Welcome to the third instalment of my "Life with The Lads" chronicles. In the first two parts, we looked at the formative years from when I was born in the seventies to the teen years of the eighties where the Lads fell into the then Third Division for the first time in their history under Lawrie McMenemy. As always, we will remember some players, matches and coaches/managers from the era in question in a personal look back over the years in supporting the Lads.
In this edition, we look back to the Nineties which was another interesting time to be a Lads supporter.
The first season of this particular decade would see the Lads still under Denis "It's a stigma" Smith (look back at the previous edition to see why I call our former manager this) and look to build on the mid-table finish in 1988-89. The 1989-90 season would see the Lads have derbies with both the Smoggies and those up the A19 that play in barcode type shirts, could we prove to both that we were top dogs in the region. Marco Gabbiadini had another twenty goal plus season, and he was ably backed up by decent hauls from both Gary Owers and Gordon Armstrong. Whilst we were never in the top two for automatic promotion bar one weekend, the Yorkshire duo of Leeds and Sheffield United had that wrapped up most of the season, the Lads were there or thereabouts for a possible challenge for the play-offs. And that's where we ended up, a last day home loss to Oldham Athletic saw the Lads finish 6th as opposed to 4th (where they started that day) and set up a two leg semi-final against the old enemy.
The first leg was a tempestuous encounter with three bookings inside the first eight minutes. If that doesn't tell you that there is never any love lost in a Tyne-Wear derby then you're watching the wrong sport. Our hopes seemed hampered more in the final minute when referee Vic Callow of Solihull sent Paul Hardyman off and a reshuffle for the second leg and the Final should the Lads make it there. Well the second leg will go down in folklore as goals from Eric Gates and Gabbiadini beat the barcodes on their patch and set up a final with Swindon Town. As we know Swindon won that on the day with a Alan McLoughlin goal but ten days later would see their promotion taken away and handed to the Lads due to illegal payments made by the Wiltshire side, Promoted via the back door some saw it, but we cared not and a second promotion in three seasons under Smith. The resurgence was on, right? Well that's what I thought anyway. That season also saw the debut of a certain magazine too...
Could we stay up for more than one season was the plea, build a new future? Well when the Lads beat Alex Ferguson's Manchester United 2-1 at Roker in just the third game of the season to lie in 8th then you could have thought we would be in for a more than decent season. But that was as good as it got as we slipped down the table quicker than Pirmin Zurbriggen going down a mountain on skis. A 3-3 draw at the Baseball Ground, where the Lads led 0-3 at one stage put us into 19th and we never got out of it. Even though relegation only happened on the final day at the old Maine Road Stadium, we were back into Division Two. Yet it wasn't plain sailing after that with Gabbiadini sold to Palace: the first half of the season saw The Lads fall into 17th out of 24 leaving no option to show the door to Smith and replace him with Malcolm Crosby.
Under Crosby that season, he stabilised the league position (even though we finished just five points off 22nd and relegation) but took us back to Wembley. I remember being at Hillsborough for the semi-final like, as I was living close to the stadium, and grinning away like a proverbial Cheshire Cat when John Byrne's goal saw off Norwich and to me: exorcised that 1985 demon. Alas it wouldn't be a third FA Cup, and a second as a Second Division side, as Liverpool scored two second goals to win the famous old trophy for a fifth time. That was as good as it was under Crosby, as the Lads struggled more in a new season what was also the beginning of the Premier League, and a 2-1 loss to Watford at Roker sealed his fate. His replacement, former England skipper Terry Butcher and although we survived by the skin of our teeth then: he too was gone after a 0-2 loss at Roker by Southend United. He'd been in charge for less than a year. We were beginning to go into freefall again, or that's how it felt to me and I didn't like it.
Former Huddersfield Town gaffer Mick Buxton replaced Butcher and although we didn't fall into the newer version of the Second Division for 93-94 by tightening up, we were basically swimming through treacle. That swim through treacle continued to manifest itself and the Lads looked seriously in danger at the end of March 1995 on the back of four consecutive losses which caused Bob Murray to sack Buxton and appoint his fifth permanent manager since taking over from Sir Tom Cowie in 1986. Buxton's successor was former Everton and England midfielder Peter Reid who previously spent five years as manager of Manchester City. Reid was a combative player in his career so his appointment I saw as perfect for the Lads, no nonsense and the kind of guy I'd love to be alongside in the trenches. Little did I, or most of us, envisage what he would do for us.
After staving off the relegation which was looming under Buxton, Reid changed everything the following season and led the lads into the Premier League. This was the season which saw the Lads go on a fabulous run of 14 games between February and the end of April to lift them from 5th to Champions. Even a final day loss at Tranmere Rovers couldn't dampen the joy, Reidy had already worked a miracle and he'd been in charge for just under 14 months. A complete transformation. He swooped for a man that would also become a cult hero that summer, a certain beanpole Irishman with the initials NQ. A final day relegation sent us back down within 12 months but that was due to the fact we didn't score enough goals, something Reidy set about to rectify. He brought in a little known striker from Watford called Kevin Phillips for an initial £325K and coupled with Quinn, we had a strike force.
That season would end in heartache as we know, I remember being in tears in a pub called the Punch Bowl when Sasa Ilic saved from Mickey Gray in a play-off final epic. Two Wembley heartaches in six seasons but in different circumstances. We were complete underdogs in 1992 against the Red Scousers so weren't expected to win, but I (like most) fancied our chances against Charlton in 1997. I reckon that Final changed when Phillips, scorer of 31 goals in his debut season with the Lads, went off injured after 73 minutes causing a change of style of play from the Lads. But is that me having too much of a conspiracy theory? 1996-97 saw the Lads break new ground literally too with the opening of the Stadium of Light after leaving Roker at the end of the 1996 campaign to a few tears from us all. Yet there were no mistakes in the final season of the nineties as the Lads steamrolled all and sundry to rack up an astonishing 105 points and lose only 3 league matches all season. The sight of Lads taking over Gigg Lane when "Super Kev" scored four in a 5-2 away win is a memory I'll never actually or want to forget as long as I live.
The Nineties certainly encapsulated all kinds of emotion for us supporters but we had a multitude of reasons to be positive now, Yet it was all down to a Scouser from Huyton no less. The sky seemed to be the limit, we couldn't throw this away now could we? It would be absolutely criminal to do so. The millennium best not be a bug at all, right?
