The remarkable story of the Sunderland fan who has located thousands of lost bricks for his fellow Mackems
Sunderland fan David Bambrough has spent the past few weeks creating the Wall of Fame project.
Thirty-three thousand, six hundred and seventy-two bricks, each one signifying a life, a memory, and a devotion that we, as Sunderland fans, understand implicitly.
When you speak to David Bambrough, the first thing you sense is just how selfless he is. The only real motive behind his decision to spend the past five weeks meticulously chronicling every location of every name etched into the stones that make up the outer wall of the Stadium of Light - aside from an excuse to flex his passion for data engineering - is a desire to do something good, and undeniably vital, for his fellow Mackems.
Chances are that over the past few days, you might already have come across David’s Wall of Fame project - a mammoth undertaking during which he has employed a combination of artificial intelligence and elbow grease to build a database capable of directing otherwise oblivious supporters to the exact spot where their, or their loved one’s, name is situated in SR5.
It is a task that boggles the mind in its sheer scale, and one that, by his own admission, David wasn’t wholly sure was even possible. “I've seen Facebook posts about people looking for their bricks”, he explains. “And I didn't know where my brick was either. I just thought it would be really good if you could search for the bricks, but the logistics were going to be crazy, trying to catalogue - I thought at the time - just over 20,000 bricks. It was a non-starter.”
Undeterred, however, and after a fair bit of pondering, David hit upon an idea. After initially considering - and dismissing - a crowdsourcing effort, he instead turned to the skills he has honed in his day job as a data engineer, relying on his knowledge of AI to cook up a method that allowed him to turn a dizzying pipe dream into a realistic proposition.
He continues: “Me and my wife had been over to the stadium... My son was doing a karate competition in the Beacon of Light and we thought we'd have a wander over because we got a brick when we got married. We knew kind of where it was and we found it, and I took a picture of the panel. When I got home, I thought, ‘You know what? I've done quite a bit with AI at work’. I knew it could recognise things in images, so I thought, ‘I'll give it a try and see if it can recognise the text on the bricks’.”
David’s first attempt wasn’t exactly perfect - the transcript was “full of mistakes”, as he puts it - but over a period of time, he worked on refining the technology until one day, much to his delight, the pieces suddenly fell into place. And once they did, there was no looking back. “The process was about five weeks”, he admits. “I've basically spent every single spare moment over the past five weeks doing this. I got a bit obsessed, if I'm honest.”
But that obsession has been about more than just sifting through names and pinpointing bricks. Wall of Fame also provides fans with the opportunity to share the personal stories behind the dedications, and to that end, some of the tales David has been told during the recent outpouring of appreciation for his work are nothing short of remarkable.
“There was a lad whose friend had died 30 years ago”, he recalls. “I don't know if they knew he had a brick or they weren't sure, but they did a search for it and they found it. And it turned out that his brick was right next to the turnstile where they go in to the stadium. So they've been walking past his brick all this time, and they never knew. They said they're going to touch the brick every time they walk in, for luck.”
Reconnections like this - and the rediscovery of precious mementos once thought untraceable - become a recurrent theme as David continues to speak about his work. There is, for instance, the man who has spent the past few years looking for his dad’s brick with his two young daughters after his mother’s dementia became too severe for her to remember where it was. “They said any hope of finding the brick was lost”, David reflects. “He checked on my website and found it straight away.”
Even the data maestro himself has an extraordinary story to tell. Only after embarking on his daunting mission did he find out that his own father, John Bambrough, has a brick commemorating him on Wearside.
“I never knew he had one”, David remarks. “I was just sort of scanning the images and I saw my dad's name pop up. I was like, ‘Oh my word, that's my dad’... He died 21 years ago, and he was only 67 when he died, so it was a bit of an emotional response to see the brick pop out. It's only two panels away from mine, you know, so that was quite nice.”
And really, this is what it’s all about. In a city where the stadium looms large, both in a figurative and literal sense, and where the club that occupies it is as deeply ingrained into the identity of the people as family and first loves, David’s gesture has provided an unexpected solace that many had simply given up on.
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His work doesn’t stop here, either. The Heaven Branch, who offer a range of different bereavement support counselling sessions for Sunderland fans and hold a fortnightly listening ear service at the Betsy Jenny cafe, in Bridge Street, have already made arrangements for David to attend a drop-in between 11am and 2pm on May 30th. Those supporters who are interested in the Wall of Fame project but are perhaps a little less tech-savvy can receive guidance on how to find their bricks and upload their memories of any loved ones to the website.
And again, David’s commitment to going that little bit further for the sake of those around him only serves to emphasise the human connection that underpins his entire endeavour. When asked how it feels to have done something so special for a club and a fanbase that means so much to him, he takes a moment before replying: “I've been pondering this for the past few days... Brian Clough was once interviewed, and they were basically asking him whether he would go back to Sunderland as a manager.
“He said the happiest time he ever had was at Sunderland - that was in the whole of his football career, including his managerial career. And they said, ‘Well, would you go back because of the supporters?’ He went, basically, ‘It's the people...’ The people of Sunderland, they make the club. The people dictate the club. And I thought, ‘You know what, that kind of encapsulates the whole thing for me’. It is - it's the people who make the club.”
If anyone has any questions about attending the Heaven Branch’s Wall of Fame support session between 11am and 2pm on May 30th, they can contact the branch on 07971166190.
Supporters wishing to search for a brick or upload a memory can do so at walloffamebricks.co.uk.
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