Honouring mining heritage at match 'was so moving'

A woman who lay roses ahead of a football match between Sunderland and French side RC Lens to honour their shared mining heritage has spoken about how "moving" the entire day was.

Susan Proudfoot, who is originally from Washington, said she was related to Roxy Music frontman Bryan Ferry, whose father looked after pit ponies at the local colliery.

She now lives in Kent and travelled to the preseason friendly in France on 8 August for her first Sunderland match, saying it felt like it would be "an insult not to go" as it was so close.

At the match Proudfoot lay roses and handwritten messages outside Stade Bollaert-Delelisto to celebrate the mining history of both Lens and north-east England.

Images of the roses spread on social media after RC Lens posted a photo.

One of the messages Proudfoot had attached to the flower said "Remember Courrières", which references the 1906 mining disaster near Lens.

She said she had been inspired to lay the flowers after remembering TV news stories of English miners receiving food parcels from around the world during the 1980s strikes.

Some of the parcels delivered to the English miners were from France and Proudfoot said she wanted to celebrate both the North East's and Lens's coal mining legacy.

Huge slag heaps still tower over the French mining town, and in 2012 the Louvre Museum opened an outpost there on a former coal mine.

Mining in Washington came to an end with the closure of the Glebe Colliery in 1972 and Usworth in 1974, and the town's F-Pit was turned into a museum.

Proudfoot, who has been a Sunderland fan for decades, said the match itself was a wonderful experience.

"It was just so moving, it was just beautiful," she said.

"The whole atmosphere, the singing, the chanting, it was everything I wanted it to be and more.

"And now I'm not just a Sunderland supporter, but I'm a Lens supporter as well."

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