A message from Sunderland fans mocking Newcastle United’s relegation is set to be flown over St James’ Park during their home game with Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday.

Sunderland secured their Premier League safety and condemned their north-east rivals to the drop with Wednesday’s 3-0 victory against Everton at the Stadium of Light. On Saturday the aerial advertising company Air Ads posted a message on Twitter which said: “Busy afternoon, putting together a banner for St James Park tomorrow afternoon!” That was accompanied by a picture of a banner being prepared, with red letters across it spelling out “AUF WIEDERSEHEN PREM”.

Air Ads’ tweet

It comes after a crowdfunding page was created on gofundme.com on Thursday by “SAFC AWAY DAYS”, with the stated aim of the project being to “organise a fly past banner over St James’ Park to allow us to say bye to our neighbours for a little while”.

Four donations have been made, with an anonymous one of just over £1,000 accounting for virtually the whole of the total amount raised. The page says £900 will be for the aircraft trailing the banner, with the rest going to charity.

The page features several negative comments about the project. One reads: “Absolutely the wrong thing to do. As a Sunderland supporter you should have a bit of dignity and be grateful that it wasn’t us. It could so well have been but for a good run at the end. I want no part of this whatsoever. Shocking behaviour if you ask me.”

Another says: “This is just pathetic, we have relegated them isn’t that enough? What good will come from this?”

Last year, an Air Ads plane flew a banner displaying the message “5 IN A ROW 5UNDERLAND” over St James’ Park during a match there – a reference to Newcastle’s run of derby defeats to the Wearsiders.