On this day in 1979 a hattrick from Gary Rowell and a goal from Wayne Entwistle ensured we’d win our first league fixture against Newcastle in 12 years.
Since a 3-0 win vs Newcastle in 1967 at Roker Park, Sunderland had had a pretty abysmal league record when it came to playing the Magpies. In our nine games since then in the Tyne-Wear Derby in the league we’d managed five draws and four defeats. The only two wins we’d managed had been in the Texaco and Anglo-Scottish cups.
Earlier on in the 1978/79 season a second half Roy Greenwood goal had cancelled out a first half Peter Withe goal at Roker Park to end the game in a 1-1 draw, so bragging rights for the season were up for grabs at St James’ Park.
We got off the mark quickly, with the first goal inside 10 minutes. Wilf Rostron headed the ball into the path of Gary Rowell, who did brilliantly to run in between the Newcastle United defence and place the ball into the bottom left corner to the delight of the Sunderland fans located behind the goal.
Twenty minutes later we doubled our lead. We stole the ball off the Magpies close to the halfway line and Kevnin Arnott performed a wonderful lobbed through ball from inside our own half that found Rowell who was sprinting forward. He struck it first time from just outside the box, sparking even wilder celebrations from the travelling Wearsiders.
Things were far from over yet though and five minutes into the second 45 Newcastle halved the deficit and got themselves right back into the game. John Connolly headed a free kick, the ball bounced off the right hand post and rolled over the line into the bottom left corner.
The home side shot themselves in the foot though just after the hour mark when they gave away a penalty. Up stepped Rowell for his hattrick and he calmly fired the ball into the bottom right corner.
Wayne Entwistle would wrap the famous win up around 10 minutes later. Rowell received the ball inside the box and sent a looping ball across the face of goal, Entwistle sprinted towards it and nodded it in at the near post.
There are certainly worse ways to break a bad spell against your local rivals. We had a great time of things in the last few months of the season, even topping the table at one point but unfortunately we narrowly missed out on promotion to the top flight finishing fourth only one point off of the top three.
