News was out that Sunderland had agreed a deal for a promising young goalkeeper, although a change of circumstances would eventually scupper the move.
Sister papers Grimsby Daily Telegraph and Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph were both telling their readers that stopper Henry Smith of Lincolnshire’s Winterton Rangers was set to rocket up the pyramid, but that the switch would not be formally signed off until the selling club had taken part in the upcoming third qualifying round of the FA Cup. The side
had just progressed to the next stage of the competition, having beaten Bridlington Trinity the day before, and having taken in the game and been impressed by Smith’s showing, Sunderland’s chief scout/assistant manager Dave Blakey had jumped straight into negotiations with Rangers’ boss Bob Welton once the match was over.
Although everything was quickly lined up and Smith was due to spend the following week on Wearside, the coalminer was not expected to officially put pen to paper on a professional Roker contract until after Winterton’s visit to Yorkshire Amateurs later in the month. Not only was this match a potential money-spinner for the club, but Welton had asked if things could be held back until then so that he had time to sort a replacement for the ex-Frickley Colliery amateur, and keen to be seen acting in good faith, Sunderland acquiesced to this seemingly innocuous request.
What the SAFC hierarchy hadn’t banked on was that, in the meantime, their manager Jimmy Adamson would choose to jump ship for Leeds United. Once installed at Elland Road, one of his first acts was to snatch Smith for himself, gazumping the £3,000 that he had previously allowed his former colleague to shake hands on, by using his inside information of the arrangement and bidding an extra £2,000. The consolation for Blakey, presumably, was that the player he had identified was clearly thought to be hot property and that his old boss respected his judgement, so much so that later in the year he got him to follow suit and come to Yorkshire too.
The matter would have done little for Adamson’s standing amongst the Sunderland faithful, who had endured a strained relationship with him prior to his departure. Some poor results and a string of caustic comments to the local press had rubbed supporters up the wrong way, and there had been a somewhat bemused reaction when Adamson moved on, as whilst the Lads were arguably going to be better off without him, he had still managed to somehow get himself a job in a higher division. Of more immediate importance, though, was what the Black Cats would do next, as whilst they were now without a permanent manager, with Dave Merrington overseeing things as caretaker, this latest episode had left them short in the goalkeeping department also.
It had been a recent knee injury to Barry Siddall’s understudy Ian Watson that had first prompted Blakey’s hunt for further back-up, with 16-year-old youth teamer Robert Crooks the only other viable option on the books. Thankfully, Siddall remained problem-free until Watson was fit again, and as for Smith, it wasn’t until he moved to Heart of Midlothian in 1981 that he began to make a name for himself in senior football, eventually becoming a Tynecastle legend and earning international recognition, including being selected as part of Scotland’s Euro 1992 squad.
Had Smith stuck with his intention to go to Sunderland, he wouldn’t have been the only player in the squad to have been plucked from relative obscurity and given a chance to impress; a month prior to the proposed transfer, Blakey had brought in winger Colin Crawford from Irish League outfit Bangor as a low-cost punt, and he too was now hoping to make it in full-time football. Money was obviously tight at the time, with Adamson being unable to put a package together that would bring former England player Ralph Coates to the club, despite him being keen on returning to his native County Durham, and unfortunately for Crawford, injuries would hamper his progress before he returned to Northern Ireland in 1981 when he signed for Linfield.
