40 years, 5 months and 9 days. Highfield Road. It was a fixture pile up at the end of the 1976/77 football league season and a rare Thursday evening kick off in Coventry that would bring the curtain down on the entire season for Coventry and Bristol City. City would be safe with a draw, but Coventry needed a win to be certain of survival unless our opponents today somehow construed to lose. It was such a big event that supposedly one Bristol judge adjourned his court early so that jurors would be able to get to the game.
Perhaps most of us have forgotten but the controversy that was to unravel was set in motion by Jimmy Hill; So large was the crowd eager to watch the battle at Highfield Road that the kick-off was delayed by 15 minutes at his request. Coventry's well-known managing director, and future Match of the Day presenter, Jimmy Hill asked for a delay to ostensibly to let in fans who had been held up by traffic. How remarkably convenient that delay would turn out to be.
Coventry took an early 2-0 lead, but the Robins fought back and towards the end of the second half, the teams were tied at 2-2 when news came through that Sunderland had been beaten 2-0 by Everton in the match which had kicked off at the earlier regulation time. That would mean both City and Coventry would stay up if the score remained the same. According to the Friday edition of the Daily Mirror, Jimmy Hill then “raced to the announcer’s box with the result [from the Sunderland game], screaming ‘Get it on the board’ ”.
For the last five minutes City passed the ball about between defenders and goalkeeper without a single challenge from Coventry.
According to a contemporary report in the Guardian “what had been an intensely physical contest dissolved farcically”. The point apiece was enough to keep both teams in the top flight and send Sunderland down.
Sunderland understandably were not happy about what had happened and Jimmy Hill was reprimanded by the Football Association, but the scores and Sunderland’s relegation stood.
Many Sunderland fans held a lasting grudge against Jimmy Hill and when Sunderland played his then club Fulham, in 2008, he waved to the Sunderland fans in response to their less-than-friendly chants and had to be ushered away by police for his own safety.
While City were complicit, and understandably so, it was Jimmy Hill who set the wheels in motion.
A year earlier of course both Sunderland and City had been promoted to the top flight with Sunderland winning their first ever Division 2 league title on what, today, looks a meagre ration of 56 points. They won the title mainly because of a virtually impenetrable Roker Park; winning 19 of their 21 home league fixtures and losing none. A phenomenal record. Conversely, they lost 10 away from home exactly double the number of defeats City suffered who were runners up on 53 points and ahead of West Bromwich Albion on goal difference.
Three years after making history as the first postwar FA Cup winners from outside the top flight, Sunderland finally made their way back to the First Division after six years away by winning the Second Division title under the stewardship of Bob Stokoe. Little were they to know how they would spend only a year back.
Sunderland moved to the Stadium of Light in 1997 and City are unbeaten there; admittedly we have only made one league visit drawing 1-1 in 1998. The Black Cats won the return fixture by a single goal in March of 1999 and our respective fortunes for that season could not have been more different:-
Pos Team Pl W D L F A Pts 1. Sunderland 46 31 12 3 91 28 105
2. Bradford City 46 26 9 11 82 47 87
3. Ipswich Town 46 26 8 12 69 32 86
4. Birmingham City 46 23 12 11 66 37 81
5. Watford 46 21 14 11 65 56 77
6. Bolton Wanderers 46 20 16 10 78 59 76
7. Wolverhampton Wanderers 46 19 16 11 64 43 73
8. Sheffield United 46 18 13 15 71 66 67
9. Norwich City 46 15 17 14 62 61 62
10. Huddersfield Town 46 15 16 15 62 71 61
11. Grimsby Town 46 17 10 19 40 52 61
12. West Bromwich Albion 46 16 11 19 69 76 59
13. Barnsley 46 14 17 15 59 56 59
14. Crystal Palace 46 14 16 16 58 71 58
15. Tranmere Rovers 46 12 20 14 63 61 56
16. Stockport County 46 12 17 17 49 60 53
17. Swindon Town 46 13 11 22 59 81 50
18. Crewe Alexandra 46 12 12 22 54 78 48
19. Portsmouth 46 11 14 21 57 73 47
20. Queens Park Rangers 46 12 11 23 52 61 47
21. Port Vale 46 13 8 25 45 75 47
22. Bury 46 10 17 19 35 60 47
23. Oxford United 46 10 14 22 48 71 44 24. Bristol City 46 9 15 22 57 80 42
It has been a long time then since we have locked horns with Sunderland. And after some truly shocking transfer decisions by the club many of which have been failures and financial disasters the club find themselves in a well publicised meltdown off the pitch; On it the aftershocks are clear for all to see. Sunderland, many say, will be lucky to avoid administration. 6 top flight titles, 2 FA Cups and now on the precipice. They love their football in the North East; I don't think there is any doubt they are more passionate than most but they have had their fair share of heartbreak, as a cumulative football lot, having lost 3 of their previously 6 league teams, Gateshead, Darlington and most recently Hartlepool all falling down the football pyramid. That Sunderland are in imminent danger is not in question but they will remain a dangerous wounded animal for any team that takes them lightly. As we have seen in this division, quite possibly the most exciting in world football, any team can beat any other. Leeds beating us and falling at home to the Blades last night, a case in point.
I travelled through that part of England a few years back and that was not the first of my visits. The entire rural area, particularly up and down the coast, always struck me as ghostingly beautiful yet interspersed with large towns and conurbations that were blots on the landscape. I always think of the area when I listen to Tunnel of Love by Dire Straits when Mark Knopfler sings about Spanish City, Cullercoats and Whitley Bay. Spanish City a smaller version of Blackpool's Pleasure Beach in fact immortalised the Dire Straits song by playing it every morning upon opening.
And now I'm searching through these carousels and the carnival arcades
Searching everywhere from steeplechase to palisades
In any shooting gallery where promises are made
To rockaway rockaway from cullercoats and whitley bay out to rockaway.
MKnopfler.
The depression of the cities of the North East seems to make way for non stop beauty once past the ghastly town of Blyth and its river of the same name. I nearly bought a property in Blyth once; I dodged a bullet there I can tell you. All the way up the coast to Bamburgh, Lindisfarne and Berwick one cannot really find a greater beauty in contrast to what came before. The North East football map is a glue that binds those towns and cities together against depression and loss and without it there is a something missing for many communities. I have heard it, read about it and seen it. I would find the relegation, the administration even, of such a great club as Sunderland a truly sad loss to the game. I believe many would not have mourned the relegations of Manchester City or Leeds United to the third tier in recent times, many also not Sheffield United or Wednesday and the litany of other medium to large clubs with glorious histories of success; I think many more would mourn Sunderland's demise. And they have only ever spent 1 season in the 3rd tier in 1988/89 and went straight back up as Champions. The rest of their history, since 1880 has been in the top 2 divisions. City finished 5th that season by the way.
To the 2000 or so traveling today my hat, once again, is doffed to you. A remarkable effort for such a long and expensive journey. Help bring back the spoils folks. Do try and see some of the countryside especially north of Blyth, truly beautiful part of this great country.
Come on the Robins.
Quite right but they need to ram home the advantage now. we want 2 more please.
