At this point, right before the referee’s whistle to signal the beginning of this game, it looked like Terry Butcher could be the man to change our fortunes.
The previous season had been a shocker. It was only our second season after being relegated from the top flight, and here we were surviving the drop to the third tier by a single point on the final day of the season.
Butcher had taken over from Malcolm Crosby as we sat 17th after 25 games of the season gone. After the 46th and final league game of the season,
we finished four places lower, and only stayed up because results on that day went our way.
So, the former England international went to work in the summer, transfer-listing players he didn’t want and bringing in some new faces. The problem was, those he told to leave didn’t attract any interest, and his new signings were involved in a car crash just days before the opening day of the season. It resulted in a 5-0 defeat at Derby County.
Slowly but surely though, Butcher’s Sunderland side not only began to pick up points in the league, but they knocked Howard Wilkinson’s Premier League Leeds United out of the League Cup with 2-1 wins in each of the two legs.
Back-to-back home wins against Luton Town and West Bromwich Albion followed, and Sunderland had climbed to 11th in the table ahead of the big clash with Ron Atkinson’s Aston Villa in the third round of the League Cup at Roker Park.
We were going into the game having won six of the previous nine in all competitions, and Martin Smith had two full games under his belt in the first team after scoring early on his debut against Luton at Roker.
Meanwhile Aston Villa – who had played in a League Cup final as a First, Second and Third Division club and were the first to win it three times – were sitting 7th in the Premier League after an impressive start to the season, but striker Dean Saunders was ruled out through chickenpox.
The scene was set for a cup-tie under the lights, and Geoff Storey in the Sunderland Echo described the early pace to the game as “electrifying”. Sunderland took the game to the visitors immediately and created a number of brilliant chances, but Mark Bosnich in the Villa goal was inspired. I was in the Fulwell End that night where the action unfolded in those early stages and still remember his performance that night.
Gordon Armstrong had a crisp shot saved and then a header brilliantly tipped wide. Don Goodman flashed a header wide, and Martin Smith failed to convert a decent chance, and this was all before Richard Ord limped off after twenty minutes with a hamstring injury. But the chances still kept on coming as Bosnich kept out a Phil Gray header.
Then, just before the half hour, Dalian Atkinson caught Sunderland on the break and put the away side ahead against the run of play. But Butcher’s side still created chances, with Goodman and Gray getting in behind the Villa defence, only to be denied by Bosnich again. Then a minute later future Sunderland coach Kevin Richardson made it 0-2.
Just after half-time Phil Gray finally beat Bosnich from close range, and it was game on once again. But as before, Bosnich saved Villa from losing a two-goal lead by denying Martin Smith after he cut inside and let off a shot from the edge of the area.
Smith had such an impressive night – on only his third appearance – that he gave Earl Barrett such a tough night that Ron Atkinson placed a bid that night to take him to Villa Park.
Ray Houghton and Atkinson completing his brace would put the game well and truly out of sight on a night that Sunderland could and maybe should have so easily won. Even the Villa manager agreed when he said after the game:
There was only one team in it – and they lost. Sunderland played as well as any team against us this season. They will do better to their performance all season. In the end we could have scored seven and they could have had 27. We are very, very happy to get through. It must have been soul-destroying for Sunderland. In the end we were hoping Don Goodman scored. He was entitled to it.
Tuesday 26th October 1993
League Cup – Third Round
Sunderland 1-4 Aston Villa
[P. Gray 46’ – Atkinson 27’, 89, Richardson 33’, Houghton 75’]
Sunderland: Chamberlain, Mar. Gray (Lawrence), Ball, Melville, Ord (Bennett), Owers, Atkinson, Armstrong, Smith, Goodman, P. Gray Substitute not used: Norman
Aston Villa: Bosnich, Barrett, Small, Richardson, McGrath, Taylor, Daley, Townsend, Parker, Whittingham (Houghton), Atkinson Substitutes not used: Spink, Ehiogu
Attendance: 23,692
