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Durham and someone managed to steal their official team flag shortly after they arrived.
Although I regularly attended Sunderland’s home games at that time, I didn’t go to any of the World Cup matches and I suppose it must have been a combination of a shortage of tickets coupled with the price, as I only got less than 10p pocket money a week then. I’ve just mentioned that our Graham played a small part in events when he and other lads in his Roker Meths team were invited to work as ball- boys and photographers’ runners. In those days the photographers behind the goals would pass rolls of film to a runner who’d then leg it round the track to the gym, which was being used as a makeshift media centre. Graham and his team-mates came out of the tunnel before the two teams and he told me that he was shocked at what a bunch of nervous wrecks the Italians looked before the U.S.S.R. game. They made an unexpectedly early exit from the tournament, that’s for sure. There was a movie made of the competition called ‘Goal’ and Graham always reckoned he was visible on that but he was fond of pulling my leg. He also said that one of the other lads was very rude to some visiting North Korean players when he was asking them for autographs, coming out with lines like, “Ow, Charlie Chan! Giz yer autograph!” though mercifully they spoke little or no English.
So it was all a ten day wonder for the town but it’s certainly not beyond the realms of possibility that if England
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