WATSON HAS THE FINAL WORD

Tommy's Blades stunner sends Black Cats to Promised Land of Premier League

- By Mike Walters

WISE men say only fools rush in, and with £200million of Premier League loot at stake you never write off Sunderland.

As substitute Tommy Watson's dramatic 95th-minute winner ended the Black Cats' eight-year exile from the top flight, they picked Sheffield United's pockets to perfection.

Watson, a 19-year-old from County Durham, will never forget the day his golden goal restored one of English football's grand old clubs to the top table with his last kick for Sunderland.

This week he's off to Brighton for £10m. What an incredible way to bow out. But for the Blades heartbroken, crestfallen and scarcely able to believe their cruel fate it was yet another instalment of play-offs trauma.

That's 10 attempts to traverse the end-of-season tightrope, and 10 topples over the edge - not to mention the meter still running on 100 years without a win at Wembley.

They must be cursed.

Chris Wilder's men didn't look like conceding for 76 minutes and they will probably never understand how victory slipped through their fingers here.