As a starry-eyed lad, Charlie Hurley and Jim Baxter were my first idols at Roker Park. The more I watched and matured, this changed.
Young players like Todd, Suggett, Kerr, Hughes, Park and Tueart caught my attention. One player who was playing in the very first game I saw and played alongside these brilliant youngsters was Martin Harvey. As I watched and learned more about the game and different players/positions, Martin Harvey grew in my affection and esteem, though I probably could not have verbalised
what it was I admired about this Northern Irishman at such an impressionable age.
Looking back I can tell you now what impressed me so much was his consistency and decision-making as a defender, his tackling which was rarely blood and thunder but an innate ability to intercept and time his effort.
He also had a unique slide tackle that I used to try and emulate on the muddy patch of grass nicknamed Wembley at the bottom of the cut outside my house in Morpeth. When I did this successfully I would roar “Harvey” much to the annoyance of some of the older lads I used to play with, most of whom were Newcastle or Man United fans!
Whether at right-half, left-back or sweeper, Martin Harvey always seemed ready to play football as a defender, always looking for the sharp pass out of defence short or long and generally finding its mark. It was little surprise to me that he became skipper of the team when Colin Todd left for Derby County in 1971; he was a natural leader on the pitch as well as a good organiser and reader of the game.
The 1971/72 season was Martin Harvey’s thirteenth season as a Sunderland player and coming toward the end of this season Alan Brown’s team were mounting a hopeful late challenge for promotion from the second division.
As a young teenager I boarded the supporters bus for my first trip to Norwich’s Carrow Road stadium, never envisaging that by the end of the day one of my favourite players (ever) would have played his last game for us in such ironic circumstances.
Norwich were second in the table, three points in front of us and only a point behind leaders Millwall. They had some very handy players with the likes of Graham Paddon, David Cross, Doug Livermore and goalkeeper Kevin Keelan. The Canaries also had a full-back in Alan Black, who had been signed by Alan Brown for Sunderland in August 1964 from Dumbarton but only played a handful of games before transferring to Norwich in 1966 for whom he would go on to play over two hundred games. Making an eventful home debut for Norwich that day was Jim Bone, a flying winger/forward who had a goal in him as well as assists, having signed from Partick Thistle, where he had made his reputation helping the ‘Jags’ to a League Cup final victory over Celtic in a shock 4–1 victory earlier in this season.
Sunderland were a young team of largely home-grown players. With Harvey aged thirty and Jimmy Montgomery twenty-eight, the ‘experienced heads’ in the team. Only Dick Malone at twenty-five-years-old and Davey Watson at twenty-six-years-old had been bought by the club in late 1970 (Watson playing centre-forward at this point in his career with the Lads).
Of the twelve players who took the field for Sunderland in this game, only Martin Harvey would play no part in the momentous run to the FA Cup final and victory the following season. There are very few fans who watched the team in the early seventies who would not subscribe to the view that but for his career-ending injury Martin Harvey would have been an integral part of that 1973 FA Cup winning squad.
My memories of this game are clouded somewhat by the injury to Martin Harvey in the dying seconds of the contest. However I can recall a hard-fought struggle with no team dominating for long periods. I certainly ‘vented my spleen’ on more than one occasion at referee Gordon Kew, who seemed a bit of a “homer”, letting Norwich players like Livermore, Stringer, Anderson and Paddon away with blue murder and pulling Sunderland players up for the slightest excuse.
There were some meaty challenges and we had a couple of lads in Mick McGiven and Richie Pitt who were not backwards in coming forwards where a challenge was required.
With both teams cancelling each other out, it was in the last twelve minutes that the game came to life with some flowing football.
In the seventy-eighth minute John Lathan got the ball in the Norwich box near the left-hand side of the goal. In a sharp bit of thinking he disguised a chip to the far post that keeper Keelan could only tip into the path of Martin Harvey who hooked the ball into the net from close range. This was only Harvey’s fifth goal for the club (he had not scored since 11 April 1966 in a 2–2 First Division draw at Roker Park against Liverpool); it would prove to be his final goal for the Lads.
The travelling support really enjoyed this goal and as I joined in with the raucous celebration, I was convinced we had the winner and would close the gap to one point on our rival; promotion was on!
Norwich launched an all-out assault on our goal and for almost nine minutes it looked like our defence superbly marshalled by skipper Harvey playing his 350th game for Sunderland would not be breached.
Then in the eighty-sixth minute, home debutant Jim Bone (who had made a right nuisance of himself for most of the game) scored a spectacular header from a corner kick. It was the kind of goal you would have been ecstatic about if one of your lads had scored it!
With Harvey urging the team on and Dave Watson really up for the battle Sunderland flew forwards from the kick-off and almost scored a second when John Lathan had a shot cleared off the line. What a finish to the game, but it was not over yet.
With Norwich pressing and the referee looking at his watch with his whistle to his lips, Martin Harvey went towards a ball into the Sunderland box. It seemed like time slowed down as he appeared to catch his studs in the turf and over-stretch to boot the ball clear.
It looked like a bad injury in real-time and as the referee blew for full-time he had to be heavily supported from the pitch.
What none of us watching on knew at that point was that the injury Harvey had sustained would end his playing career; we would not see him play top-flight football again.
Sunderland had more than deserved their point and could have won the game right at the finish. Norwich went through the season undefeated at Carrow Road, but had come mighty close to losing that day in March 1972.
By the Monday evening after this game Alan Brown was telling the press that Martin Harvey had been dropped off following the journey home from Norwich by the team bus just after midnight at his front door and was limping very badly. What emerged in the next couple of days was that he would be out for what remained of the season. Brown told Len Hetherington of the Evening Chronicle “Martin has been magnificent this season and his loss is a blow”.
Norwich went up as champions with Birmingham City as runners-up.
Having gone into the Norwich game undefeated in six games, Sunderland finished in fifth position at the end of the season, losing three and drawing three of their last ten games, as the loss of Harvey impacted.
I have thought often of Martin Harvey; he was there for my very first game and I was there for his last, though I wish it had not been the case. At thirty years old he still had a number of seasons left in him and was arguably playing his best ever football for Sunderland, having taken over the captaincy and sweeper role from Colin Todd after his transfer to Brian Clough’s Derby County in 1971.
His thirteen seasons with Sunderland were closely aligned with Alan Brown’s time at the club. Brown’s regard for Harvey was such that in November 1963 he allowed experienced England international and club captain Stan Anderson to transfer to Newcastle, so sure was the manager that he had a young right-half in Harvey, every bit as good.
Harvey had made his debut at Plymouth in 1959 and Argus reported that “Harvey promises to develop into a wing-half of the finest class”.
He played twenty games in four seasons for Sunderland as under-study to the classy Anderson. He was an established Northern Ireland international (34 NI caps in all) and having replaced the legendary Danny Blanchflower in the Northern Irish team in October 1963, he went on to replace Anderson in Sunderland’s promotion-winning team of 1963/64. The half-back line of Harvey, Hurley, McNab used to trip off the tongue of fans at this time as these three young stars provided the defensive solidity and springboard for the attack in that legendary team.
Could Harvey handle the step up to the top tier in 1964/65? This might have been a little easier if Alan Brown had not left the club a couple of weeks before the season started after a dispute with the board. Whilst this proved difficult, Harvey acquitted himself well.
Charlie Hurley was a big fan of his fellow half-back and reflecting on his time playing with Harvey recalled a goal that he (Hurley) had scored in the last minute of a game in the 1964/65 season as typical of his skills. It was against Aston Villa at Roker Park where Hurley got all the plaudits, but Harvey got Hurley’s acknowledgement for his magnificent driving run and cross.
Alf Greenly reported of that goal, “Harvey beat two defenders on a sixpence and centred for Hurley to throw himself at the cross and head a great goal”.
Jimmy Montgomery played a lot of games with Martin Harvey and was also a big fan. He was commenting on Charlie Hurley being named Player of the Century and said “Charlie had a magnificent career at Sunderland and it was only right that in 1979 he was voted player of the century. He did however have some very good players alongside him during his career including Jimmy McNab and Martin Harvey”.
Martin Harvey went on to have a distinguished career as a coach, particularly with Northern Ireland under Billy Bingham in the 1982 and 1986 World Cups. Also as Jimmy Nicholl’s number two at Raith Rovers in the early 1990s where they took unfashionable Raith to a League Cup final win against Celtic in 1994 as well as winning the Scottish first division twice gaining promotion to the Scottish Premiership.
I am and will remain an unashamed fan of Martin Harvey, an unsung Sunderland legend who few people have a bad word to say against. He played 350 games for us from 1959 to 1972 and was a real “football man”. Martin passed away on 25 November 2019 at the age of seventy-eight. I know I am not alone in feeling blessed to have seen him wear our colours and wonder what might have happened if the referee on that day at Carrow Road had blown his whistle thirty seconds earlier!
Division Two, Date – 11.03.1972
Venue – Carrow Road, Attendance – 22,143
Norwich City 1–1 Sunderland (Goal scorers – Harvey 78 mins; Bone 86 mins)
Norwich City – Keelan; Payne; Black; Stringer; Forbes; Anderson (Foggo 64 mins); Livermore; Bone; Cross; Paddon; Briggs.
Sunderland – Montgomery; Malone; Coleman; Harvey; Pitt; Kerr; McGiven; Porterfield; Tueart; Lathan; Watson. Sub – Chambers.
