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and he was to play a major part in our subsequent run. He was brought in mainly to provide cover for John Hughes, brother of Billy, who shortly before had looked sensational for the first minute or two of his debut game till he was injured, and in fact he never played professional football again. The Man City replay is still spoken of with awe among Sunderland fans. The first leg at Maine Road on February 24th was a bruising affair with the Lads doing well to come out with a 2-2 draw. City were near the top of Division One at the time and had Rodney Marsh, one of the greatest flair players of the era. I watched the highlights on T.V. and as the camera panned over the Sunderland fans after our second goal I was delighted to see our Linda’s ex-boyfriend Davey leaping in the air in celebration.
I was in my first year at college in London at the time and hadn’t been able to get to any of the games but I was tuned in to my little transistor for the replay on the following Tuesday night to hear us go two goals up in the first half, with Halom getting one of them. Francis Lee pulled one back just after half time and we were counting the seconds till full- time when Billy Hughes got his second of the game to put it beyond doubt. There were nearly fifty-two thousand people in Roker Park that night and my friends who were there told me that older guys, who may well have remembered our last glory days of 1936-7, were looking stunned. One of those mates had his packet of fags squashed flat by the crush. Back in my room in London it was the only time all year that the
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