Michael Chopra played for Newcastle United and Sunderland but will be remembered for two derby incidents
17:16, 12 Dec 2025Updated 17:30, 12 Dec 2025
Newcastle sub Michael Chopra celebrates after his equalising goal in the 2006 derby against Sunderland
Michael Chopra has revealed he feared for his life after missing a derby day chance for Sunderland against his boyhood team Newcastle United.
The Geordie boy says that he had no choice but to leave the Stadium of Light in 2009 after turning up at the training ground and receiving death threats from furious Sunderland supporters. What Chopra describes as an ‘impossible situation’ erupted shortly after the Tyne-Wear derby in 2009 when he found himself bearing down on the Leazes End with a chance to shoot past Steve Harper.
But Chopra, devoid of confidence and form, opted to prod the goal to Kenwyne Jones only for the chance to go went begging. Furious fans never forgave him and the forward was left with no choice but to quit the club.
And if anything sums up the ‘life and death’ nature of derby day, that was surely it for a Geordie lad who pulled on the red and white of Sunderland.
Explaining the context of the miss, Chopra told Chronicle Live: “I’d been close with Roy Keane, and Ricky Sbragia took over. I didn’t see eye to eye with Ricky. I didn’t play much under him. Realistically, I was a striker lacking in confidence.
“Everyone knows if a striker is lacking confidence, he won’t go for goal, and I tried a different option. Looking back now, I should have shot. But then in the heat of the moment, I tried to pass it to Kenwyne Jones. Then things happened.
“Nothing happened in the changing room as much as fans have talked about it. But the next day I went to the training ground, Sunderland fans were there and the next thing you are getting death threats and stuff like that.
“I was like ‘There’s no way I want to be here now’. I’d scored goals to keep them out of trouble and this year because I tried to pass to Kenwyne suddenly they want my head!
“I remember it well, I trained the next day, then I rang [Cardiff manager] Dave Jones at the training ground and said ‘I can’t stay here, can you get me on loan, it is impossible for me’. The amount of death threats and abuse from Sunderland fans I got, I didn’t want to be there.
“A few minutes before the window he rang back and sign the fax that is coming through. That was it – over. My last time in a Sunderland shirt was against Newcastle.”
Michael Chopra of Sunderland celebrates scoring the winning goal as Zat Knight and goalkeeper Scott Carson of Aston Villa look on(Image: 2008 Getty Images)
Yet it could have been very different and Chopra knows it, he reflected: “If I’d scored that and had my confidence, there would probably be a statue of me outside the Stadium of Light.
“I’m not a person who dwells on the past. I had a good career and I enjoyed Sunderland at the time, it was a great time working under Roy Keane.”
Chopra is one of a handful of players to play for both Newcastle and Sunderland, and one of the few to have the courage to play for the Wearsiders after starring in black and white. But he confessed he did it for family reasons.
The former striker said: “When I first spoke to Roy Keane it was the first thing he said to me. He said: ‘We’d love to sign you but I know you are Newcastle through and through’. He said he respected I was a goalscorer and that I could do a job for him.
“He told me to think long and hard about it because of the implications. I wanted to work for Roy and wanted to be back in the North-East.
“I scored for Newcastle in 2006 [at the Stadium of Light] and scored with Cardiff there too. I knew if I signed I had to change people’s perception of me and get their heads turned a bit.
“To score on my Sunderland debut against Spurs and get the winner, the fans’ doubts started to go away then. They saw me as a Geordie, but one that was there to do a job for them. The goals I scored for Sunderland helped them stay up so I did my job for them.
“I’m not the first Newcastle lad to play for Sunderland. Michael Bridges has done it, Lee Clark has done it and Paul Bracewell did it too.
“A lot of people I speak to now know that I did it for my career. I tell you now you cut me open and I’m black and white through and through.”
Chopra is still well-received in Newcastle after bursting onto the scene as an exciting youngster. He stood in the away end in Leverkusen this week and roared on the lads to a Champions League draw. He admits he still gets the odd dig from Geordies after signing for Sunderland but knows it’s just football banter.
He said: “I was at the game in Leverkusen and as soon as the whistle went the Newcastle fans were chanting about the Sunderland game. When I was at the train station, they were singing my name as they clocked I was there. They were singing 1-0 down 4-1 up Albert Luque wrapped it up and 4-1 even Chopra scored!
“There was a bit of SMB chanting as well, but it is all banter. All the fans know I am a Geordie. I am just like the next man, I’m a Newcastle fan. They understand going to Sunderland was a job at the end of a day. You only have 15 years to have a career and make as much money as possible in the game.
“That was why I went there. Plus, being a Geordie, I was homesick, and I had my little boy due and I wanted him to be born in Newcastle too.”
Former Newcastle and Sunderland striker Michael Chopra is training with Hartlepool
Chopra’s place in Geordie folklore will always be secure though after he scored after 13 seconds after coming on as sub in a 4-1 win on Wearside for Newcastle in 2006. Newcastle had been trailing but Chopra’s introduction for Lee Clark turned the game on its head – a match best remembered for being Alan Shearer’s last one for the club.
The Academy product said: “I remember at half-time I was one of the last to come out the tunnel and Glenn Roeder said to me ‘make sure you are ready’. I said ‘Gaffer of course I’m ready – I’m a Geordie”.
“Clarkie came off and he was fuming, being a Geordie you don’t want to get subbed. The next thing Titus Bramble has taken a free-kick and because of the pitch, which was bone dry, it didn’t just skip through to the goalie which it may have done these days. I just went in and smashed the keeper it being a derby, thankfully for me it landed straight at my feet and I’ve just tried to tap it in.
“To celebrate a goal in a derby was what I always wanted to do. I said to my dad, who was a Geordie and took me to games when Dabizas scored, I just want to live my dream and score in a derby in a black and white shirt.
“Not only that it was an important goal. We went on to score goal after goal and steamroll them.
“It was an honour to be on the pitch for the last time ever with Alan Shearer. He would have been disappointed he got injured and his career was over. Being Geordies from Gosforth though, we were both on the scoresheet.
“As I say I lived the dream scoring for Newcastle in a derby and it will live with me forever.”