I loved the Peter Reid era. It was born out of a time when we thought things could potentially get pretty bad for the club. Roker Park was falling to bits, and from the moment we returned to Division Two
in May 1991, we were just surviving to stay in it.
After Denis Smith’s appointment in 1987, we got into a habit of appointing managers from within. Some were a consequence of circumstance, such as Malcolm Crosby’s cup run that prevented the appointment of Neil Warnock, and some appeared a bit lazy, in the case of Terry Butcher, for instance.
But a relegation at this point, with an old ground that was beyond repair and a big investment being drawn to Kevin Keegan’s revolution up the road, would have been bleak. Our recent stint in the third tier wasn’t much fun, but there was an air of inevitability about returning to the Championship; back in the early 1990s, it’s debatable whether it would have been the same.
Anyway, all that waffling was a caveat, because I’m about to say there were a couple of frustrations about the Reid era. Firstly, missing out on European qualification was a bugger, but the other was the lack of a really good run in the FA Cup.
Yes, we had the run to the semi-final of the League Cup in 1998-99, where Martin O’Neill’s side made it to the final courtesy of the finishing of Tony Cottee, but in the FA Cup, we were quite often a bit crap.
Reid’s first season was actually a highlight when we should have knocked Fergie’s United out in the third round in January 1996, but Alec Chamberlain did a thing at Old Trafford, and they beat us in the replay. In our last season at Roker Park, Dennis Bergkamp finished us off with a peach of a goal again in the third round, and our first year at the Stadium of Light saw us get knocked out at John Aldridge’s Tranmere Rovers in the fourth round 1-0.
In our 105-point title-winning season (that included that League Cup semi-final), we went out with a whimper against ten-man Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park, and the following season we went down 1-0 again at Tranmere in the fourth round – although they did have an extra man for thirty seconds or so. Our second season, finishing seventh in the Premier League, was graced with a run to the fifth round, where West Ham United knocked us out at our place.
In January 2002, we were drawn against Gary Megson’s West Bromwich Albion, who were challenging for the play-offs in Division One that year, and although we finished one place above the drop that year, we were tenth in the table heading into the game, so maybe this was the year for a good cup run.
Four days earlier, on New Year’s Day, Reid’s side drew with John Gregory’s Aston Villa at the Stadium of Light in front of 45,324, but the crowd dropped by around 16,000 for the cup tie the following weekend; they saw Sunderland get off to a good start when Kevin Phillips opened the scoring after twelve minutes.
And when I say opened the scoring, for those who didn’t see Phillips in the flesh and aren’t quite sure of how good he was and what type of goals he could score, this is worth checking out. George McCartney’s attempted cross received a groan from the crowd as it was low and behind Phillips, just a couple of yards inside the box, but his first touch placed the ball above his head and in the same movement produced a stunning overhead kick that flew straight into the top corner.
Unfortunately, that was the highlight of the afternoon for Sunderland. Ten minutes later, Neil Clement stroked home a penalty, although Mike Dean pointed to the spot when it was debatable if Stan Varga had actually committed a foul.
After that, it was all one-way traffic and the visitors – who included Danny Dichio in their starting XI – hit the woodwork twice before the break, and it was well deserved when Andy Johnson headed in from close range on the hour to score what turned out to be the winning goal.
I’m not sure what it was about the FA Cup during those years; we seemed to swat aside most sides in the league, but a cup run would have been nice – perhaps I’m just greedy.
FA Cup – Third Round
Stadium of Light
Sunderland 1-2 West Bromwich Albion
[Phillips 12’ – Clement (pen) 21’, Johnson 61’]
Sunderland: Sorensen, Haas (Kyle), Williams (Craddock), Varga, McCartney, McAteer, McCann, Thirlwell, Arca (Kilbane), Quinn, Phillips Subs Not Used: Macho, Butler
West Brom: Hoult, Gilchrist, Sigurdsson, Moore, Lyttle, Clement, McInnes, Adam Chambers, Johnson, Dichio (Dobie), Roberts Subs Not Used: Jensen, Cummings, Fox, Jordao
Attendance: 29,133
