Talking to a Liverpool mate of mine who compared the two clubs to actors. We were Mickey Rourke, occasional bouts of brilliance but largely in the press for the wrong reasons but with a lot of charisma. He compared Sunderland to Keanu Reeves, occasionally OK to look at but utterly bland and never anything worthy of more than 5 minutes of attention.
Typical arrogant Liverpool but not without a grain of truth. They are just bland, nobody but us can be bothered to hate them and anyone that says they like Sunderland usually only say so because they hate Newcastle.
Funny little town.