The Friendship Trophy is a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

match, contested on an irregular basis by just two teams:

Norwich City Norwich City Football Club (also known as The Canaries or The Yellows) is an English professional football club based in Norwich, Norfolk. The club competes in the EFL Championship following their relegation from the Premier League in the 20 ...

and

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

. The match dates back to the camaraderie forged between fans of the two clubs at the time of the 1985 Football League Cup Final that they contested.

won the 1985 Football League Cup Final, however at the end of the First Division Season, both teams were relegated to the

Second Division In sport, the Second Division, also called Division 2 or Division II is usually the second highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Following the rise of Premier League style compet ...

Mackem and Canary mingled and drank happily together. “The Sunderland supporters were magnificent and everyone seemed to mix, it was light-hearted and very nice,” judged Norwich manager Ken Brown after his team had lifted the trophy thanks to a
Gordon Chisholm Gordon William Chisholm (born 8 April 1960 in Glasgow) is a Scottish professional football former player and manager. Chisholm played as a central defender for Sunderland, Hibernian, Dundee and Partick Thistle. After retiring as a player, ...
own goal. On the London Underground, Norwich fans sang “we won the cup”, while Sunderland’s retorted with: “we scored the goal”.

Nowadays, the Friendship Trophy is awarded to the team with the winning aggregate score in competitive matches over the season between the two sides, and as such, Sunderland are the current holders of the trophy, having won 4-2 over the two league games in the 2017/18

EFL Championship The English Football League Championship (often referred to as the Championship for short or the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship purposes) is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the E ...

season. The trophy was most recently contested in March 2023, when the teams played at Carrow Road, with Norwich carrying having a 1–0 advantage having beaten Sunderland at the

Stadium of Light The Stadium of Light is an all-seater football stadium in Sunderland, England, and the eighth and current home to Sunderland A.F.C. With space for 49,000 spectators, the Stadium of Light is the ninth largest football stadium in England. ...

on 27 August 2022 in the

, though ultimately following Sunderland's 1-0 victory at Carrow Road, the aggregate score stood at 1-1. This trophy is only infrequently contested, as it requires both

and

to be in the same division, or to be drawn together in a cup competition, which last happened in 2009, when

beat

4–1 in the

Football League Cup The EFL Cup (referred to historically, and colloquially, as the League Cup), currently known as the Carabao Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual knockout competition and major trophy in men's domestic football in England. Organised by the ...

. The most significant cup meeting after the 1985 final was the semi-final of the 1991–92 FA Cup at Hillsborough, which Sunderland won 1–0. In 2013, Talksport named The Friendship Trophy one of football's most pointless awards.

Head to head summary

Head-to-head fixtures

References

{{Sunderland A.F.C. Norwich City F.C. Sunderland A.F.C. English football trophies and awards