On this day in 1988 Sunderland secured an immediate return to the Second Division via Eric Gates' goal at Vale Park.
Aside from some shaky form in August and September, where we dropped as low as 12th, the 1987/88 season had been pretty smooth sailing. From the start of October to the last game we did not fall outside of one of the two automatic promotion spots and most of that time was spent occupying the top of the league table.
Along the way Sunderland managed a plethora of emphatic victories against the likes of Mansfield Town, Wigan Athletic, Southend United (in which we won 7-0), Rotherham United, Southend again and just prior to travelling to Port Vale another one over Mansfield.
The permutation was pretty simple, a win and we would be promoted but we still had another two games after this one to fall back on in any case.
We lined up like this:
Iain Hesford
John Kay
Frank Gray
Gary Bennett
John MacPhail
Steve Doyle
Paul Lemon
Colin Pascoe
Eric Gates
Marco Gabbiadini
Gordon Armstrong
And we had a bench consisting of:
Reuben Agboola and John Cornforth
Within the first quarter of an hour we came very close to taking the lead. Marco Gabbiadini whipped a ball in from the left side of the box to just beyond the six yard area, Colin Pascoe was there and flicked it towards Eric Gates but his close range effort was somehow tipped round the post by Port Vale goalkeeper Mark Grew.
Gabbiadini had a good chance of his own to break the deadlock, a diving header of his flew well over the bar.
Gates passed into the path of Paul Lemon who was sprinting into the penalty area for our next effort but Grew was there once again to keep things level.
It was 0-0 going into the break and following the restart we still seemingly could not find that all important goal. Gabbiadini managed to get round Grew and fired towards the target but Darren Hughes performed a goal line clearance to deny him.
We finally undid the Vale defence 11 minutes from time from a corner. Gates had the easy job of capitalising from two yards out, causing the away fans behind the goal to go into rapture.
Promotion was confirmed and the title would be as well just two days later on the Monday in a 3-1 win over Northampton Town at Roker Park before we rounded out a fantastic season with a win away at Rotherham.
