Favourite Match

a difficult one I know but pick your favourite Sunderland match.

I’ll open with the 73 replay against Man City.

Over to you....go on then you can have your top 3 matches!

 

Man City 73
Shef unt play off
West Ham at Roker park prom year

 

Newcastle 2-1. Richardson free kick.

Chelsea 3-2. I knew then we'd stay up and have the pleasure of relegating Newcastle. The atmosphere was fantastic.

Man City 1-2. Roker Park. My first ever Sunderland game.

 

My 2 and 3 are
Everton at home 3-0
Blackburn away 2-1 Kenwynne and Cisse under Keano

 

My 3 favourite games I attended off top of my head.

4-3 West Ham at Roker. One of Kieron Brady's early games.

The 2-0 play off win at St James Park.

3-2 at SOL against Chelsea. Unreal atmosphere.

 

Just for the exhilaration only
4-1 v Chelsea
1-0 Norwich semi final
1-2 Wrexham
There were other important games and results

 

Chelsea cup replay in 92 is my first reaction. That atmosphere when Armstrong notched was brilliant. I also seem to recall Norman making one of the best saves I had seen at the time. I know we were pretty rotten in the league but I always remember that team for having a bunch of local lads in it who were desperate to do something special.

I often think part of the joy was beating Chelsea who I have never liked. That team had Wise and Jones in it as well - seeing them beat is a happy memory

 

My favourite 3

Chelsea home 2-1 FA Cup 92
Man Utd away 1-2 - won on pens - League Cup Semi 14
Newcastle away 3-0 Feb 14 - Borini, Johnson, Colback.

 

Chelsea away with police horses on the pitch.

The Rowell 4-1 in the Mag seats.

The Di Canio 3-0 in the Sunderland section with my son.

All slightly scary but exhilarating.

 

FA cup replay 1973 Man City. Apart from the score had the best laugh ever at a football match

 

Rochdale away when Honeyman scored in the last minute to win 1-2.

It was the bairns first away game. The smile on his face said 'Dad I'm in!, Hook, line and sinker!'

Job done.

 

Sunderland 4-3 West Ham (The Keiron Brady game)
Sunderland 3-2 Chelsea (2016)
Derby 1-4 Sunderland (2018) (Son's first away game)

 

Norman made a few in that cup run. The one from Tim Breaker at Upton Park was once of the best I've seen

 

Got to be the play off at St James for me. Even went up after a **** show in the final. Don't think I've ever reached those heights of elation since that glorious night.

 

Newcastle away 4-1 Gary Rowell hatrick
City replay in the 1973 FA Cup run. The Hughes Halom show

 

Aye I was at the Rowell hat trick gig as well, feels like a different lifetime.

 

Bit of an odd one this, but the 2014 league Cup final. The sheer joy of getting in to the ground, then Borini's goal and discovering that the entire 'neutral' area was Sunderland, the optimism at half time. ****ing hell, what a feeling. Shame that the second half happened, but I loved that game.

Another one is the Portsmouth away playoff. I've never celebrated a 0-0 draw quite as much.

Final choice, the demolition of Chelsea. That goal from Phillips

 

I was in the Mold Rd stand for this - fantastic atmosphere from both sets of fans and a cracking game. Saw many a fantastic game from the kop end at Wrexham (and even the lower tiers had far better ball skills back then. There was non of this game-management crap either, you were attacking or defending and it made the game beautiful.

Saw Wrexham knock out the previous season's runners-up, Porto, in the first round of the European Cup Winner's Cup, saw Wrexham just lose out to Arsenal in the FA Cup. Saw plenty of Wales games (including the old home internationals) but rarely saw an away crowd as good a Sunderland's.Always vocal and never any trouble, a rarity back then - remember getting my arse kicked by some invading scum fans who made it to the centre of the kop then opened their coats to reveal their ****e tops and started kicking off right in the middle of a group of us young teens.

Two proper wingers in nearly every team and everyone could pass and run with the ball. Don't really know what happened to English football since then?!

I have got to say though that my favourite Sunderland match was the home win against Burnley in the 2006/7 championship season for that goal by Carlos Edwards, but three penalties - we missed one and scored one, 1-0 then down to 1-2 before coming back to win 3-2

 

Yeah great times

 

Another favourite of mine was Cardiff away in 1980, unbelievable experience for a youngster. Think the gate was around 23,000, about 15,000 Sunderland supporters. I actually got in for nowt as they didn't have all the turnstiles open, the wood was ripped off the closed ones, youths like myself were lifted over the turnstiles. There weren't many buses that made the return journey with all windows intact.