https://www.a-love-supreme.com/single-post/otd-sunderland-2-1-chesea-fa-cup-1992 Back through the mists of time, in 1992, came what was arguably Gordon Armstrong’s finest hour in a Sunderland shirt. A fair way through an FA Cup run, having already disposed of Port Vale, Oxford, and West Ham, we were extremely unlucky to get only a draw at Stamford Bridge – as ever, the ref messed up and awarded a corner that never was, then missed a clear foul on Tony Norman to allow Chelsea’s goal. Replay at Roker it was, one of those nights that will live forever in the memory of those that attended, and one of those games that had “Cup game, Roker Park, night game, full house” written all over it – and we know what they could turn out to be. Shades of Man City in ’73, albeit with a smaller crowd thanks to the safety work that had gone on since. Division Two against Division One, but there was nothing between the sides in this game. Shot, save, and Davenport reacted with an instant left-footer into the Fulwell net with 20 minutes gone to send the crowd wild. Here we go, and there we went, past half-time and still in the lead. We did our best not to think of how we were going to get tickets for the semi-final or even, dare we think the thought, the final, and, to be honest, the game was so tense, the crowd so noisy, that it was difficult to think of anything other than the action on the pitch – the real matter in hand. Just when we believed that we could hold onto the lead and start worrying about Norwich at Hillsborough, Dennis Wise popped up with a well-worked, five-a-side type goal, with only five minutes left. Well-worked, but hardly deserved, and its effect was massive - for an instant. The crowd went flat, our dreams of cup glory temporarily crushed, then the individuals present merged into the entity that was the Roker Roar, and pumped life back into the shattered players. We were absolutely drained watching the match, but the players had to compete physically as well as mentally, and we could do no more than encourage them the best we could. Which we did, and steam rose from the massed supporters as the minutes ticked away and the roaring continued at fever pitch. “I couldn’t stand extra-time” said Mick, and I knew what he meant. Cometh the hour (or the 88th minute in this case) cometh the man. As we checked our watches for the twentieth time, Brian Atkinson slung in a corner from the right at the Roker End, and time slowed down as we watched it curl deep, deep to the edge of the box, where Gordon Armstrong was already moving through the air at the end of a run, and the ball cannoned off his brow, over his left shoulder, and into the Roker End net. The ground simply exploded with pent-up emotion. Oh, Gordon, you absolute beauty! All of those people who were thinking exactly what Mick had said to me just minutes earlier let out their tension and relief with a roar that had the pigeons scattering for safety in Gateshead. I don’t remember what happened in the game after that, but it wasn’t much because we’d knocked the stuffing out of our illustrious opponents and they were dead on their feet, just as we had briefly been a few minutes earlier. Had it gone to extra time, I doubt if we on the terraces could have survived, we were that drained. How the players were feeling I can only imagine. As it was, we were through, and we remembered why it was such a special thing to be a Sunderland supporter. OK, fans of other clubs thinks that the relationship they have with their club is special, but it’s nothing compared to what we’ve got, to the affinity we have with our club – we’re part of it, and it’s part of us. ..and to be a Sunderland fan who scored that goal – I’ll bet Goalden Gordon still remembers it as if it were yesterday.
Yep.....one of our great nights! Remember it well! My youngest had her picture taken with Gordon before the match as the players were arriving....she treasures it to this day.....mind you.....so do I!
My favourite game: Sunderland v Chelsea, 1992 FA Cup replay The night many Sunderland fans heard the Roker Roar for the first time and our team felt like they mattered Jonathan Wilson @jonawils https://amp.theguardian.com/footbal...-game-sunderland-v-chelsea-1992-fa-cup-replay What stands out still is the silences. After every line of every chant, the silence was complete: everybody was joining in, nobody shuffling or muttering, 26,000 people united. We’d heard the stories, of course. We knew about the Roker Roar. We thought we’d heard it – but we hadn’t, not till then, not till the night Sunderland beat Chelsea to reach the 1992 FA Cup semi-final. The sense that something extraordinary might be happening came with a 3-2 win at West Ham in a fifth-round replay. We were second division, hopeless. Denis Smith had been sacked at Christmas and his assistant Malcolm Crosby, who looked like Robin Williams playing the wacky manager of a toy shop in an oversized prosthetic nose, took over on a caretaker basis. Then we nicked a draw at Chelsea with a late John Byrne header. None of this made any sense. We clearly weren’t any good but somehow, in the Cup, fortune seemed with us. Then suddenly we were good. On a blustery night, Sunderland had much the better of the first half and took the lead through Peter Davenport, tucking in the rebound after Dave Beasant had saved from Byrne. But in the second half, Sunderland’s legs went. Chelsea battered us. Tony Norman made save after save. Paul Bracewell twice cleared off the line. Tony Cascarino headed against the woodwork. Second by agonising second the clock ticked down. When a Dennis Wise header somehow deflected over the bar off Norman’s chest, that most treacherous of thoughts began to creep in: it’s our night. And then, with six minutes to go, Wise equalised. My thought then was that it would be best to get it done, lose before extra time, when, exhausted, we might easily lose by three or four – and we didn’t deserve that. But then Byrne swept a long diagonal into the box, David Rush slipped and Frank Sinclair conceded a needless corner. Brian Atkinson slung it in. Gordon Armstrong, with his great shiny forehead, met it. I was at the other end of the ground, almost 150 yards away. The ball hung. For an eternity it hung. I could see Beasant dive but the perspective was wrong. It hung for ever, largely because it hadn’t been apparent that Armstrong was 15 yards out when he met the cross. Then the Roker End, given up that night entirely to Chelsea fans (my dad, annoyed at being kicked out of his usual spot, refused to go as a consequence), slumped in unison and we knew it was in. There was pandemonium. There were still three or four minutes to be played but nobody saw much of it. I remember John Kay nailing Vinnie Jones and giving away a free-kick in a dangerous position to make some hardman-on-hardman point. Then it was over, and there was a pitch invasion which, looking at the video, featured a surprising amount of turquoise. A huge red-and-white striped banner was passed down from the back of the Fulwell End and out on to the pitch, to which somebody struck up a chant of “Malcolm Crosby’s red-and-white hankie”. And for the first time in my experience, there was a profound sense that we mattered, that the country would be watching us. Sunderland went on to beat Norwich in the semi-final and so we got our day out against Liverpool at Wembley, by which time Crosby had been given the job full-time. Sunderland were barely in the game and lost 2-0. But the quarter-final replay lives on, my generation’s equivalent of the 3-1 fifth-round replay win over Manchester City in 1973, our night. As I walked home – alone, thanks to my dad’s ludicrous cussedness – there were people celebrating: in pubs, in the streets, in their gardens. And they’d see your scarf and they’d ask if you’d been there and you could say you were, as if you’d had some part in it, and at the time it seemed the most important thing in the world.
A brilliant night. When Wise scored everyone around us in the Fulwell thought that would be it - extra time and Chelsea to go on and win it but a certain Gordon Armstrong had other ideas! An absolutely brilliant header and one I saw in my mind again before I left Roker Park for the last time.
Never forget that night. Stood on the Fulwell and the atmosphere was just fantastic. Armstrong was a favourite of mine at the time and it was a great feeling that goal. I have a vague memory of Paul Elliott stood applauding the fulwell before he trudged off. Celebrated long and hard that night. Roker, post reduction, at its absolute best.
