Page 104 - 368603 LP250721 AWY AWY AWY Book (238pp A5)

I was back living in London again from mid- November that year and so I didn’t get to many matches. The last home game I remember going to for a very long time was on Boxing Day 1984 when we lost to Everton 2-1. None of my friends wanted to come so I was in the Roker End by myself, which felt very strange. Having suffered more than two decades of mainly disappointments the best thing about going to the match was, as I’ve said, the laughs we all had together, especially the gallows humour.
As regards the 1984-1985 season, apart from the Milk Cup Final in March 1985 and the quarter-final away to Watford that January, about which I can remember almost nothing, I don’t think I went to any other away games. At the end of the season we were relegated back into the Second Division but two major incidents unconnected with Sunderland A.F.C. precipitated my disenchantment with going to matches.
Our last game of the 1984-1885 season was on 11th May and we lost at home to Liverpool 2-1, though we’d been in a relegation spot after the previous two matches. I wasn’t at Roker Park for that final game and heard the news via the radio in London. However, something much worse had occurred the same day in Bradford. At Bradford City’s Valley Parade Stadium a fire had broken out during the match with Lincoln City and spread alarmingly quickly resulting in the deaths of fifty-six people and causing injury to about two hundred and seventy more. I didn’t have a TV then but saw
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