Hard on the heels of the passing of Charlie Hurley, his understudy Dickie Rooks, and Derek Forster, Monty’s shadow, comes the news that Viv Busby, second in command to Denis Smith at Roker, had also left us a month shy of his 75th birthday.
Buzza, born in Slough, started out at Wycombe in the Isthmian League aged just 17, where he spent four years before working his way up the divisions with Luton and Fulham (and a brief loan spell just north of the Tyne) then to the top flight with Norwich, before winning promotion back there with Stoke. There was and a brief loan at Brammall Lane then a spell in the USA with Tulsa Roughnecks. He wound down his playing career at Blackburn, Stoke, and York, and had a pretty good record against us - scoring four in six for Fulham and two in two for Norwich, and was part of the Luton side we defeated in the FA Cup quarter final in 1973.
While at York, he played alongside Denis Smith, and there began their managerial partnership, which came up the A19 in 1987 to turn our club around after the catastrophe of McMenemy. Promotion in their first season was followed by another, to the top flight, in his three years with us as a very popular coach before leaving in 1991. Two years later he was managing Hartlepool, after which he was a coach at Everton, then Swindon under Colin Todd. While there, he suffered from Leukaemia, which meant a period of serious ill health which he thankfully emerged from to take charge at York from 2004 t0 2005. After spells behind the scenes with Workington and Gretna, he opted for the sun of Spain and deserved retirement in 2011.
Always remembered as part of one of our most memorable managerial partnerships, Buzza was a lively character who passed on that enthusiasm to the players under his tutelage at Roker and as such will always have a place in Sunderland hearts.
