It’s strange isn’t it that geographically St Peter’s is actually closer to the Stadium of Light Football ground than the Stadium of Light station? Perhaps it’s just one of those anomalies that should never be questioned like crop circles or vegans. Anyway, another fun fact about the Stadium of Light station is that it used to be accessed by the yellow line as well as the green meaning football fans had a direct route from St James Park in Newcastle to the SoL in Sunderland (albeit a convoluted route via the coast). This was scrapped in 2005 however and can now only get there via the green line.
If you come out of the train station and follow signs towards the football ground (it’s well sign posted but also visible from the station so you’d be hard pushed to walk in the wrong direction. The first pub you will come to is the Colliery Tavern, which is right next to the front gates of SoL.
Much like the Strawberry in Newcastle this is a perfect match day pub and I imagine is absolutely shoulder to shoulder when the Black Cats are playing at home. We visited on a quiet Saturday afternoon and there were just a few regulars propping up the bar.
What pubs like these lack in variety or flair they make up for in pricing structure as a round of halves came in at under a fiver – can’t argue with that! The décor is everything you’d expect from an old, established north eastern boozer and is a little worn around the edges. Naturally its proximity to the stadium means SAF memorabilia adorns the walls and the weekly meat raffle is heavily advertised. I suppose the problem with the mixture of cheap beer and football fans is the inevitability of the first Google review commenting on ‘middle aged people fighting’ which does raise eyebrows however we didn’t see any of that when we visited – thankfully!
Contact:
Address: 12 Southwick Rd, Sunderland SR5 1EQ
Phone: 0191 548 7157
Find out where else we’ve been on our metro pub tour here
