Page 66 - 368603 LP250721 AWY AWY AWY Book (238pp A5)

Like every self-respecting man from the red and white part of the North East I was amassing a collection of newspaper cuttings about the Lads and there was a huge amount of material. My favourite feature was entitled ‘Bob Stokoe, Meet Bob Stokoe’ and the accompanying photo showed Bob with an elderly local pigeon-fancier who had named one of his birds after the great man. The letters page of the Sunderland Echo was regularly awash with poems about the cup-run and I can’t think of any other event that has caused such a prolific outpouring of poetry. In another paper our Linda was photographed with all the other girls from her office, bedecked with red and white shirt, boater and rosette on her garter. She hardly ever went to a match but this just shows how much the fever had gripped almost everyone. It wasn’t just about football; it gave everyone associated with the town a big shot in the arm.
Our opponents in the final, Leeds, had won the Cup the previous year and couldn’t have been a more formidable side. We didn’t care about Leeds though – we’d always hated them since our rivalry back in the promotion-chasing days of 1964. On the Saturday before the final I’d seen us beat Blackpool at home in a downbeat game that was considerably overshadowed by my grandfather’s funeral earlier in the day. Two days later I was back in London watching us get a draw with Orient. As I said earlier, on the way in I managed to get
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