Page 57 - 368603 LP250721 AWY AWY AWY Book (238pp A5)

started to get two or three free tickets per game because my Mam worked at the Empire Theatre. The theatre regularly gave free tickets to the Sunderland players and other staff and so the club returned the favour. Mam told me that Cloughie had knocked on her office door once and asked about some tickets for a show but she didn’t know who he was. By this stage I was regularly going to games with my mates Col and Anth, and we’d go to the little window just to the left of the official entrance in the main stand where I’d ask for the tickets. Occasionally there was a problem and the team’s physiotherapist John Wattis, who was the link-man for some reason, would have to come bustling in to sort the problem out. I’m sure he had more pressing matters to deal with. We used to stand in the Paddock and we saw nearly all the home games for the next season or so either there or later on up in the seats above.
One bleak afternoon on 21st February 1970 we were struggling against West Ham when they broke towards the Roker End and a perfect cross came in from the right for
Geoff Hurst to rise and score the winner. A guy next to me announced in the deafening silence, “Bring on the Rolling Stones.” There’d been rumours that the band were going to do a concert at Roker Park but it never came to anything, though years later Bowie played there of course, even if he wasn’t sure where he was. We’d been struggling ever since we’d been promoted in 1964 and the writing was on the wall for us. I was at the second last match of the season when we
49