Soon-to-be Harry Gardiner, a former striker for Sunderland, looks back on his turbulent time with the team.
In Sunderland, most boys and girls dream of wearing the red and white stripes, but very few ever pull it off. How does it feel to have come so near to the end of that dream?
Harry Gardiner, a Sunderland supporter, did not go via the conventional academy system. When the striker was seventeen years old, his boyhood club gave him a scholarship. At the time, he was playing for non-league South Shields. anything that is uncommon in most cases.
After that, he had three and a half joyful and prosperous years at Sunderland. For the club’s under-18 and under-21 teams, Gardiner scored goals. Additionally, he was given multiple promotions to practice with the first team under Tony Mowbray and Lee Johnson.
The player’s performance, work ethic, and resolve pleased then-manager Johnson so much after just one training session with Sunderland’s senior side that he made a joke about Gardiner being Sunderland’s “new £20 million striker.”
During Mowbray’s tenure at the club, Gardiner’s best opportunity to play for the first team was lost. The striker was having a great season with the under-21s, collecting Player of the Month accolades in Premier League 2 and scoring goals at the same time Ross Stewart had a season-ending injury.
In the under-21 league versus Stoke City in March 2023, Gardiner scored a hat-trick as Sunderland’s first team was having difficulty scoring goals in the absence of Stewart. “A six-yard box striker was exactly what the club lacked at that time,” Gardiner revealed in an exclusive interview with The Echo. “I recall sitting there after the game, flipping through Twitter, and seeing fans’ comments on the SAFC Academy page, urging me to get him in the side.
And after that, Mowbray is being questioned about me. Like, what the heck is going on here? This is really amazing. We signed Joe Gelhardt to play off Ross Stewart, not to play as a number nine. I’m not claiming I’m ready just yet because I still have a lot of growing to do. While I don’t think I should have started five straight games, it would be wonderful to have some bench time while Stewart is out with an injury.
At the end of the previous campaign, Sunderland made the difficult choice to let go of Gardiner even though the player had pleased John Hewitson, the young coach at the Academy of Light. Three years after his release, Gardiner told The Echo, “I’ve lived every fan’s dream.” Had you informed me that I would have done what I did after leaving school, I would not have taken you seriously at all. I’m happy with my accomplishments.
Gardiner said, “Obviously, I’m disappointed in how it ended, but I guess that’s football.” The more time I’ve spent in that setting and inside the building, the more brutality I’ve discovered. Things like that are inevitable, but I have thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. I can apply so much of what I’ve learnt. Whether you were playing for the under-18s or the under-21s, you always end up wearing the red and white shirt and going to amazing venues across the nation. I never would have imagined leaving school to do that. I can go forward with the support of my experiences and the lessons I’ve learnt.I ask Gardiner about the day of his actual release and his feelings when the bombshell eventually came. “It’s a weird one,” he responds. “I wasn’t too disheartened by the decision. I didn’t take it badly because I thought it was just going to be a one-year contract again if I did get offered one. I kind of thought what’s the point? I didn’t really want to do that. You want a bit of security as well.
“I might sound a bit daft but I thought it was a win-win. If they said yes then it’s like oh it’s nice but what’s the benefit behind it? If they said no I can get a fresh start somewhere else and try and get myself out there and build up but the only thing I’d say is that it probably knocks your pride a little bit.”Gardiner played a big part in Sunderland’s success at under-21 level during the early part of last season and helped Graeme Murty’s team pick up valuable points before heading out on loan to National League North side Blyth Spartans. Gardiner’s teammates would advance to the Premier League 2 play-off final against Tottenham Hotspur while the striker netted five goals during his non-league stint before injury ended his season.
“I’ve not been a part of the 21s since January, but look how well they’ve done,” Gardiner added. “I think Murts has got a lot to do with that and Hewitson. They are really good coaches and since they have come in, they have taken the lads to a different level. The coaching staff and the whole staff in general in the building, whether that’s the analysts, the chefs, they’re absolutely top drawer. The whole club, they’re the blood. They’re the ones behind the scenes that you don’t see. They deserve loads of credit, not just the coaching staff.
”Gardiner, though, now has something many of Sunderland’s promising current under-21s group, for all their talent, don’t: experience of senior men’s football and the rigours and pressures that come with it. Kevin Phillips rated the player so highly he specifically requested Sunderland loan Gardiner to South Shields during the club’s 2022-23 promotion push, though the striker was used sparingly. Gardiner then went out to Blyth Spartans this campaign before the Northumberland club were relegated.“There was the South Shields loan last year. It wasn’t ideal and it didn’t go how I expected. So I think the one thing I was trying to get out of this loan this year at Blyth was just getting that experience, getting the first taste of men’s football, seeing what it’s like, and I think it was five goals in 14 appearances, which might not look great but it was in a struggling side.
“Academy football is full of lads who are technically gifted and everyone is just bang at it, really good technically. Whereas you go to National League North, and it’s like the football’s different. You look at Tamworth, they won the league pretty comfortably, and they weren’t the best team, but they were the most effective team, and that’s what wins you games at that level.”What comes next for Gardiner? The striker is rehabbing a hamstring injury, which he picked up last March, but is expected to be fit for pre-season. The forward also believes his academy days are behind him. Gardiner explains he would be open to moving aboard or elsewhere in the UK.
“My main target at the minute is to get back fit as quick as I can and then just see what happens.” a laser-focused Gardiner adds. “I want to land at a decent level but I also want to land at a level where I’m going to be out there in the eyeline playing games. I don’t want to be going back into an academy environment. I want to be going to a first-team environment now. I need men’s football. I’m going 21 in September. I don’t want to be going back to that. There’s only one chance to make it work type of thing so I might as well just go all in and see what happens.”
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