Thursday, September 27, 2007

6-5, Then And Now

I regret not making Sheffield FC's cup game at home to Gresley Rovers on Tuesday evening. It was a 5-5 draw at full time and Sheffield went on to grab the winner in extra time. Here is a report of what I missed.

When I was a youngster of 14 I remember being in the lengthy queue at a shop at Easington Colliery waiting for copies of the Football Echo to arrive by van from Sunderland to read about Sunderland's 6-5 defeat at Derby County. I remember someone moaning about the result as it meant we had fallen to 19th in the old First Division, which contained 22 teams in those days. Yet I thought that scoring 5 in a match could not all be bad.

The report said that Dicky Davis was unlucky not to get a late equaliser which would have given him a hat-trick. Besides we were handicapped, Shackleton wasn't in our team due to injury.

Things picked up as the season progressed. Sunderland got to the quarter finals of the FA Cup, losing in a reply at Wolves. In a cup game against Norwich, the great Willie Watson scored the best goal I ever saw at Sunderland's old ground at Roker Park. We also rose to end up 13th in League.

So even though I missed out on Tuesday, the result still revived memories from 57 years ago - with the help of a notebook I used to keep on our games. Unfortunately, it was probably these experiences of Saturday's game which deterred me from seeing Tuesday night's football feast.

No comments: