Peter Reid’s Premiership team were doing OK in the league after their Championship win the season before. Five points from the opening three games had given them a platform to build on and, a 1-0 win at home to Coventry three days before this fixture had lifted the lads up to 10th place.
The victory had come at a cost; a knee ligament injury to record signing Niall Quinn had taken a little bit of the gloss off Steve Agnew’s winner – however there was no time to dwell as the lads were back in action
for a Coca Cola Cup second round tie against second tier Watford.
Sunderland had beaten Kenny Jackett’s team 2-0 at Vicarage Road – a full strength team including Quinn and fellow summer signings Alex Rae and Tony Coton easing home with first half goals from the two new outfield arrivals.
The second leg of the tie saw Watford head north and face another strong Sunderland team: Rae in for Bracewell and Martin Smith in for Michael Gray the only changes made out of choice; Craig Russell replacing Niall Quinn up front.
Prior to the game a specialist had given Quinn some good news – his knee injury didn’t need surgery, and he just needed to build his quads and hammys up… Yeah, we’d see about that.
As it turned out, the lads put in a decent display to secure a 1-0 win – Martin Smott scoring a great goal from long range after just six minutes. It was the only goal of the game and, as luck would have it, won him a mountain bike as his man of the match reward.
Lining up against a former club, Tony Coton impressed once more, making some good saves to help the team secure an impressive eight clean sheet in the past nine games on home turf, while on the subs bench for the visitors was a goalkeeper who would go on to play for Sunderland, Darren Ward. Coton’s predecessor, Alec Chamberlain, had been on the Watford bench for the first leg.
Russell and Smith both impressed, with Russell’s pace winning praise for adding an extra dimension to the attack, and Smith’s variety on the ball adding something Michael Gray couldn’t – giving something for Reid to ponder as he looked to build on his team’s positive start.
Sunderland were in the hat for the final 32, and were drawn to face Spurs away at White Hart Lane.
For those that took pause for thought that night 30 years ago, we’d have known it was a strong possibility that was the last league cup game we’d ever witness at Roker Park – and as it turned out, it was.
Somewhat ironically, the game against Watford took place almost exactly 35 years before, and ended in the same scoreline, too – a first half goal from Brian Clough securing a single goal win over Bolton Wanderers on 25 September 1961 in a replayed game after a drawn fixture at Burnden Park.
In the following round we played Walsall at home, and Clough was on the scoresheet three times on that occasion, in a game Sunderland won 5-2. Making his debut in goal that night was a certain Jimmy Montgomery, and over the next three and a half decades there were some memorable league cup occasions.
Our biggest win came on 24 September 1962 – 7-1 victory over Oldham, while the 1985 Semi Final First Leg win over Chelsea set up one of the most infamous fixtures of the 80s – and our only League Cup Final appearance to date.
And, if you’re looking for another little connection between our first and last League Cup games at Roker – aside from them both ending 1-0 – here it is: Brian Clough once took Martin Scott to Nottingham Forest on loan from Rotherham!
