The 1977/78 season had not quite gone to plan for Jimmy Adamson. The unbelievable run-in to the previous season as we attempted to preserve our hard-won top-tier status – though in the end unsuccessful – had left many of us feeling we were only a couple of players away from having a squad good enough to return to the First Division at the first time of asking.
For the best part of the season our inability to put together successive victories as well as win away from Roker Park was a perplexing fact
of this campaign. On a personal level being a regular at away games as well as Roker Park was a resilience- and stamina-building experience that has served me well into my older years as victories turned into draws and draws turned into defeats on the road!
Orient were the opposition and Brisbane Road the venue as we ventured into 1978. I loved an away trip to London and Inter-City from Central Station was one of the more pleasurable modes of transport to a game (certainly knocking bells out of sitting on a crate in the back of a white van). Getting across London to whichever ground we were going to was the risky element of such trips but it all seemed worth it at the time and we were not to be disappointed on this occasion.
Games against Orient I had generally found entertaining affairs. An added ingredient in this current Orient team was the marvellously talented winger John Chiedozie. Young, pacey, elusive and with a really good temperament the Nigerian international was a player to covet.
He also was one of the few wingers I saw regularly trouble one of my favourite ever full-backs Joe Bolton. I had been looking forward to seeing Joe pit his defensive wit and ferocious ability to put a flyer into the paddock if required before realising the day before the game that my cult hero was suspended and another handy youngster Tim Gilbert would take his place.
Orient were no one-man team though and their manager Jimmy Bloomfield usually had them playing attractive attacking football. The leading goal-scorer in the second tier at that point was Peter Kitchen on fourteen goals. A Sunderland legend Stan Anderson had warned us in the local press in the run-up to this game to ignore him at our peril. He had sold him to Orient as Doncaster manager and rated him as a real threat. Glen Roeder would also play in the centre of defence; he was a stylish defender whose pace, positional sense and ability to use the ball well out of defence had always caught my eye when we played against him. Eire international Tony Grealish was a handful in midfield and Derek Clarke would also be in the O’s line-up. He was one of the five footballing Clarke brothers who always intrigued me. His brother Allan had played for Leeds against us in the 1973 FA Cup final and was probably the most successful of the quintet.
Bobby Fisher also played for Orient and apart from my youthful mistake in thinking he was also a Grand Chess Master this lad was often the victim of some brutal racist abuse; he was mixed-race and Jewish and to their detriment this seemed to especially aggravate some of the less tolerant who watched football at that time. Apart from being a handy enough full-back Fisher did not let the bigots hold him back; after his career in football he went on to become a TV actor (as well as an anti-racist campaigner) appearing in shows like The Manageress, Space Precinct and Star Hunter. Good on him!
Sunderland had their difficulties coming into this game. Ever-present Jackie Ashurst had gone down with flu so a late call-up was sixteen-year-old Rob Hindmarch. Coming from Morpeth I was especially chuffed at this debut; Ashurst would be a miss but Rob was from Stannington just outside of Morpeth and we were claiming him as one of our own “Morpeth Gadgies”.
Another player missing would be Mick Docherty (who had played his way into my affections since his transfer from Man City the previous season); a persistent knee injury was troubling the versatile leader on the park. Thankfully Bobby Kerr was back in the fold and would have a really good game to mark his return. Young forward and recent signing Roly Gregoire was added to the squad for this game and would be an unused substitute.
My journey from King’s Cross to Brisbane Road was typically not without its moments as traversing the underground, avoiding roaming bands of West Ham and Chelsea hoodlums and not for the first time falling into the trap of thinking once you are at King’s Cross you are almost at your destination all melded into an experience that would have prepared me as a contestant in Race Across the World had I the inclination today!
Our away support in London games was always bolstered by exiles and there was close to two thousand of us making a bit of a racket as the game approached kick-off.
Much to our amusement a dog had gotten onto the pitch and was doing a marvellous job evading stewards, police and club officials to such an extent I contemplated writing to Jimmy Adamson to suggest the mongrel would make a handy addition to our forward line options.
The game had no sooner kicked off than it was stopped by the referee. To my initial excitement it looked like referee Tom Reynolds had sent the O’s keeper John Jackson off! At this point in the campaign I was ready to pounce on any advantage for my team and whilst cheering the “sending off” I freely admit I had no idea why this was the case. However notwithstanding my errant sense of fair-play it eventually became clear it was Jackson’s blue jersey which was the problem for the referee; it was clashing with our blue away jersey. Jackson returned to the field resplendent in a more traditional keeper’s jersey and to the satisfaction of the referee. In almost six decades of watching my team I had never seen this happen before or since.
With the game finally underway we made a really good start. With Bobby Kerr, Shaun Elliott, Wilf Rostron and Gary Rowell controlling midfield and Rob Hindmarch policing the dangerman Kitchen to good effect we had the majority of possession and moved the ball about the park smartly.
Around thirteen minutes in Grealish misfired a pass straight to Bobby Kerr who looked up and played Gary Rowell into space as he raced into the box. Whether it was Grealish or Fisher who up-ended Rowell was hard to see from my position but the referee had no doubts about what the tackle deserved and awarded a penalty.
The season had started with Jackie Ashurst the nominated penalty taker; he had a thunderous shot and had scored a penna’ against Orient in the game at Roker Park earlier in the season. Gary Rowell had taken over the role and I had watched him score a penalty in three successive games in December. He looked nerveless taking these awards and combined unerring accuracy with a bit of power and as he picked himself up from the turf I was already anticipating taking a deserved lead in this game.
There was nothing in his run-up prior to this penalty that was any different to his previous successful attempts or anything different to any subsequent penalties (and I saw a number of them) that would account for him squeaking the ball the wrong side of the post. It was disappointing but unbeknown to us at the time it would be his sole penalty miss of twenty-six taken in his Sunderland career as he wrote himself into our record books with the most successful conversion rate of 96% in front of Tony Towers and Billy Clunas.
The game progressed with Sunderland still dominating the ball and looking the most likely team to score. The only real danger was coming from Chiedozie who was giving Mick Henderson and Tim Gilbert a bit of trouble as he alternated down either flank.
We arrived at half-time with no score courtesy of a couple of canny saves from Barry Siddall and an excellent interception from Hindmarch who had not given Kitchen a sniff in the first forty-five minutes. Despite our penalty miss I felt we were still well into this game; we just needed to get a little bit more from our front two of Lee and Holden!
For those that watched our two lanky strikers play together it is fair to say that Mel Holden was an out-and-out centre-forward. Bob Lee on the other hand offered a bit of variety as he would often drift into the midfield areas sometimes dragging his marker with him creating space for the likes of Gary Rowell and Wilf Rostron to “ghost” into. Lee was very tidy on the ball and whilst I sometimes felt he lacked a bit of aggression for a “big fella” he had some really nice touches and was utilised in midfield during his time with Sunderland.
Within minutes of the restart Wilf Rostron had seen two attempts go mighty close. A lob just cleared the crossbar and had Jackson scrambling and an angled shot pulled a cracking save out of the over-worked keeper.
On sixty minutes O’s manager Jimmy Bloomfield tried to change the pattern of the game by bringing off Derek Clarke and sending on experienced utility player David Payne to try and shore up the midfield. It did produce a change; on sixty-two minutes we scored! A Bobby Kerr corner kick was pinged into the box and produced a mighty melee with all our big men (Lee, Holden, Hindmarch and Jeff Clarke) in the eighteen-yard box. The ball eventually arrived at Jeff Clarke’s right foot about seven yards out from the back post. Like a seasoned forward he smashed the ball into the goal for his first ever Sunderland goal. We deserved this lead and boy did we celebrate it!
The game continued with Sunderland looking more likely to add to their lead when on seventy-three minutes there ensued one of the most bonkers five minutes of football I might have ever seen!
It started with Peter Kitchen who for just about the only time in the game eluded Rob Hindmarch, slalomed round Jeff Clarke and ran the ball into our net past a stranded Siddall for the equaliser.
A minute later Gary Rowell danced along the eighteen-yard line before placing a sharp well-directed shot (a typical Gary Rowell shot from outwith the box) that nestled into the corner of Jackson’s goal to retake the lead and give him his twelfth goal of the season as well as make up for his penalty miss.
We were still celebrating Rowell’s cracker when an Orient corner kick seemed to evade a host of bodies as it somehow got to our back post. Moving smartly in the O’s best player on the day Chiedozie tapped the ball into our net for the equaliser.
It was an incredible passage of play and it wasn’t finished yet as almost straight from the kick-off the ball worked its way through Elliott, Kerr and Rowell to Bob Lee approximately eight yards out. He absolutely hammered a shot that looked a certainty and had my arms aloft in the away end only for Jackson to pull off another cracking save.
For the last fifteen minutes we did everything but score as Kerr put a good shot just over the bar and Mel Holden executed a perfect scissors kick that just grazed the bar. Holden looked like the most graceful giraffe you ever saw doing ballet as he pivoted and leapt; it was astounding to behold!
Then another fantastic passage of interplay saw Bobby Kerr zip a low cross into the box for Gary Rowell to meet it almost horizontally (a typical Gary Rowell diving header) that Jackson just got a fingertip to. It was a breathtaking finale as the game finished with Orient perhaps a tad lucky to get a share of the points.
The Lads had played really well but actually dropped a position to eleventh in an eventful game that saw Jeff Clarke score the first of his six goals for us in a highly regarded Sunderland career and Gary Rowell miss the only penalty of the twenty-six he took for Sunderland.
As for the young debutant and Morpeth Gadgie Rob Hindmarch went on to become Sunderland’s youngest ever captain at nineteen years old. He was a hard centre-half who had all the attributes of a top-class defender: good aerial strength, strong tackler, fairly quick across the grass and a good ability to clear his lines. He allied all these skills with a cracking attitude to the game and a real leader on the pitch. In 1978 he would earn five England Youth caps and go on to make one hundred and twenty-eight appearances for the Lads ninety-one of these in the top tier as he became an intrinsic part of the team and defence for five seasons.
In 1984 new Sunderland manager Lenny Ashurst decided he could do without the services of Hindmarch. It seemed a daft decision at the time and looks no better with the benefit of hindsight as he allowed him to go for free. Hindmarch signed for Derby and became something of a cult hero as he captained them to two successive promotions into the top tier. He then signed for Wolves in 1990 and was appointed club captain but only spent one season at Molineux.
It is a poignant fact that the Sunderland team that took the field at Orient in 1978 contained three young men that would see their lives cut short. Both Rob Hindmarch and Mel Holden were diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. Mel Holden died in January 1981 aged twenty-six years and Rob Hindmarch in November 2002 aged forty-one. Both left a wife and young children. Tim Gilbert too would pass far too young in May 1995 aged thirty-six of a heart attack. Three fine players to have graced our colours on this day at Brisbane Road.
Division Two Date – 14.01.1978 Venue – Brisbane Road Attendance – 6,737
Orient 2 – 2 Sunderland
Goalscorers – Clarke 62 mins; Kitchen 73 mins; Rowell 74 mins; Chiedozie 75 mins
Orient – Jackson; Fisher; Roffey; Bennett; Hoadley; Roeder; Chiedozie; Gray; D Clarke (Payne 60 mins); Kitchen; Grealish. Sunderland – Siddall; Henderson; Gilbert; J Clarke; Hindmarch; Kerr; Elliott; Rostron; Rowell; Lee; Holden. Sub – Gregoire.
