UNITED in grief following the tragic death of John Alder and Liam Sweeney in the summer, fans’ groups from Newcastle United and Sunderland have joined together to promote “a derby to be proud of” ahead of Sunday’s game at St James’ Park.

It is an initiative to be commended, and it is to be hoped that some of the hostility and loutishness that has accompanied recent derby matches is conspicuous by its absence this weekend.

In a footballing sense, however, the moniker “a derby that didn’t mean as much” might also be viewed as a forward step. For all that supporters on both sides of the North-East divide take understandable pride in the magnitude of the derby, there is something deeply unsatisfactory about the way in which two matches have come to define the season for clubs that should really be achieving better.

Beating your local rival should always mean something – but it shouldn’t be the be all and end all of a nine-month campaign. For both Newcastle and Sunderland however, clubs who have not claimed a major trophy between them in the last 41 years, North-East bragging rights have become the only thing either side is capable of winning from one year to the next.

Hence the situation whereby Sunday’s game has assumed huge importance and is likely to determine the prevailing mood on both Tyneside and Wearside until rivalries are renewed at the Stadium of Light in April.

For Newcastle, and more particularly their manager Alan Pardew, Sunday’s game feels especially pivotal, with Wednesday’s Capital One Cup capitulation at Spurs having ratcheted up the tension another notch or two.

The ‘Pardew out’ chants did not resurface at White Hart Lane, but the reaction to the defeat on social media suggests they might not be too far away despite November’s Manager of the Month award and the recent victories over Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea that helped turn Newcastle’s season around.

The last couple of months always felt like something of an uneasy truce, and another derby defeat might well see Pardew’s recent good work unravel in a maelstrom of anger and recrimination.

The Newcastle manager’s derby record is wretched – one win from six matches against Sunderland – and the pain of successive 3-0 home defeats is regularly cited by his critics as proof of his limitations.

While that might be slightly harsh given everything he has achieved despite all that has been going on above him, it is undeniable that in three of the biggest games of his reign, he was unable to organise or motivate his team sufficiently to match a Sunderland side that was struggling in the bottom half of the table.

It is 1901 since Newcastle lost three home derbies in a row, so Pardew could be tagged as the worst boss in more than a century if his side suffer another defeat in two days time. With the League Cup off the agenda after Wednesday, another derby disappointment would also pile huge pressure on next month’s FA Cup third-round game at Leicester City. Lose that too, and Newcastle’s season would be over in January, with Sunderland fans crowing about their continued derby dominance.

That is not to say that everything is sweetness and light on Wearside at the moment though. Gus Poyet might have the credit from last season’s 3-0 victory in the bank, but the old truism of ‘only being as good as your last match’ is especially relevant when it comes to the derby, and the loss of a trump card over Newcastle would have major ramifications for the Sunderland head coach and his club.

The Black Cats have been awful to watch for the majority of this season, but dissent has been minimal and Poyet’s admissions of shortcomings have been tolerated. It would be interesting to see whether such equanimity survived the aftershocks of a derby defeat.

While Newcastle have at least enjoyed some notable afternoons this season, Sunderland’s high points have been fewer and less significant. We might be in December, but the Black Cats’ season is still to ignite and while a victory over Newcastle would be the perfect catalyst for some positive momentum, the opposite result would surely result in some serious soul-searching over the festive period.

Would Poyet feel the fans’ wrath? It’s unlikely at this stage, although he would head into the second half of the season with his position weakened and the potential for another unseemly battle against relegation looming large.

There would certainly be an increased clamour for some significant spending in next month’s transfer window, with the attacking limitations of the current squad having been repeatedly exposed in recent games.

Failing to score against Liverpool is one thing, failing to land a blow against Newcastle would be quite another and if things do not go well for Sunderland on Sunday, the sense of a team scrambling simply to stand still would intensify.

As ever with the derby, you imagine that both clubs would be happy to take a point and walk away now. A draw would represent damage limitation, but would only delay the day of reckoning on both sides of the divide with the second half of the season unlikely to witness much glory for either camp.

It would be nice to imagine that significantly better days lie ahead, but in reality, this is probably as good as it is going to get for either of the North-East’s ‘big two’ for the remainder of the campaign. Beat what is in effect another mid-table side, and celebrate like you’ve won the league and cup double.

It won’t feel like that on Sunday of course, with the atmosphere pulsing and every challenge being greeted with a cacophony of cheers and boos. In one sense, that’s a derby to be proud of. But in another, it should be met with shame. North-East football’s biggest days should really be bigger than this.