Roker Report

About Roker Report

Roker Report is an online fanzine, blog and podcast network dedicated to Sunderland Association Football Club, published at rokerreport.com as part of the SB Nation blogging network. Launched in December 2010, it has grown into one of the most prominent independent voices in the Sunderland supporter community, combining daily written coverage with the Roker Rapport podcast, livestreams and an annual charity drive that has raised over 120,000 pounds for local causes since 2019. The site takes its name from Roker Park, Sunderland's historic home ground from 1898 to 1997, and covers both the men's team and the club's women's team. Created by Damian Brown, Gavin Henderson, Tom Atkinson and Sean Brown, Roker Report has interviewed high-profile former players and celebrities, and gained national attention in 2018 when new owners Stewart Donald and Charlie Methven gave exclusive interviews to its podcast team shortly after buying the club.

Launch on SB Nation

Roker Report was launched in December 2010 on SB Nation, the American sports blogging network that hosts team-specific fan communities across world sport. It arrived at a fertile moment for Sunderland fan media: the club's longest-running fanzine, A Love Supreme, had been in print since 1989, but the online space was still open for a daily-updating, interactive supporter site. Roker Report filled that gap, offering news, analysis, opinion and fan discussion in the fast-moving blog format that SB Nation pioneered. Since 2010 it has operated continuously on the network, building a large and loyal readership among the club's supporters in the North East and around the world.

The founders

The site was created by Damian Brown, Gavin Henderson, Tom Atkinson and Sean Brown, a group of Sunderland supporters who wanted to build a modern online home for fan writing about the club. The collaborative, volunteer-driven model typical of SB Nation sites suited them: a team of contributors rather than a single proprietor, with different writers, podcast hosts and editors sharing the workload. That team structure has allowed Roker Report to sustain daily coverage for well over a decade, weathering the club's dramatic journey from the Premier League down to League One and back up again.

The Roker Rapport podcast

The Roker Rapport podcast launched on 11 September 2016 and has become the audio flagship of the operation. It now runs to more than 500 episodes, published three to four times a week, with formats including quick reaction shows, full match reviews, match previews and interviews. The podcast is hosted by Gavin Henderson, Rich Speight, Chris Wynn, Martin Wanless, Ant Waterson and Brett Lyons-Davis, with production by Sean Brown. Its interview roster has included many high-profile former Sunderland players and celebrities connected with the club. The podcast's profile rose significantly in 2018, when Stewart Donald and Charlie Methven, fresh from completing their purchase of Sunderland, chose Roker Report's team for exclusive interviews - a sign of how far the site's influence had spread within the club's supporter base.

Livestreams and video

Alongside the podcast, Roker Report produces livestreams that extend its matchday and weekly coverage into video. The live format allows supporters to interact with the hosts in real time, continuing the site's founding emphasis on fan conversation and community. Together, the written site, the podcast and the livestreams form a multi-platform operation that covers Sunderland AFC across the formats modern supporters expect.

Coverage of the women's team

Roker Report covers Sunderland's women's team as well as the men's side, reflecting the growth of the women's game and the site's commitment to the club in full. Dedicated coverage of Sunderland Women sits alongside the men's news, analysis and podcasts, making the site a home for supporters of every part of the club.

The name: Roker Park

The site's name honours Roker Park, the ground that was Sunderland's home for 99 years. Opened on 10 September 1898 with a 1-0 victory over Liverpool watched by 26,000 supporters, Roker Park was considered one of the best grounds in the country in its day, famous for the Fulwell and Roker Ends and the Clock Stand. The club played there until 1997, when it moved to the Stadium of Light. During their near-century at Roker Park, Sunderland supporters were known as Rokerites and Rokermen - names that live on in the fanzine's title and in the affection of the fanbase.

Charity work

Since 2019 Roker Report has run an annual charity drive, and the initiative has raised over 120,000 pounds for local charities. The fundraising has become a fixture of the site's calendar and a point of pride for its community, demonstrating the social power of an organised supporter base. For a fan media operation, the scale of the giving - six figures raised for causes in Sunderland and the surrounding area - marks Roker Report out as a genuinely civic-minded institution as well as a football publication.

Place in Sunderland's fan media

Sunderland's supporter culture has one of the richest fan-media traditions in English football, from the long-running print fanzine A Love Supreme, first published in 1989 and a multiple award-winner, to the Wise Men Say podcast, running uninterrupted since 2013 and featured heavily in the first season of the Netflix documentary series Sunderland 'Til I Die. Roker Report sits at the centre of this ecosystem as the club's leading online fanzine: daily written coverage, one of the most prolific club podcasts in the country, and a charity operation that gives back to the city. Through relegations, takeovers, play-off heartbreak and promotion, it has remained the digital meeting place for Sunderland supporters - a Rokerite institution for the internet age.

The SB Nation network

Roker Report operates on SB Nation, the American sports media network that hosts team-specific fan communities - known as "team blogs" - across world sport. The network's model gives each community its own site, its own writers and its own identity, while providing the publishing platform and the audience infrastructure of a large media company. For Roker Report, the SB Nation home has meant a stable platform and a built-in readership of sports fans since December 2010, while the content itself has remained firmly in the hands of Sunderland supporters. The site's full address, rokerreport.sbnation.com, reflects that relationship, with rokerreport.com serving as its public face.

Editorial approach

Roker Report's written coverage follows the rhythms of the football calendar: match previews looking ahead to the weekend's fixtures, full match reviews dissecting what happened, quick reaction pieces in the immediate aftermath of games, transfer news and rumour analysis, and opinion columns giving supporters space to argue about the direction of the club. The tone is unmistakably that of the terraces - passionate, knowledgeable and unafraid to criticise - but the operation's longevity and the professionalism of its output have earned it a readership well beyond the hardcore. Interviews with former players and club figures add an insider dimension, while the podcast's long-form conversations allow for a depth that the daily news cycle cannot. It is fan media, but fan media taken seriously.

Community and readership

Sunderland's supporters, traditionally known as Mackems - and, during the club's near-century at Roker Park, as Rokerites and Rokermen - form one of the most loyal fanbases in English football, with official supporters' clubs in more than 70 branches across England and around the world. Roker Report serves that global community daily, connecting supporters who cannot get to the Stadium of Light with those who never miss a game. The site's comment sections, social media channels and live shows create a rolling conversation that continues between matches, and the annual charity drive has given that community a shared civic purpose. In a city where football is woven into the identity of the place, Roker Report has become part of the fabric: the online fanzine where Sunderland fans gather, argue, celebrate and commiserate together.