[16] After taking Sunderland to three English League championship titles manager Watson resigned at the end of the 1895–96 season, in order to join Liverpool.

[19] Following a second-place finish in 1900–01, the club won their fourth league title in the 1901–02 season,[19] and followed this up with victory in the Sheriff of London Charity Shield.

[22] Under Irish manager Bob Kyle and with Scottish Charles Thomson as captain, the club won the league again in 1913,[23] but lost their first FA Cup final 1–0 to Aston Villa.

[31] This incident led to a change in the rules, whereby players were no longer allowed to raise their foot to a goalkeeper when he had control of the ball in his arms.

[34] For Sunderland, the immediate post-war years were characterised by significant spending; the club paid £18,000 (£803,000 today) for Carlisle United's Ivor Broadis in January 1949.

[36] This, along with record-breaking transfer fees to secure the services of Len Shackleton and the Welsh international Trevor Ford, led to a contemporary nickname, the "Bank of England club".

[39] Found guilty of making payments to players in excess of the maximum wage, they were fined £5,000 (£152,000 today), and their chairman and three directors were suspended.

[43] Sunderland won their last major trophy in 1973, in a 1–0 victory over Don Revie's Leeds United in the FA Cup Final.

[45] Since 1973 only two other clubs, Southampton in 1976,[46] and West Ham United in 1980,[47] have equalled Sunderland's achievement of lifting the FA Cup while playing outside the top tier of English football.

[66] Following Sunderland's relegation from the Premier League, the club was taken over by the Irish Drumaville Consortium,[6] headed by ex-player Niall Quinn, who appointed former Manchester United captain Roy Keane as the new manager.

[71] Before the start of the following campaign, Irish-American businessman Ellis Short completed a full takeover of the club,[72] and Steve Bruce was announced as the next manager on 3 June.

[93] Gus Poyet was announced as his replacement,[94] and led Sunderland to the 2014 Football League Cup Final, where they were defeated 3–1 by Manchester City.

[100] In July 2016, Allardyce left the club to be announced as manager for the England national team,[101] and David Moyes was appointed as his replacement.

[107] The club made a very poor start to the 2017–18 EFL Championship season (which was documented in the Netflix series Sunderland 'Til I Die) and Grayson was sacked at the end of October,[108] with Chris Coleman replacing him.

[120] In February 2022, former Norwich City manager Alex Neil was appointed as head coach, following Johnson's dismissal after a 6–0 loss to Bolton in January.

[138] To coincide with the move from Roker Park to the Stadium of Light in 1997, Sunderland released a new crest divided into four quarters; the upper right and lower left featured their traditional red and white colours, but the ship was omitted.

The crest also contains two lions, the black cats of Sunderland, and a banner displaying the club's motto, Consectatio Excellentiae, which means "In pursuit of excellence".

On 8 March 1933, an overcrowded Roker Park recorded the highest ever attendance at a Sunderland match, 75,118 against Derby County in a FA Cup sixth round replay.

[61] The stadium bears a similar name to the Portuguese club Benfica's ground Estádio da Luz, albeit in a different language.

[151][152] Despite relegation from the Premier League in 2017 the club has continued to post large annual average attendance figures, recording over 30,000 for the 2019 and 2020 seasons, enough for 16th in the country.

[153][154] Following relegation from the Championship at the end of the 2017–18 season, Sunderland subsequently broke the League One division attendance record on 26 December 2018 in a match against Bradford City with a total of 46,039 fans.

"[158][159] "Dance of the Knights" from Sergei Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet is traditionally played before the teams take the field; the club's walk-on song is "Ready to Go" by Republica, with the crowd typically singing its chorus.

[168] The club also previously had an official monthly subscription magazine, called the Legion of Light, which season ticket holders received for no cost.

Sunderland also share good relations and a mutual friendship with Dutch club Feyenoord; this was developed after Wearside shipbuilders found jobs in Rotterdam during the 1970s and 80s.

[178] In 2001, the chairman Bob Murray established the Foundation of Light charity, to help educational development through football, and offers learning centres in addition to scholarships.

[185][186] The fans recorded the song due to the fact the manager often had a dour demeanour, whilst the team was doing well, and even won promotion at the end of the season.

Photographs exist of players holding a black cat which made Roker Park its home in the 1900s and 1910s, and which was fed and watered by the football club.

[199][200] A Sunderland supporter, Billy Morris, took a black cat in his chest pocket as a good luck charm to the 1937 FA Cup final in which Sunderland brought home the trophy for the first time and reference has also been made to a "Black Cat Battery", an Artillery battery based on the River Wear during the Napoleonic Wars.

Sunderland's record home attendance is 75,200, set during a sixth round FA Cup replay against Derby County on 8 March 1933.

[211] The biggest transfer fee Sunderland have ever received for one of their players is £30 million for Jordan Pickford, who moved to Everton in July 2017.