, and the feel-good factor that had been generated in the build-up to the game remained intact.

“It’s a huge thing to have been able to send so many Sunderland fans home happy,” said Ross. “I was aware of it before the game, being kept fully up to date with the number of tickets sold and I understood the responsibility that was on us to produce a positive result.

“It’s the nature of football that you get told often enough about when there’s a big crowd and things have fallen flat, so we had to make sure that wasn’t the case against Bradford and I thought we did that. I thought the performance was good for the most part and it’s the result that always counts in football.

“There were a lot of people who made a big effort to come, and hopefully they enjoyed the rest of their Boxing Day because of that.”

Charlie Wyke certainly enjoyed his Boxing Day, with his appearance as an 84th-minute substitute ending an injury lay-off that had stretched back to mid-September.

Having arrived on Wearside nursing a knee injury that was sustained in a pre-season game for his former club, Bradford, the striker suffered a recurrence of the problem in September’s defeat at Burton.

He has been training with Sunderland’s first-team squad for most of the last fortnight, but Ross was determined to adopt a patient approach to guard against the risk of another setback. Wyke is likely to remain on the bench tomorrow, but it should not be too much longer before he is offering an attacking alternative in the starting XI.

With Duncan Watmore also back in the fold, Sunderland’s long-term injury list is all-but-blank, and with the Black Cats having to play two more games than the majority of their rivals because of matches that have been called off, Ross is delighted to see his squad at almost full strength.

“It’s such a big boost for us,” he said. “I’m pleased for Duncan because we’ve done what we promised, we’ve not rushed him back and even when he has been back we’ve dipped him in and out.

“I thought in the ten minutes or so Charlie was on the pitch (against Bradford), he looked in a far better place than when we threw him back in previously. We’ve got a lot more training into him and he looked sharper and stronger. The two of them will be big players for us in the second half of the season.”

While Wyke returned on Boxing Day, skipper George Honeyman was forced to sit out the game because on an ongoing ankle problem.

The midfielder’s problem is not especially serious, but it has been troubling him for a while and Ross would rather tread cautiously now than create a longer-term problem that might restrict Honeyman’s involvement towards the end of the season.

“He suffered the injury against Barnsley and it’s been really troublesome for him,” said the Black Cats boss. “To his credit, he’s probably played at times when he shouldn’t have because he’s so determined.

“Leaving him out on Boxing Day was a sore one for him because you can imagine how much he wanted to play, but we need to look after him properly and he needs to look after himself properly. It’s difficult to predict at the moment (whether he will be available against Shrewsbury), but we’ll see how the injury reacts over the coming days.”

The same is true of Adam Matthews, who was not considered for the Boxing Day game because of a calf issue.

With tomorrow’s game preceding a New Year’s Day trip to Blackpool, the matches are coming thick and fast at the moment, although the heavy festive schedule is hardly a surprise.

“We were straight back in training on Thursday ready for the game on Saturday,” said Ross. “But the players are used to it and I am used to it because it is a very busy period in football.

“They look after themselves physically, so it’s just about making sure the ones who haven’t played have done enough to keep their fitness levels topped up. We’ve needed the group over the last couple of games, and we’ll need them not just on Saturday, but when we go to Blackpool as well.”