Welcome to the second part of my football chronicles about the experiences of supporting the Lads. In the first part we went right back to the decade where it all started for me, the 1970s. Now I move onto the decade that coincided with my teenage years and where my support for SAFC really started to become that bit more serious for a working class lad living over 100 miles away from Wearside.
The decade of the Eighties would be a decade that would put us fans through quite much an emotional wringer more than we had ever been before in the Lads' history. It was like taking a number of rides on a rollercoaster at an East Lancashire amusement park again, again and again. You know what and where I'm thinking of, don't you? We had had the joys of winning the FA Cup for the second time and the Second Division Championship for the first time ever in the seventies, would this be a precursor to better days and the team back in the top flight where we all felt was our divine to be in? That was the hope, could the team deliver?
We would finish the 1979-80 season celebrating, as the Lads made their way back to the top division three seasons after the instant relegation season of 1976-77. Gary Rowell, hero of the Fulwell, was still scoring goals but that promotion season would see him struggle with injury and only score once all that season in a disastrous Anglo Scottish Cup campaign. The Lads would spend five seasons in the First Division but safe to say it was far from a comfortable ride with a 13th placed finish in 1983-84 being our best. The Lads would go through a series of managerial appointments in that time too, one of them being former player Len Ashurst (a veteran of over 450 first team appearances between 1958-70) who was enticed to come home from Cardiff City in March 1984.
Len's spell was short, lasting just 14 months. During that time Len sold Rowell to Norwich City which was a move that broke my heart more than the transfers of Watson and Tueart in the 70s to Manchester City. In a remarkable twist, 1985 would see Len take the Lads back to Wembley for the first time since 1973 and who were lying in wait for us...yeah nobody else but the Canaries. "God" wasn't playing but I remember sitting at home watching the Final unfold with Mam and Dad and hoping for a similar result to that 18 month old me had experienced against Leeds United. As we all know now, Norwich took the spoils thanks to a Gordon Chisholm own goal in the early stages of the second half. With the usually reliable Clive Walker missing a penalty, it was a case of what might have been. You had to feel for David Corner that day, as it was his slight lapse that caused the move for the goal to happen. Yet there was to be more strange phenomena as both sides were relegated that season, one of the first occasions ever. It cost Len his job.
Back in Division Two, familiar surroundings for us now and another new man as manager. Like most, I was made up when Tom Cowie brought Lawrie McMenemy back to the North East but it turned out to be an absolute nightmare. What he achieved on the South Coast with less than fashionable Southampton, a FA Cup win in 1976 against the mighty Manchester United being the pinnacle, never happened on Wearside. In fact, he made us worse and was a key component in seeing the Lads fall into the Third Division for the first time ever in 1987. How could this be allowed to happen, the Lads were far too good for this to happen right? Well, that's how I saw it through my teenage angst. I was apoplectic with rage so much so that at one stage Mam could have been thinking I could have been turning into Wearside's answer to "The Incredible Hulk"; "The Mackem Hulk" – you won't like me when I'm angry!
Denis Smith led us back immediately to the Second Division but there was to be one quite bizarre memory from that Third Division title winning campaign. It came in early February when I was visiting family back in Hartlepool, and went to Roker with a few friends to watch Pools (then in the old Fourth Division) take on the Lads. It was a blustery night and you just knew that the wind would have some effect on the game at some point. With ten minutes to play, Pools winger Brian Honour swung in a corner that somehow found its way into Iain Hesford's goal. One of the strangest goals I'd ever seen. It proved to be the only goal of the game and led to Denis to quote: "It's a stigma losing to Hartlepool United, an absolute stigma" which has never been forgotten in the land of the hanging monkey to this day. That season saw Eric Gates, whom I loathed at Ipswich, and Marco "Goalo" Gabbiadini bag 40 goals between them as the Lads stormed to promotion. With central defender John MacPhail bagging 16 (11 from the spot), I felt we had achieved redemption. My anger from 12 months previous had turned to joy. Gabbiadini had become my new fan favourite.
The following season would be a season of consolidation for the Lads as we ended the last full season before the 90s with a comfortable mid-table finish. It had been a decade of ups and downs which had tested our loyalties a great deal. What would the 90s bring to us, after the emotions of the 80s – it would take a fair bit to top it, eh?
