The men’s and women’s teams are performing at a once-mocked club now setting standards admired around EuropeLunchtime has arrived and Sunderland’s training ground canteen is alive with laughter. Animated chatter fills the air as players from the men’s and women’s teams share a series of tables and booths spread around the sort of light, bright, open-plan space adored by interior designers.With the walls adorned by a mix of modern art and flat-screen televisions and the coffee machines suitably complicated, it could almost be part of an international big tech company campus; only the club tracksuits give the game away. Continue reading...