When I started researching this date in history, I had to do a double-take at the newspaper headlines suggesting that, up to that point, the 1986–87 season had been anything but miserable. It is seared in my brain as one of the most utterly depressing, gut-wrenching seasons ever following the Lads. But studying the stats and the tables, I was surprised to see that yes, indeed, as far into the season as mid-March, we were still in with a chance to return to the top flight.
Before this game, we had
taken 39 points out of a possible 87. Not far off 2 points per game. After this defeat, we earned only 9 points from the remaining 13 matches, out of a possible 39. It looks as though the whole squad must have bought into the theory that this was indeed a must-win game to get ourselves into the promotion push.
What no one seems to have told them was that downing tools altogether was only drawing the wide jaws of relegation ever closer.
Our demise came on a cold, wet, miserable Tuesday night at Stoke (you couldn’t make it up!). In what were described as almost monsoon conditions, the team was washed away, both figuratively and meteorologically.
Indeed, only half an hour before kick-off, it had seemed highly unlikely that the game would go ahead at all. The decision by referee Paul Harrison to allow the game to proceed was highly dubious to say the least. As the players trotted out onto the pitch, parts of it resembled a mini lake, and most people must have assumed that the game would be abandoned by half-time. In hindsight, I think Sunderland would have accepted that, as the weather, the pitch and some very bad luck all transpired to foil the Black Cats.
As both teams slithered and sloshed around the pitch, it was Stoke City who adapted the best, and pressure from the home side in the 21st minute resulted in Steve Hetzke putting in a challenge on their striker Nicky Morgan, and he was harshly adjudged to have impeded him. Such was the borderline decision that the Sunderland captain, Gary Bennett, was booked for his protestations. But a penalty it was, and George Berry stepped up to stroke the ball home for a Stoke opener.
Sunderland’s problems were compounded when, not much later, due to the boggy nature of the pitch, our reliable full-back Reuben Agboola had to go off with a hamstring injury. He was replaced by Paul Atkinson, who proved to be a bit of a live wire for the visitors.
David Buchanan and Hetzke both went close to equalising, and early in the second half, Atkinson himself went agonisingly close. Stoke were happy just to soak up (pun intended) the Sunderland pressure, and in the 56th minute hit the Lads with a devastating counter-attack. The Stoke winger, Chris Hemming, outstripped midfielder Mark Proctor to put in a cross for Lee Dixon to turn in. Yes – ‘that’ Lee Dixon. The future Arsenal and England player was in action at the other end a few moments later, making a goal-line clearance onto, and over, the bar.
Sunderland continued to push forward, but it seems the Stoke goal was leading a charmed life. Atkinson saw a wicked shot turned onto the bar again by their keeper Peter Fox. Then towards the end, it was sealed by another breakaway, only this time a superb curling shot from Morgan sailed over the Roker defence and keeper Iain Heslop to seal the victory.
Stoke City 3–0 Sunderland Att: 9,420
Sunderland: Heslop; Agboola (Atkinson); Gray; Armstrong; Bennett; Hetzke; Lemon; Doyle; Swindlehurst; Buchanan; Proctor.
This very frustrating defeat, very unlucky by all accounts, seems to have been the catalyst for the rest of the season to turn very sour indeed. As I mentioned earlier, it must have been in everyone’s ‘psyche’ that this was their final chance for a promotion push, because results after this took a disastrous turn. Five defeats in the next six games saw McMenemy do his now infamous ‘moonlight flit’, and although Bob Stokoe (who was called in to try to wave some of his magic) did his best – the dye was cast.
This was the first season of the modern play-offs, and supporters of a certain age don’t need me to tell them what an utterly soul-destroying end to the season it was, at the hands of Third Division Gillingham. I don’t mind admitting, it was the first time I had cried at a football match, as this proud club was relegated to the third tier for the first time in their history.
