LOSING in an FA Cup semi-final is supposed to be the worst feeling in football but, for Sunderland, yesterday's 1-0 defeat to Millwall still represented something of a redemption.

Next weekend marks the first anniversary of the club's relegation from the Premiership, a fall from grace so drastic that this season was all but being written off before a ball had been kicked.

Defeat in the opening two games of the season seemed to confirm as much with the second reverse, ironically also against Millwall, stretching Sunderland's losing run to a mind-boggling 17 league games.

A player cull had depleted the ranks on the field, similar redundancies had prevented a financial meltdown off it, and the Black Cats looked like being the next club to suffer the kind of ignominious fall from grace that still haunts the likes of Sheffield Wednesday, Bradford and Derby.

An FA Cup semi-final was about as likely at the end of August as Sunderland gaining an immediate return to the top-flight.

But one has happened and, over the course of the next month, the other could yet occur.

The Black Cats are understandably disappointed not to be going to Cardiff for the cup final - but they wouldn't mind not going there at all if it meant they could pip either Norwich or West Brom to one of the two automatic promotion spots.

The fact that Sunderland are still in that race at all speaks volumes for the way in which Mick McCarthy has turned the club around this season.

Yesterday's defeat may not have seen the Black Cats at their best, but that should not be allowed to sour an FA Cup campaign that has put a smile back onto the face of Wearside.

In the end none of the omens meant anything - the 1937 semi-final win over Millwall, the untimely death of cup-winning manager Bob Stokoe or the mouthwatering possibility of a McCarthy-Keane reunion at Cardiff.

It wasn't to be - but the fans streaming out of Old Trafford yesterday showed none of the despondency so prevalent as relegation was confirmed at St Andrew's almost a year ago.

This was always something of a bonus, and the Black Cats' followers made sure they made the most of their big day out.

They were even made to feel at home as Sunderland's anthem, The Dance of the Knights, reverberated around the Theatre of Dreams 20 minutes before kick-off.

It was followed by Millwall's signature tune - Let Them Come - which sounded suspiciously like the ditties Chas and Dave used to pen for Tottenham in the 1980s.

The Cockney duo are self-confessed Spurs fans, but even the merest chance of them jumping upon a Millwall cup final bandwagon will have been enough to swing most neutral observers into the Black Cats' camp.

With the winners of the game guaranteed a place in next season's UEFA Cup, the choice of music for the final song played was particularly apt.

The Final Countdown by '80s rockers Europe left nobody in any doubt as to what success over the next 90 minutes would mean.

Sunderland's fans, numbering more than 33,000, were packed into the eastern section of Old Trafford and the noise they generated gradually built to a crescendo as the teams left the tunnel and began their pre-match rituals.

The final warm-up proved to be a microcosm of what was to follow - Dennis Wise clenching his fists in front of the Millwall support, Jason McAteer tearing here, there and everywhere, and referee Paul Durkin struggling to keep control of the coin toss let alone the action that was to follow.

And action was the right word. If tomorrow night's Champions League quarter-final between Arsenal and Chelsea is meant to represent the flowing football of the future, this was a return to the tempestuous tear-ups of the past.

There were times when the Old Trafford turf resembled a battlefield with bodies strewn in every direction and players hobbling off clutching parts of their anatomy they probably didn't even know existed.

There was no questioning the effort or the workrate of any player on the pitch, but the two busiest people during the opening 45 minutes were the respective physios. Junior doctors complain about being stretched to the limit - this really was healthcare in a hurry.

Wise inevitably set the tone after just 15 seconds, clattering into Tommy Smith on the edge of his own box, but that was merely the first of a succession of thumping challenges peppering a game that was never more than a hair's breadth away from boiling point.

Paul Ifill was the first player to find his name into the referee's book - there were half a dozen candidates before even that - but both McAteer and George McCartney followed him before half time as Sunderland's early assurance became enveloped by the growing fury.

McAteer was lucky not to see red after trampling all over Kevin Muscat but, by that stage, Sunderland were already in arrears.

McCartney got himself into a dreadful mess at the back and, after Mart Poom had saved well from Ifill, Tim Cahill was on hand to fire home the rebound.

Suddenly the Wearside Roar was temporarily becalmed, replaced by eulogies to 'Mighty Mi'waw' that positvely revelled in the club's fearsome reputation from the 1980s.

It might have been Sunday lunchtime, but this was one Eastenders omnibus that certainly wouldn't have been on display before the watershed.

Sunderland needed something to get their fans firing again, and it came in a whirlwind attacking spell immediately after the interval.

Kevin Kyle twice went close to levelling the scores with a 20-yard bullet that flew narrowly over and a superb hanging header that was turned wide by Millwall keeper Andy Marshall.

But that proved a temporary attacking flurry and Sunderland were indebted to the reflexes of Poom as he kept the Black Cats in the game with a magnificent save from Daniele Dichio's goalbound header.

That stop looked like proving crucial as Sunderland bossed the second half, piling more and more pressure on the Millwall goal.

But the seemingly inevitable equaliser never came with McCartney guiding the Wearsiders' best chance of the game past the post in the 85th minute.

Instead things finished on a sour note for Sunderland with McAteer's dismissal two minutes later for a pull on Neil Harris.

The Black Cats' club captain had put so much into the club's cup run that it was the saddest possible way for things to come to an end.

But, after the events of the last 12 months, Sunderland's fans know what sad really means.

And it doesn't mean falling at the final hurdle in the greatest cup competition in the land.