Having ended the 2002-2003 season with the fewest points recorded by a Premiership team (19, until we “bettered” that with 15 three years later - but undertaken by Derby when they only managed 11, 36% of them courtesy of them up the road!), after a campaign that saw Mick McCarthy replacing Howard Wilkinson after we’d suffered six losses on the bounce. With nine games to go, we were rooted to the foot of the table, and, having inheriting a dispirited team and being unable to bring in any players, Mick could do nothing to prevent us losing all nine.
A summer shake-up preceded a good season that saw us reach the FA Cup Semi-final, with a European spot guaranteed for both finalists. Typically, we lost to the mind games of Denis Wise and the naughty boot of Kevin Muscat at Old Trafford and a defeat at Palace in late April, followed by a couple of draws meant that we finished third, seven points behind West Brom. Norwich had finished top by a further eight points – something they seem to be rather good at. So it was that we made the play-offs, and had to return to Palace for the first leg on Friday May 14th.
Mart Poom Darren Williams, Gary Breen, Phil Babb, George McCartney Carl Robinson, Jason McAteer, Jeff Whitley, John Oster Marcus Stewart, Kevin Kyle
Mick McCarthy is a straightforward bloke and a straightforward manager – 4-4-2 all the way, although you could argue that Oster would be a third forward. If you were daft, or someone pointed a gun at you. Friday night is no night for football, especially at the other end of the country, but we dutifully made our way to the leafy suburbs of the capital and were greeted as warmly as Wetherspoon staff are allowed to greet anybody as we renewed acquaintances made three weeks earlier. The noise generated by the travelling fans, and, when added to the usual racket from the home fans and the various tunes they belt out at Selhurst whenever they win a corner, free-kick, or throw in, generated a cracking atmosphere.
We were in our usual spot, occupying the side of the ground, and cheered the Lads on impressive fashion, but neither side could fashion a breakthrough in the first half. In an effort to add a bit more creativity (and prevent a second yellow), McCarthy took off a clearly wound-up McAteer and brought on Sean Thornton for the second half. That seemed to do the trick six minutes into the half as we attacked the goal to our right. A clever turn as he took a pass inside the box set Robinson clear, and Popovic lunged in and took his legs away. As clear a penalty as you’ll ever see, but Palace saw fit to surround the ref to plead innocence. Thankfully, Mr Beeby was having none of it, and Marcus Stewart calmly wandered up and placed it, left-footed, carefully in the right-hand corner of the net with the keeper going the wrong way. His sixth successful spot-kick of the season, and his 15th goal of the season. Up went the visiting crowd as the players ran back down the pitch in celebration, but barely a minute had passed and we were still hugging each other in the seats when Palace drew level. Kyle was booked for a foul near the centre-circle straight from the kick-off, and when Palace eventually crossed from their left, Shipperly’s header looped up and dropped over Poom and just under the bar. Typical Sunderland.
The game continued at a fairly frantic pace for the next 12 minutes, and after Stewart had gone close with a header from a left-wing corner, we gave away another free. This was played square to Butterfield, who tried his luck from way outside the box. With Poom dropping to his right to watch the low shot go wide, it took a massive deflection off Babb’s right heel, and our keeper, while managing to change direction, could only palm it inside the post and we were behind. There followed another 20 minutes of frantic action, during which Stewart set up Oster to hit the post with a low effort across the goal from the left, and Robinson fire just over the bar. Jocky Bjorklund then replaced Williams and Tommy Smith replaced Stewart, but which brought no equaliser. Still, we thought, we’ve got an away goal, and that’ll count for something. With five minutes to go, Tommy Smith was pulled back as he bore down on the box from the right, with Julian Gray being booked for his misdemeanour. With all of our big Lads up, Thornton curled in the free kick, which bounced around the box before Kyle lashed home the loose ball - also his 15th goal of the campaign – and our side of the ground were off again. Piling down to the front of the stand, twirling shirts above our heads, screaming and roaring the Lads on to win, or at least to go back level with two away goals.
Aye, right. Two minutes later, Palace broke up our attack and passed it forward to Andrew Johnson, who cut in from the left, left Breen in his wake as he ran along the edge of the box, and fired in a low shot that Poom, diving to his left, looked to have covered. Somehow, the ball seemed to go through his hands, and Palace had the lead again, and they held onto it for the final few minutes. At the final whistle, the Palace fans stormed onto the pitch and lined up in front of us, attacking a disabled fan as he made his way along the front of us. Naturally, the press blamed us for starting something we didn’t even take part it, but it was a long bus ride home, and there’s only so many times you can trot out “well, we’ve got two away goals”, even if there were valuable and should make a difference.
On Monday 17th, we had our chance to let them make that difference.
Poom Bjorklund, Breen, Babb, McCartney Whitley, Thornton, McAteer, Oster Kyle, Stewart
Same shape, a couple of new faces. We knew that we only had to score the once and we’d be through to the final, while Palace knew that if nobody scored they’d be through. As we approached half-time, neither defence had cracked, so Palace had the upper hand – but our front two had other ideas. Three minutes before the break, Kyle brought his season’s total to 16 by scoring at the South Stand (now the Roker End) and sent the crowd wild – that was surely the goal that would send us to the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff for the final against either West Ham or Ipswich, who were a goal up from their first leg thanks to Darren Bent. There was barely time for Kyle and Oster to be booked and the fans to regain their seats when Marcus Stewart popped in equalled his big team-mate in the scoring charts, right on half time. Suffice to say that the break was 15 minutes of planning for a trip to Wales. Two up, with two away goals to fall back on – not even Sunderland couldn’t bugger that situation up. Happy days.
…And it stayed that way for the next 45 minutes, with Sean Thornton replacing Robinson and getting himself booked within five minutes, then Tommy Smith replaced Stewart with barely six minutes left. With Palace pushing forward, fresh legs in our forward line could catch them on the break and really seal things. Julian Gray, booked in the first half, got a second yellow with four minutes to go and that, surely, surely, meant that Palace were done for, and they surely would have been but for some poor officiating. The visitors’ game plan had changed from trying to set Johnson away to use his speed against our defence to hoying long balls into the box and clattering our defenders and goalkeeper in the hope of the ball bouncing loose. Many of the home fans disputed the award of a corner to Palace on their left, bang on 90 minutes, but the Mr Pugh gave it and it was slung in to the back post. Even from my seat over 100 yards away, the foul on Poom was obvious, as Palace simply charged into him and Darren Powell, a late substitute, had the easy task of nodding in with our keeper on the deck. We protested, but to no avail and the game was tied at 4-4, but what about the away goals? With the Gillingham nonsense still in our minds, we wondered why it should go to extra time and thus give the visitors an extra half hour to score again. Still, if neither side scored, then the away goals would come into it. Except they didn’t, thanks to the vagaries of the rules, and it went to penalties, taken in front of the North Stand.
Regular penalty taker Stewart was no longer on the field, so up came Oster to set things away– and in the worst possible start, missed the target. Aw, ha'way man! Then Johnson hit the net for the 33rd time that season to put the visitors ahead before Tommy Smith levelled things. Freedman restored Palace’s lead, Babb levelled again, then Shipperley made it 2-3. Robinson equalised, Popvic made it 3-4, and Breen levelled at 4-4. Shaun Derry, another late substitute, thus had the chance to end things by converting Palace’s fifth kick, but Poom was equal to it, using every inch of his lanky frame to stop Derry’s effort. Boom! We were back on proper level terms, and simply (simply!) had to hold our nerve and hope Palace’s wavered and/or Poom pulled off another save.
Sudden death penalties – doncha jut love ‘em? No I don’t, and I expect you don’t either, but that’s what we had, and we were still grumbling about the away goals rule when McAteer took his kick- and Nico Vaesen saved it, meaning that all Wayne Routledge had to do was score. He couldn’t, with Poom again saving well, then came the telling moment. Well, it was no more telling than any other of the penalties, but the nature of it will stick in my mind for ever. Jeff Whitley took a stuttering run-up, and dinked the ball weakly to the keeper’s left, but with so little power Vaesen just fell in that direction and caught it as it dropped. It might have had the legs to bounce over the line had the keeper gone the wrong way, but in truth he could probably have stopped, run back across and still caught it. Given Jeff’s later revelations about his social habits at the time, it’s a miracle he could see a football, let alone take a penalty. Back to Poom, then, but the big Estonian couldn’t stop Michael Hughes’s kick and that was it. 4-5 to Palace, desolation in the stands – apart from the away end, of course. Do they make up and modify the away goals rule just to frustrate us? That’s how it seemed, and yet another season had ended in disappointment because of those rules.
A season in which we could have reached the FA Cup final and qualified for the UEFA Cup, we could have played at the Welsh National Stadium, we could have won the FA Cup, and we could have won promotion… and in which we achieved precisely none of those things. After all, ‘tis Sunderland, ‘tis forever thus, but at least Gillingham were relegated. As we’d done six years earlier, we made amends the following season. After a less than auspicious start, we climbed to third place in November, and, two brief drops to fourth excepted, stayed there until March, when we hit the top by winning at Burnley. After dropping back to second for a few days despite winning both our games, we went back to the top and, eight games later, we were champions, seven points clear of Wigan.
