Page 102 - 368603 LP250721 AWY AWY AWY Book (238pp A5)

So, in a comparatively short time that regular band was a thing of the past. Instead of knowing that I could turn up for any game and find them all there, I had to make arrangements with other friends and meet them beforehand to ensure that I’d have some company.
Anyway, after our promotion back to Division One in 1980 we’d struggled as usual to keep our place in that league but I still went to games in London and the south when I could as well as at Roker Park when I was home. The end of the 1982 season saw us escape relegation by the skin of our teeth with a 1-0 home win against Man City. I’d been at the Southampton away match the previous week where we’d lost to set up that last-match decider.
Meanwhile I’d got very friendly with a number of Aussies in London and, to cut a long story short, I spent a year in Australia from October 1982 mainly working on a farm in Queensland. I remained a diehard Sunderland fan while I was there and as we were nine hours ahead of the U.K. I wouldn’t finally catch the scores until around tea-time on the Sunday. The result on 19th December was an unusually good one as we’d beaten Arsenal 3-0 and got ourselves off the bottom of Division One. On the following Sunday highlights of the match were shown on TV. Gary Rowell scored a hat-trick and that was the beginning of a good run for us as we didn’t concede a goal in the following four league games – we only managed to score one ourselves, mind, but our form in the second half of the season was much
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