Mary Hannigan finds Sunderland and its denizens enchanted by the gruff charms and winning ways of manager Mick McCarthy

Promotion Close? "Yeah - and Midfield Drive." Na? "Honest." Na.

So Ian Laws, the Sunderland Echo's chief soccer writer, takes a detour on his way back in to the city from the club's training ground, through the streets that once led to Roker Park, and points to the sign at the entrance to the rows of townhouses now occupying the site of the old stadium.

Promotion Close. And Midfield Drive. And Turnstile Mews.

"Needless to say," he adds, "when the Echo ran the competition to name the new roads Newcastle fans tried to sabotage it." Their offering? Relegation Close.

Well, it was probably, much to the amusement of the inhabitants of Sunderland, the last footballing laugh they had down the road in Newcastle. Events there in recent weeks have become every Sunderland fan's favourite soap opera. That's when they're not preoccupied with their own drama. As the sign says, "Promotion Close".

So close it could be clinched today, if results go their way. It would be the club's third promotion in a decade, a period that has also seen them relegated from the Premiership twice and lose out in penalty shootouts in two promotion play-off games.

"That's a lot of heartache for any supporter to endure," says Martin McFadden, the man behind the independent Sunderland website a-love-supreme.com.

"Before Mick McCarthy it was two years of rubbish and the supporters are still bitter about it. They were left heartbroken, a bit like a bad relationship with a woman. Now they're almost being emotionally forced back into the relationship, but the trust isn't really there, they're probably just waiting for it all to go wrong again.

"So, yes, promotion's close, and we'll only miss out if we mess up on a big scale . . . but Sunderland are probably capable of doing just that," he laughs, nervously reflecting on the team's last two games, when they lost at home to Reading and drew away to Ipswich, where they missed a penalty and conceded a last-minute equaliser. The supporters, then, are barely able to look.

"My stomach's sick," says the taxi driver, echoing McFadden's reluctance to take promotion for granted. "It's so close you can almost touch it, but you start thinking how it could go wrong. What if we lose to Leicester and Ipswich beat Leeds, and then we lose to West Ham and . . . ?" He forgets to turn right and we're heading for Gateshead. "Sorry about that," he says.

In an attempt to lift his spirits we mention Norwich City's 94th-minute winner against Newcastle the night before. His reaction is much the same as was witnessed in Fitzgerald's pub in the city centre when the score flashed on the big screen during the Chelsea-Arsenal game. In time the staff will mop up the spilt beer, toppled by dozens of heavily tattooed, shaven-headed men in red-and-white-striped shirts when they catapulted from their seats to deliriously hug each other before dissolving into riotous laughter that reached decibel levels probably akin to the famed "Roker Roar" of old.

As McFadden put it, "Newcastle's demise has been entertaining, to say the least."

Back in the taxi the driver finds the demise so entertaining his shoulders are vibrating violently, while he cites the day Lee Bowyer threw punches at Kieron Dyer as one of his most cherished footballing memories.

Up there with beating Leeds in the 1973 FA Cup final?

"Aye," he laughs, "but I was only three then. I'll actually be able to tell my grandchildren about Bowyer and Dyer."

Which leads to him proudly contrasting the state of the neighbouring clubs and, specifically, the attitudes of the players.

Newcastle? "Overpaid, spoilt prima donnas with no pride in the shirt."

Sunderland? "A great bunch of lads who'd die for the club."

And who is responsible for this spirit?

"Mick McCaaaaarthy! He's fan-tastic!"

And that, it seems, is the consensus in Sunderland.

"There's genuine admiration and respect for the job he's done here," says Laws. "You've got to remember he took over at Sunderland when the club was on its knees. It had been on the slide for 18 months. Then Mick came in, with nine games to go. Lost them all. We were relegated. Then we lost the first two games of the next season - 11 games lost in a row. How many managers survive that? But the fans never turned on him - there were sections, obviously, who were frustrated and angry, but there was never a movement doubting that he was the man for the job.

"Howard Wilkinson (McCarthy's predecessor at Sunderland) hadn't been a popular appointment. He never connected with the supporters. When he went the man at the top of everyone's wish-list - which seems to be the same at every club - was Martin O'Neill, but that was never going to happen. Mick was available, he had the calibre, people respected him for dealing with that hellish situation with Roy Keane."

"Anyone who could deal with that psycho was alright by us," says the taxi man, who - while remaining reluctant to tempt promotion's fate - promises a warm welcome for Keane should he turn up with Manchester United at the Stadium of Light next season.

"Mick picked Ireland up when there was the pressure of taking over from Jack (Charlton). He had to rebuild and he did that," says Laws. "He's done the same at Sunderland - and this club needed to be rebuilt. The first thing he had to do in the summer, because of the financial problems, was get rid of around 25 players, an amazing clear-out. And this season his buys have been phenomenally successful: people like Dean Whitehead, Liam Lawrence and Stephen Elliott."

"Wilkinson was the most ridiculous appointment - he was a nightmare," says McFadden, still, like most of his fellow supporters, trying to decipher some of Wilkinson's statements when he was at the club.

"We did not deserve to lose today - we weren't beaten, we lost," he once said, before comparing Sunderland's relegation battle two seasons ago to "trying to push custard up a hill".

Even in the deepest south of England that class of talk wouldn't endear a manager to the supporters, but in the northeast uphill battles with custard - well, no. They like their managers to be blunt, straight, to the point, tough and honest, and to leave custard out of it. And in McCarthy, says McFadden, they've found the man who fits the bill.

"When he came in he shook every one up, called a spade a spade, talked straight, and he was respected for that. He had to get rid of our best 22 players but he made do, coped, got on with it, no complaining.

"I know Ireland was split about McCarthy, but he's been brilliant for us. He treats the fans well; there are lots of stories about him taking the time to talk to them, even when he's out having a meal with his wife. And he's good-natured with them. 'Right, tell me what I'm doing wrong' - that kind of thing."

Thursday morning, 8.45 sharp: McCarthy's weekly press conference at the club's training ground. If at times he appeared to relish dealing with the Irish media as much as his oft-mentioned backside might have savoured a brush with a bacon slicer, he seems more at ease in this company. Yes, say the 15 or so assembled local press, radio and television journalists, he's been tetchy at times and there's been the odd run-in, but they've no complaints. Not least because his team has been good to cover all season.

"You'd like to be closer, you like to be close to every manager, go out and have a beer, a bit of crack, and when we heard the former manager of Ireland was coming here we maybe thought that's what it would be like, but it hasn't quite turned out that way," says Laws. "But that's not a criticism of Mick. He's just very driven by his job in football and sees the media side as a secondary part. He's not looking for mates in the media. He'll survive or fall on his results on the pitch and he's happy with that.

"I wouldn't say he's got to be pally with many of the local press but again you can't criticise him for that - while we would love to be getting loads and loads of inside information and feel we're right in with the manager, while he's doing the job he's doing you've got to hand it to him. He's producing a team that's good for us to cover.

"He's definitely more Yorkshire than Irish, without making sweeping generalisations about Yorkshiremen or Irishmen. What does he call himself? A Yorkshirish man? Mind you, I've been to places in Ireland where they're just as suspicious and closed.

"But yeah, more Yorkshire than Irish. He's focused. Is stubborn a fair word? Possibly not. He's quite a fair guy. He disagreed with a couple of things I wrote and we just had it out. It wasn't a simmering feud; we talked about it and that was it finished. And I think he's dealt with his squad in the same way. People get a second chance with him. He's quite a fair guy - a decent man who's been very good for the club so far.

"There's respect for any manager when it's going well but it's when it's going badly that you learn just how much respect you've earned in the good times and I guess we don't know that yet. He has been relegated, there were those 11 defeats, but people didn't blame him because it wasn't his mess.

"Once he started cleaning it up he brought his personality into the place. There's a lot of talk about the togetherness of the squad; he's obviously picked people that will help create that sort of atmosphere, people who work hard, who are driven and, in some cases, have something to prove."

Injury updates, team news, and then one of the radio people asks: "How would you feel if Sunderland won promotion?"

"That's a ridiculous question really," McCarthy sighs. "It's like asking me how would I feel if I broke my leg - I wouldn't know until it happened."

A mass outbreak of giggling. The radio man grins, conceding he'd asked for it.

"Do you have any superstitions, just in case we need a bit of luck against Leicester?"

"No, touch wood."

Silence. Then more laughter.

"With all this pressure now, and these huge games to come, are there any people you ask for advice, ask how they coped with the pressure in similar circumstances?"

"No. It's not new to me, you know, coping with pressure. What if I rang someone and they said they dealt with it by getting rotten drunk? Or by going fishing? I don't fish. No, I don't talk to anyone, except Taff (Ian Evans, his assistant at Sunderland). There's no need to be going anywhere else."

"What do you do to relax?"

"Dinner with my wife. Ride my bike. Play a bit of golf."

"Do you have a handicap?"

"Nine. But it was a lot easier to maintain when I had 12 games a year as Irish manager, as opposed to 12 games a week here."

"Have you been getting a lot of support from the fans the last few weeks?"

"Yeah, they've been great. Six months ago everyone ignored me in Sunderland, but now, well, I didn't realise we had so many fans. They've been great, wherever I go it's the same - 'Are we going up?', all that. I met one lovely old guy, George, at a charity golf day yesterday, he told me he'll be getting his bones out and putting them in squares and circles and all sorts on Saturday, anything to bring us a bit of luck. He makes you realise what it means to supporters."

(Eh? "Voodoo," explained the radio man. Right.)

"What's the situation with your contract?"

"It started out as a six-month rolling contract, which suited me perfectly, and was changed to a 12-month rolling contract last summer. That's fine, that's how I like it."

"Would you be on a bigger contract if the club was promoted?"

"Absolutely. But that's the way. If - and it's a massive if - we're promoted the players will get a bonus. If we don't get promoted they'll get f*** all, excuse my French. But listen, this is all ifs, buts and maybes - if you've no questions about real things I'll go."

"Thanks, Mick." And he's off.

That was a good day?

"Oh aye, he was in good form today," says one of the radio men, tapping his tape, happy with his morning's work.

Across the city is the Stadium of Light, built on the site of the old Wearmouth Colliery, the last colliery to close in County Durham, back in 1994. A Premiership ground languishing a division below. It might never have the soul or romance of Roker Park, nor, the supporters will tell you, the atmosphere, but it's a wondrous sight.

In the club shop at the ground a life-size poster of Stephen Elliott, the young Dubliner, adorns the wall opposite where T-shirts sporting the images of Sunderland legends Raich Carter and Len Shackleton hang. You'd almost think Elliott, Carter and Shackleton were team-mates. In some ways they are, if you go by the timeless nature of the locals' devotion to their club.

Outside there's a bronze statue of a flat-capped Sunderland fan, who probably watched Shackleton from the Roker Park terraces. Generations bridged, a club indebted to the loyalty of its supporters through the years, regardless of highs and lows.

Back across the Wearmouth Bridge, in the city centre, the billboards are filled with General Election posters. Labour are pledging that Tony and Gordon are the best of mates; the Liberal Democrats are promising to shorten NHS waiting lists; the Conservatives are vowing to deal with what they view as the three major issues of the campaign: immigration, immigration and immigration. If any of the candidates could promise three points from today's game against Leicester City, while guaranteeing Ipswich would fail to win at Leeds, well, he or she would spend much of the next five years commuting between Sunderland and Westminster. A city with its priorities right.

Meanwhile, the presses of the Sunderland Echo are ready to roll, an 80-page promotion special all set to go - if and when promotion is clinched. How many pages devoted to McCarthy? A fair few, most probably.

"He's been here two years," says McFadden, "he's taken us to an FA Cup semi final and the promotion play-offs - if he takes us up this season he'll have done an amazing job. I, personally, couldn't speak highly enough of him, but the demands are always high here, so whatever he achieves this season he will be reassessed in a year's time - if we win promotion and come straight back down he'll be deemed a failure. That's the way it is. Like with Peter Reid.

"The thing is most Sunderland supporters believe we are a Premiership club, with one of the best stadiums in the country, so that's where we should be. So if we go up McCarthy will be bought a couple of drinks, but he won't get the keys to the city just yet."

But if they survive in the Premiership? And beat Newcastle at some point along the way?

"I hereby rename the Wearmouth Bridge the Mick McCarthy Bridge," the Lord Mayor may well declare. Both structures made of steel.