It’s funny what you remember and what you’ve forgotten about the momentous days in your life. The first Sunderland game I went to in person is exactly that – a mix of things I remember and, after reading the match report, things I didn’t. I knew it was against Watford in 1983 and we drew 2-2.
According to the Watford Observer, it was the May Bank Holiday and Roker Park was rain-drenched. News to me, 43 years later. I remember feeling deflated when Watford took the lead in the third minute, then disbelief
when we turned it around to lead 2-1 before more disappointment as Watford grabbed a late equaliser.
In some ways, the ups and downs of those first 90 minutes were a precursor to the next four decades of regular match-going.
One thing I remember vividly from the game is who I was with. My love affair with Sunderland isn’t a generational one like so many other fans’, and my first match wasn’t a rite of passage with a lifelong Sunderland-supporting dad or grandad. My dad and his dad weren’t really bothered by football, and my parents separated when I was young anyway. My other grandad, who was called Harry Potter long before some wizard or whatever he was ever existed, used to go to Gateshead games at Redheugh Park when they were still in the Football League.
My brother, uncle and cousins all supported Newcastle. I remember when I was about six my Mam suggesting I support Sunderland because my brother supported Newcastle and I liked the sound of doing the opposite to him. We were living out in the sticks in Derwentside at the time and I went to a school with about 30 pupils in total, so there wasn’t any peer pressure over who to support either. Shortly afterwards, we went to Wengers department store in Newcastle and I got a red and white strip, and the rest is history, as they say.
From then on, I couldn’t get enough of Sunderland and football in general. I remember avidly watching the scores come through on the vidiprinter or excitedly looking up the results in the Sunday paper. I loved watching Shoot on Tyne Tees TV on a Sunday with Roger Tames and George Taylor and buying Shoot and Match to get as much information as possible. I loved the player spotlights they used to do – favourite food, best film you’ve seen, what car do you drive? Imagine the answers now compared to back then. I even had a spell of buying Roy of the Rovers – that was fantasy football before the phrase even existed.
I remember being blown away when I discovered radio commentary of the game against West Ham in May 1980 when we clinched promotion back to the top flight. Despite all those memories, I don’t ever remember asking my Mam if I could go to a match. I’ve no idea why not. Maybe because I had no one to take me or go with, as we’d moved back to Gateshead by then, where you could count the Sunderland-supporting kids at my school on one hand.
So it came as a complete surprise when my Uncle Stan, a season-ticket holder at Newcastle, offered to take me. He didn’t much like Sunderland but, apart from that, was a good man with a big heart. He must have taken pity on me, so off we went to Roker Park in May ’83 with one of my black-and-white cousins in tow as well.
Another thing I remember from the game was the racist abuse Watford’s black players suffered, particularly England internationals Luther Blissett and John Barnes. I remember we were standing about 10 metres from the front of the Fulwell End, not far from the goal, and it was packed – or so it felt to me, as the attendance was only 13,791. There were racial slurs and, worse still, bananas thrown at Barnes and Blissett. If it was meant to put them off, it didn’t work at all and properly inspired them because Barnes was a constant threat, while Blissett scored twice and hit the bar. His two goals that day added to the four he scored at Vicarage Road earlier in the season as part of an 8-0 win, which I most likely watched come through on the vidiprinter as Watford 8 (EIGHT) Sunderland 0.
As much as I loved being at a game, I don’t remember badgering my Mam to let me go, or asking my Uncle Stan to take me, the next season. Maybe it was the unexpected nature of actually going to a game. Maybe my uncle had let it be known it was a one-off act of kindness! Sadly, he passed away last November and I was reminiscing about the Watford match with my cousin, who was there too.
“I’m not surprised,” was his answer when I said his dad never did offer to take me again.
My cousin was also worried about how well we had taken to life back in the Premier League, and that was confirmed a few weeks later when big Nick Woltemade scored his first goal for the Lads. That victory was so sweet after all the abuse we’d all taken from them lot over the last few years, and days like that are all the sweeter when you’ve got Newcastle-supporting family.
Something must have changed at the start of the 1984/85 season, as I went all in and got a season ticket for the Main Stand paddock, either dragging along my brother or a Sunderland-supporting friend from school. Beating Southampton in the first home game of the season, with Gary Bennett scoring minutes into his debut, coming from two down to beat Manchester United 3-2 through a Clive Walker hat-trick and, of course, the amazing run to the Milk Cup final, only to suffer Wembley heartache for the first – but definitely not the last – time.
An odd memory from the final was being on a supporters’ special train to Wembley that took hours longer than the normal service as it went all over the place, including, if I remember correctly, through Leicester – or was it Coventry?
So, as I said, my lifelong devotion to Sunderland isn’t a generational thing, but I have made sure it is the start of one. My two teenagers have both been brought up the right way as Sunderland supporters despite being born and raised in Edinburgh. I’ve had the proud dad moment myself of taking them to their first Sunderland games. We’ve had many more games together since, including a win at Wembley, and there’s much more to come – including Europe.
